Abstract
This article charts the trajectory of the qawwali, one of the foremost markers of Islamicate culture in Bombay cinema. Between the 1940s and 1980s, the film qawwali was a secular, romantic genre celebrating the wit and artistry of a singer-poet wooing his or her beloved. With the success of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and A. R. Rahman, the genre enjoyed a comeback in the 2000s, but in the form of ‘dargah’ qawwalis. What comes into view in this second cinematic incarnation of the genre is not romance but Muslim men’s religiosity. ‘Item-numberesque’ qawwalis of the last decade continue the erasure of gendered courtship rituals once associated with ‘classic’ film qawwalis. As I map shifts in the genre’s narrative functions, performance styles, and picturization over six decades, I connect them to broader transformations in discourses of nation, religion, and identity as well as the business of film- and music-making in India.
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