Why Sing in a Language You Do Not Speak? Devotion Before Translation

You do not need to speak Punjabi, Urdu, Sindhi or Sanskrit to sing devotional music honestly. Sound, breath and intention carry meaning before the dictionary does, and singers in this tradition learn kalam (sacred verse, the poetic texts set to music) slowly, over years, guided by a teacher, the same way generations before them did.

A question comes up in almost every beginner's first month of Sufi qawwali or bhajan singing: what right do I have to sing words I do not fully understand? It is a fair question, and an old one. Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan trained singers his whole life who grew into the meaning of kalam across years, not weeks. The tradition was built for exactly this, a student singing before full comprehension, and growing into understanding through repetition, teaching and time.

Why does sound carry meaning before translation does?

In Hindustani and Sufi devotional music, the raga (a melodic framework, also spelled raag) and taal (a rhythm cycle) are not decoration around the words. They are built to carry emotional and spiritual weight on their own. A raag like Yaman, associated with devotion and evening stillness, or Bhairav, associated with dawn and surrender, shapes how a listener feels before a single word is parsed. Qawwali intensifies this further: the handclaps, the harmonium drone, the rising vocal lines and the call-and-response between lead singer and chorus are engineered to move a room toward what practitioners call ecstatic states, regardless of whether every listener speaks Urdu or Punjabi.

This is not a claim that meaning does not matter. It is a claim that sound, breath, phrasing and intention arrive first, and that a singer with sincere niyyah (intention) can carry real devotional weight in a phrase before they can translate it. Vocal pedagogy backs part of this up too: the physical act of sustained, open-vowel singing (akaar, open-vowel voice training) engages breath and resonance in ways that are felt in the body before they are understood in the mind. Studies associate group chanting and sustained vocal practice with vagus-nerve activation, lower cortisol and higher heart-rate variability, meaning the nervous system responds to devotional sound whether or not the singer has a dictionary in hand.

Do I need to understand the words to sing kalam respectfully?

You need to be moving toward understanding, not standing still in ignorance of it. There is a real difference between a singer who is learning the meaning of a ghazal (a poetic form built around love and longing, often addressed to a divine or human beloved) line by line with a teacher, and one who never asks. Respect in this tradition is shown less by instant fluency and more by posture: are you asking questions, are you working with someone who knows the lineage, are you willing to be corrected.

Tahir Qawwal has spent decades performing kalam by poets like Amir Khusrau, Bulleh Shah and Baba Farid to global audiences who mostly do not speak Punjabi or Persian, from festival stages to more than 250 Sufi shrines across Pakistan with his ensemble Fanna-fi-Allah. What travels in those rooms is not first the semantic content of the verse. It is the ache in a sustained note, the surrender in a taan (a fast melodic run), the joy in a rhythmic climax. Meaning arrives in layers after that, for the singer and often for the audience too.

How do singers actually learn the meaning of kalam over time?

Slowly, and with a teacher. This is the guru-shishya parampara (the unbroken master-to-student teaching lineage) at work: meaning is not looked up, it is transmitted. A student might spend a season learning to pronounce a line of Persian or Punjabi correctly, another season learning the poet's biography and the Sufi concept behind a specific image (the tavern, the wine, the beloved's eyes), and only later start to feel the layered meaning click into place while singing it live.

This is one of the reasons a written lesson library alone has limits. Pronunciation, ornamentation and the emotional shading of a phrase are easier to absorb by ear, in the room, with a teacher correcting you in real time, than from a page. It is also why translation of specific verses is handled carefully within the tradition itself, checked against teachers and established scholarship, rather than produced casually by any one singer working alone. If you encounter a translation of a line of kalam in a lesson or an article, treat it as a starting point checked by people inside the lineage, not a final word.

Does this apply to Sanskrit bhajans and kirtan too, or only Sufi qawwali?

