Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

The New York Times named Khan the greatest qawwali singer of his generation. Credited with introducing Qawwali music to international audiences, he was known for his vocal abilities and could perform at a high level of intensity for several hours. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was born in West Punjab, Khan had his first public performance at the age of 15 at his father's chelum. He became the head of the family qawwali party in 1971 and added his unique style of sargam, khayal, and rhythm to his family's legacy. He was signed by Oriental Star Agencies, based in Birmingham, England, in the early 1980s. Khan went on to release movie scores and albums in Europe, India, Japan, Pakistan, and the United States. He engaged in collaborations and experiments with Western artists, becoming a well-known world music artist. He toured extensively, performing in over 40 countries. In addition to popularising qawwali music, he also had a profound impact on contemporary South Asian popular music, including Pakistani pop, Indian pop, and Bollywood music. He was also a master of Hindustani classical music.

• Honorific Prefix — Ustad • Name — Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan • Honorific Suffix — PP • Other Names — NFAK • Birth Name — Pervez Fateh Ali Khan • Born — 13 October 1948 • Birthplace — Lyallpur, West Punjab, Pakistan • Died — 16 August 1997 • Place of death — London, England • Burial Place — Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Memorial, Jhang Road Graveyard, Faisalabad • Occupation — * Singer • songwriter • musician • music director • Father — Fateh Ali Khan • Relatives — Farrukh Fateh Ali Khan (brother) Mubarak Ali Khan (uncle) Rahat Fateh Ali Khan (nephew)

• Illustration — General Burki and a young Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (biting his finger) pictured at a wedding in Jalandhar, December 1961 Khan was born into a Punjabi Muslim family in Lyallpur in 1948. Khan's family belonged to Jalandhar. His ancestors learned music and singing there and adopted it as a profession. He was the fifth child and first son of Fateh Ali Khan, a musicologist, vocalist, instrumentalist, and qawwal. Nusrat, who had four older sisters and a younger brother, Farrukh Fateh Ali Khan, grew up in central Faisalabad. The tradition of qawwali in the family has been passed down through successive generations for almost 600 years. Initially, his father did not want Khan to follow the family's vocation. He had his heart set on Nusrat choosing a career path that commanded greater respect in society and wanted him to become a doctor or engineer because he felt qawwali artists had low social status. However, Khan showed such an aptitude for and interest in qawwali that his father finally relented.

In his youth, Nusrat joined his father's qawwali party as a tabla player whilst continuing to learn the intricacies of singing. When Ustad Munawar Ali Khan, son of legendary classical vocalist Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, visited Pakistan from India to perform, Nusrat accompanied him on tabla. Munawar Ali Khan's enthusiastic praise for Nusrat's playing helped convince his father to stop pressuring him to become a doctor. Following the death of his father, Fateh Ali Khan, in 1964, Nusrat became the lead singer of the qawwali party in 1965 alongside his uncle, Mubarak Ali Khan. The party also included Mujahid Mubarak Ali Khan, the son of Mubarak and the cousin of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. After the death of Mubarak Ali Khan in 1971, the party became known as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Mujahid Mubarak Ali Khan & Party. As Nusrat's prominence grew, the party eventually became recognised as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan & Party. One of Khan's earliest public performances as leader of the family qawwali group was in March 1965, at a studio recording broadcast as part of an annual music festival organised by Radio Pakistan, known as Jashn-e-Baharan. The performance drew praise from legends such as Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Umid Ali Khan, Roshan Ara Begum, and Amanat Ali Khan. Khan sang mainly in Urdu and Punjabi and occasionally in Persian, Braj Bhasha, and Hindi. Among Khan's first major hits in Pakistan was the punjabi qawwali Ni Main Jana Jogi De Naal which he composed and first performed live in 1971, with a studio version subsequently recorded in 1973. The lyrics to Ni Main Jana Jogi De Naal were written by Bulleh Shah, a 17th century Sufi poet. Another of Khan's early hits in Pakistan was the qawwali Haq Ali Ali which featured restrained use of his sargam improvisations.

