Kallan Khan

Kallan Khan Qawwal was born in Sikandarabad, in a family of hereditary classical musicians. He had a long and storied career as a Qawwal in pre-partition India, and carried on his legacy in Pakistan for three decades after partition. He learnt classical music from his father Umer Khan and his uncle Latif Khan, and learnt Qawwali from his elder cousins Abdul Hameed Khan and Nazeer Khan. With his brother Banne Khan, Kallan Khan Qawwal formed his first Qawwali party in the 1930s in Delhi, and quickly became a recognized name on gramophone records as well as Radio. From the late 1930s to the early 1950s, Kallan Khan, Banne Khan Qawwal featured a young Ghulam Fareed Sabri as one of their accompanists. The party were regular performers at the shrine of Hz Alauddin Ali Ahmed Sabir (RA) in Kalyar Sharif, as well as various shrines in India. They decided to migrate to Karachi a few months before the partition of the sub-continent after performing at the marriage ceremony of the son of the Jam of Lasbela (the hereditary ruler of Lasbela, Balochistan). After performing regularly for more than fifty years, Kallan Khan Qawwal passed away in Karachi in 1975. His legacy was carried forward by his nephew Waheed Nizami Qawwal (1948-1996), who learned Qawwali from Kallan Khan and Abdul Majeed Khan. Waheed Nizami began performing Qawwali in 1965 in Karachi, and was given the title of ‘Nizami Ragi’ by the ‘Sajjada Nasheen’ at the shrine of Hz Nizamuddin Auliya (RA) in Delhi. Waheed Nizami Qawwal passed away in 1996, and was succeeded by his sons Mehboob Waheed Nizami and Arooj Waheed Nizami Qawwal.