It applies across the whole devotional repertoire. Sanskrit shlokas in bhajans, Punjabi shabads, Urdu ghazals and Sindhi kalam all carry centuries of layered meaning, wordplay and reference that even fluent speakers spend years unpacking. A kirtan leader singing "Om Namah Shivaya" or a Hare Krishna chant is working with the same principle: repetition of sacred sound (often called japa) is understood in the tradition to have its own transformative effect, independent of moment-to-moment translation. Singers of gospel, R&B, pop and hip-hop backgrounds who come to this training often find the akaar and breath work transfers directly into their own genre, because the underlying skill, more resonance, more sustain, more emotional access, is not language-specific at all.

What if I get pronunciation or meaning wrong while I am still learning?

You will, and that is expected. Every singer in this lineage, including those born into Punjabi or Urdu-speaking households, has had a teacher stop them mid-phrase to correct a vowel or a stress. What matters is whether you are working with someone equipped to catch and correct it. This is one of the clearest arguments for training in community rather than alone from recordings: a teacher or a room of fellow students hears an error in real time that a solo singer, repeating a mistake in isolation for months, has no way to hear. The correction itself becomes part of how meaning sinks in, tied to the physical memory of being adjusted, not just an idea read on a page.

Where can a beginner start learning devotional repertoire the right way?

Start with a real teacher and real context rather than isolated lyric sheets. The qawwali pillar guide is a good first stop for understanding the form itself, its history and its vocabulary. From there, the Ilahi Sufi qawwali course walks through kalam repertoire with context and pronunciation guidance built in, taught inside the lineage rather than translated from outside it. If you want to sample the teaching approach before committing to a full course, try a free lesson from the Musical Wisdom masterclass series, which gives a direct feel for how meaning and technique are taught together rather than separately.

Is it better to learn this material in a retreat than from videos alone?

For most singers, yes, especially at the stage where pronunciation and meaning are still forming. The Voice of the Beloved retreat in Bali puts singers in a room together for days at a time, working directly with teachers on repertoire, breath and the kalam itself, which is a fundamentally different learning experience than watching a screen alone. You can read more about the teachers leading that work, and the lineage behind it, on the about page.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to be South Asian or Muslim to sing Sufi qawwali or Urdu kalam? No. This tradition has always welcomed singers from outside its cultural origin, provided they approach it with sincerity and a willingness to learn from teachers inside the lineage. Fanna-fi-Allah has performed this repertoire to audiences worldwide for over 20 years precisely because its emotional core travels across language and background.

Is it disrespectful to sing words I do not fully understand yet? It is only disrespectful if you never intend to learn. Singing kalam while actively studying its meaning with a teacher, and correcting your pronunciation as you go, is exactly how this tradition has always trained new singers, including native speakers.

Should I translate the lyrics myself to understand what I am singing? Work from translations checked within the tradition rather than translating specific verses yourself. Sufi poetry in particular uses layered, symbolic language (the beloved, the tavern, the wine) that carries meanings easily lost or distorted outside expert context.

How long does it typically take to feel like you understand what you are singing? There is no fixed timeline, but most singers describe a gradual shift over months and years, not days. Understanding tends to arrive in layers: pronunciation first, then literal meaning, then the deeper symbolic and devotional layers.

Can singing in a language I do not speak still affect me physically or emotionally? Yes. Research associates sustained vocal practice and group chanting with vagus-nerve activation, lower cortisol and greater heart-rate variability, effects tied to breath and sound production that do not depend on understanding every word in the moment.

What is the difference between raga and raag, and does it matter which I use? They refer to the same concept, a melodic framework in Hindustani classical and devotional music. Raag is the traditional spelling and pronunciation, raga is the more common Western transliteration. Both are used interchangeably in teaching and writing.

Does learning kalam meaning require learning to read Urdu, Punjabi or Sanskrit script? Not necessarily to begin. Many students start with transliteration and guided pronunciation from a teacher, then add literacy in the script later if they want deeper independent study.

Written by the teaching team at Samā School of Music, founded by Tahir Qawwal and Alexandra Amïe Lyons, initiated into the lineage of Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan through Ustad Dildar Hussain and creators of the award-winning documentary Music of the Mystics.