Throughout the 1980s, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan delivered a plethora of acclaimed qawwalis that highlighted his extraordinary vocal prowess and innovative approach to the traditional Sufi devotional genre, helping to introduce it to wider international audiences. Among these works was Mere Rashke Qamar, a ghazal-qawwali with lyrics by Urdu poet Fana Bulandshahri and composed by Nusrat. Another notable hit was the introspective ghazal-qawwali Sochta Hoon Ke Woh Kitne Masoom Thay, originally written and composed by Nusrat, with live performances dating back to the late 1970s but officially recorded by Oriental Star Agencies Ltd in 1985. Nusrat also composed the popular Mast Nazron Se Allah Bachaye, written by Purnam Allahabadi, Nusrat and his brother Farrukh Fateh Ali Khan. A further highlight was the Punjabi qawwali Nit Khair Manga, primarily penned by the poet Badar Ali Ansari with additional lyrics written by Nusrat. It was composed by Nusrat, although some have mistakenly attributed the composition to Badar. Additionally, the revered manqabat Aastan Hai Yeh Kis Shah-e-Zeshan Ka, in praise of Abdul Qadir Jilani, was written by Pir Naseeruddin Naseer Gilani and composed by Nusrat. These works underscore Nusrat's pivotal role in elevating qawwali to global audiences during this transformative era. Among Khan's most notable international appearances of the mid-to-late 1980s was his performance at the World of Music, Arts and Dance (WOMAD) festival in London in the summer of 1985. He performed in Paris in November 1985 and again in March 1988, where his concerts were recorded by Radio France and subsequently released on its Ocora label as part of the En concert à Paris series. Two years later, at the invitation of the Japan Foundation, Khan made his first visit to Japan, performing at the 5th Asian Traditional Performing Art Festival in September 1987. In October 1989, he appeared at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival in New York, one of his earliest major performances in the United States. In 1988, Khan collaborated with Peter Gabriel on the soundtrack to Martin Scorsese's film The Last Temptation of Christ. The collaboration formed part of Gabriel’s broader engagement with international musicians and preceded Khan’s signing to Real World Records in 1989. Through this label, Khan reached a wider international audience, particularly through albums such as Mustt Mustt (1990). In 1989, commissioned by Oriental Star Agencies Ltd in Birmingham, UK, Khan collaborated at Zella Recording Studios with composer Andrew Kristy and producer Johnny Haynes on a series of 'fusion' tracks that propelled Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Party into the Channel 4 Christmas Special of "Big World Café." While in the UK in 1989, Khan and his party performed Sikh devotional music at a Sikh Gurdwara in Slough, continuing a tradition of Muslims performing hymns at Sikh temples.

Following this, in 1990, the BBC devoted a programme of its series Network East to this collaboration, and Big World Café invited Khan, Andrew Kristy, and violinist Nigel Kennedy to perform Allah Hoo live on the show. A UK tour performing these new fusion tracks happened in 1990. In the 1992 -1993 academic year, Khan was a visiting artist in the Ethnomusicology department at the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States. Khan released five albums of traditional qawwali through Real World, along with the more experimental albums Mustt Mustt (1990), Night Song (1996), and the posthumous remix album Star Rise (1997). Notable qawwalis among Khan’s 1990s hits included Man Atkeya Beparwah De Naal (lyrics by Shah Hussain, composed by Khan), Jani Door Gaye (lyrics by Anwar Hussain Jogi, composed by Khan), and Tum Ek Gorakh Dhanda Ho (lyrics by Naz Khialvi, composed by Khan). Khan's experimental work for Real World, which featured his collaborations with the Canadian guitarist Michael Brook, led to several further collaborations with other Western composers and rock musicians. One of these collaborations occurred in 1995, when Khan teamed up with Pearl Jam's lead singer Eddie Vedder on two songs for the soundtrack to Dead Man Walking. Khan also provided vocals for The Prayer Cycle, which was put together by Jonathan Elias, but died before the tracks could be completed. Alanis Morissette was brought in to sing alongside his unfinished vocals. In 2002, Gabriel included Khan's vocals on the track "Signal to Noise" on his album Up. Khan was the main performer at Imran Khan's charity appeal concert at the InterContinental London Park Lane Hotel on December 3, 1992 to raise funds for Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre, a cancer hospital built in Imran's mother's name which provides free services. The audience included Peter Gabriel, Elizabeth Hurley, Mick Jagger, and Amitabh Bachchan. Khan's album Intoxicated Spirit was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album in 1997. That same year, his album Night Song was also nominated for a Grammy Award for Best World Music Album. Khan recorded the duet "Gurus of Peace" with A. R. Rahman, which was composed by Rahman and included on Rahman's 1997 album Vande Mataram, released to commemorate the 50th anniversary of India's independence. The recording was among Khan's final released works, as he died four days after the release of Vande Mataram. Rahman's song "Tere Bina" for the 2007 film Guru was dedicated to Khan and inspired by Khan's song "Sajna Tere Bina." Khan contributed songs to, and performed in, several Pakistani films. Shortly before his death, he composed music for three Bollywood films, which include the film Aur Pyaar Ho Gaya, in which he also sang "Koi Jaane Koi Na Jaane" on-screen with the lead pair, and "Zindagi Jhoom Kar." He also composed music for Kartoos, where he sang for "Ishq Da Rutba" and "Bahaa Na Aansoo" alongside Udit Narayan. He died shortly before the movie's release. His final music composition for Bollywood was for the movie Kachche Dhaage, where he sang "Iss Shaan-E-Karam Ka Kya Kehna." The movie was released in 1999, two years after his death. Asha Bhosle and Lata Mangeshkar performed the songs he composed in his brief stint in Bollywood. He also sang "Saya Bhi Saath Jab Chhod Jaye" for Sunny Deol's movie Dillagi. The song was released in 1999, two years after Khan's death. He also sang "Dulhe Ka Sehra" from the Bollywood movie Dhadkan, which was released in 2000.

