Where are the female Qawwals? Gendered perspectives on Qawwali in contemporary Pakistan

Abstract

Qawwali, a distinctly male-dominated South Asian Sufi-Islamic devotional song form and ritual practice, has traditionally been performed by hereditary male qawwals, rooted in the exclusive, male-centered Sufi gatherings of sama (Urdu/Persian for “gathering of listening”). Despite qawwali’s widespread commercial circulation within and beyond South Asia, and its continued role as a Sufi-Islamic religious ritual within the male-oriented sama, there has been little critical inquiry into the gendered dimensions of qawwali performance and listening. Even one of the most seminal studies on qawwali, conducted by ethnomusicologist Regula Qureshi (1986), does not fully engage with this gendered complexity. Drawing on ethnographic case studies and primary interviews (2022–2025) with past and present female qawwali performers in Pakistan, this paper examines how these women navigate and negotiate their social status within a deeply gendered tradition, as well as within the patriarchal Islamic framework of the Pakistani nation-state. This paper forms a chapter of my ongoing doctoral research, a multi-sited ethnographic analysis of contemporary qawwali gatherings in Pakistan. More specifically and as part of the proposed panel, this paper interrogates how the exclusion of women’s voices—particularly female performers—continues to shape and reinforce statist narratives of qawwali within existing scholarship.