“A man learns all his life and dies the day he thinks that he has learnt everything.”

I like to experiment with my voice, besides music.

I was just studying with my father, a very difficult task for me since he was a great, great Qawwali singer.

From childhood, I had been instructed in the tablaa by my father, along with the astaais and antaraas specific to our Gharana.

People listened to Farsi texts, and to the great texts of our Baba Bulleh Shah, Khwaja Ghulam Farid, Mian Mohammad Bakhsh Jehlmi. People do listen to it these days, but much less than in those days.

As the times change, people change, and so do their tastes, so I try to understand what the public wants, what they require. I have tried to make the music a bit easier for them to understand.

I also like Western classical music and jazz.

You’ve got to sing from the depths of the heart. Without heart, you cannot be a Qawwal.

It is not necessary that the scion of a singing family, even if he sings, can excel in it. In order to reach his peak he has to work very, very hard.

When people start dancing, they dance like they don’t know they are doing it.

Yes, I tried to change the classical style in a way that people who don’t understand it can enjoy.

I do listen to other music though, and try to pick up what is good.

I am not a Sufi, but I follow the Sufi.

There are two languages that I love: Farsi and Panjabi. Because the depth of Sufi thought in these two languages cannot be found in any other language.

A performer learns with experience and with age. I did not know the future when I left home and started out to begin my career: I started qawaali; then I met Peter Gabriel and was exposed to a lot of new ideas.

There should be change – the West should understand our music and culture, and vice versa. With such collaboration, artists can come closer to each other and come to know each other.

There is a famous musician, Peter Gabriel, who has used my voice in the movie, ‘The Last Temptation of Christ.’ He used my song in the background.

I am still learning – how to take joy in all the people I am, how to use all my selves in the service of what I believe, how to accept when I fail and rejoice when I succeed.

Children have a lesson adults should learn, to not be ashamed of failing, but to get up and try again.

When you were in love, you were capable of learning everything and of knowing things you had never dared even to think, because love was the key to understanding all of the mysteries.

Learning is hard. Unlearning is harder. Pretending that most of us don’t need to do either when it comes to racism is its own form of violence.

The greatest investment a young person can make is in their own education, in their own mind. Because money comes and goes. Relationships come and go. But what you learn once stays with you forever.

Everyone you meet knows something you don’t know but need to know. Learn from them.

Love hurts. There is nothing as painful as heartbreak. But in order to learn to love again you must learn to trust again.

Without suffering, you have no way to learn how to be understanding and compassionate.