Khan had been seriously ill for several months, according to a spokesperson at his U.S. label, American Recordings. After traveling to London for treatment for liver and kidney problems, he was rushed from the airport to the Cromwell Hospital, where he died of a sudden cardiac arrest on 16 August 1997, aged 48. His body was repatriated to Faisalabad, and his funeral was a public affair. His widow, Naheed Nusrat, then moved to Canada, where she died on 13 September 2013 in Mississauga, Ontario. Khan's musical legacy is now carried forward by his nephews, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Rizwan-Muazzam.

One of Khan's famous qawwali songs, "Tere Bin Nahin Lagda" ("I am restless without you"), appeared on two of his 1996 albums, Sorrows Vol. 69 and Sangam (as "Tere Bin Nahin Lagda Dil"), the latter a collaborative album with Indian lyricist Javed Akhtar; Sangam sold over 1million copies in India. Lata Mangeshkar recorded a cover version called "Tere Bin Nahin Jeena" for Kachche Dhaage, starring Ajay Devgn, Saif Ali Khan and Manisha Koirala. Composed by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the Kachche Dhaage soundtrack album sold 3million units in India. British-Indian producer Bally Sagoo released a remix of "Tere Bin Nahin Lagda", which was later featured in the 2002 British film Bend It Like Beckham, starring Parminder Nagra and Keira Knightley. A cover version called "Tere Bin" was recorded by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan with Asees Kaur for the 2018 Bollywood film Simmba, starring Ranveer Singh and Sara Ali Khan. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan also composed "Mann Ki Lagan", which was recorded by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan for an unreleased album and later featured in the 2003 Bollywood film Paap, marking Rahat's playback singing debut in Indian cinema. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's music had a big impact on Bollywood music, inspiring numerous Indian musicians working in Bollywood since the late 1980s. For example, he inspired Meeza, A. R. Rahman and Javed Akhtar, both of whom he collaborated with. However, there were many hit filmi songs from other Indian music directors that plagiarised Khan's music. For example, Viju Shah's hit song "Tu Cheez Badi Hai Mast Mast" in Mohra (1994) was plagiarised from Khan's popular qawwali song "Dam Mast Qalandar." Despite the significant number of hit Bollywood songs plagiarised from his music, he was reportedly tolerant towards the plagiarism. In one interview, he jokingly gave "Best Copy" awards to Viju Shah and Anu Malik. In his defense, Malik claimed that he loved Khan's music and was actually showing admiration by using his tunes. However, Khan was reportedly aggrieved when Malik turned his spiritual "Allah Hoo, Allah Hoo" into "I Love You, I Love You" in Auzaar. Khan said "he has taken my devotional song Allahu and converted it into I love you. He should at least respect my religious songs." His music also appears on soundtracks for Hollywood films such as The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Natural Born Killers (1994), and Dead Man Walking (1995). His songs Dil Pe Zakham Khate Hain and Man Atkeya Beparwah De Naal have appeared on the soundtrack of the 2026 Hindi feature film Dhurandhar: The Revenge.

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The authorities additionally record the headings Nusrat Fatih Ali Khan, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan & Party and Pervez Fateh Ali Khan. His recorded language was Urdu. His recorded confession was Islam. He was the child of Fateh Ali Khan. Other recorded relations include Farrukh Fateh Ali Khan and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan is recorded as having received Pride of Performance, Nigar Awards and Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize. Recognition and collections. Khan received Pride of Performance, Nigar Awards, Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize and Lux Style Awards.