When I talk of primordial innocence, I hear it in Sufi music with the nay flute. I see it in Coptic icons, in most traditional art, particularly art of the American Indian. I find the texts extraordinarily beautiful and very childlike and very simple. I've been particularly interested in American Indian texts.
Sufi poetry is, in a sense, self-help poetry about how to live a decent life, how to deal with your mortality.
In Sufi terms, there are two very interesting notions of transcendence. One is to gaze out at the universe and to comprehend that what you see out there reflects what you are. The other one is to look inside yourself and recognise that the universe is present there.
It depends on my mood but classical music is what I am drawn towards. I also listen to Sufi music and bhajans too.
If you call yourself a singer, then you must have the ability to sing anything, whether it's pop, classical, rock, sufi, or folk.
I am a Sufi guy, so fame is maya for me, a worldly illusion.
My house was a guest house of many Jaina saints, Hindu monks, Sufi mystics, because my grandfather was interested in all of these people.
If people in Russia do not take the path of traditional, pure Sufi Islam, Russia will lose out. All the other denominations, like Wahhabism, are new inventions for our country - we have never had it, and we will never accept it.
Before I begin to write, I listen to music that inspires me. I listen to folk Punjabi music, sufi music.
In the district of Hizan, through the influence of Shaikh Abdurrahman Tagi, known as Seyda, so many students, teachers, and scholars emerged, I was sure all Kurdistan took pride in them and their scholarly debates and wide knowledge and Sufi way. These were the people who would conquer the face of the earth!
