Monday's mp3: Giving Thanks Interfaithfully

Yesterday I attended an interfaith Thanksgiving celebration featuring music, chant, and prayers from many faith traditions. It was inspiring, and is still in my mind this morning as I enter a new week that's capped by the great holiday of gratitude this Thursday.

In that spirit, today's posting has interfaith aspects. For one, the Sufis are undoubtedly an open-minded bunch. And this track, taken from a compilation of Sufi music put out by Shanachie in 1999, features Sufi music from a Hindu musician. Don't ask me to explain the theological delicacies of that; just breath deeply and enjoy.

Don't worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn't matter

We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.
-Rumi

Kirshan Lal Bheel, the liner notes tell us, is a Bheel musician from the desert of Cholestan, adjacent to Rajasthan. "He sings Hindu Bhajans in praise of Krishna with equal conviction as the verses of the Muslim saints. Here, he picks up the mystical love story of Omar and the Marvi which was sung in its most famous version by Shah Abdul Latif of Bhit, the most important Sufi saint of Sindh, in a local variant in the Marwari language spoken in the Cholestan desert.

[mp3] Kirshan Lal Bheel: Song Of Shah Abdul Latif 'Omar Andi Marvi Kujo Allaa Dee Ahhee'
from the album Land of the Sufis: Soul Music from the Indus Valley

tags: worldmusic, krishna, sufi, muslim, hindu, thanksgiving, gratitude