‘Noor’ by Sami Yusuf and Atif Aslam

There is a version of this collaboration that could have gone wrong: two major names, a grand venue, the kind of event that prioritises occasion over substance. That isn’t what happened. Released on February 27, ‘Noor’ is quieter than its circumstances suggest.

Sami Yusuf has spent two decades building a devotional practice that crosses languages and traditions; Atif Aslam has spent roughly the same time becoming one of South Asia’s most recognisable voices. What the recording captures is not the sum of their profiles but something more specific: two people who took the material seriously, sharing a love for the divine. For a month defined by stillness, tolerance and reflection, that restraint is the point.

‘Sohna Nabi (PBUH)’ by Ali Zafar

‘Sohna Nabi (PBUH)’ was written and composed by Hassan Badshah, with Ali Zafar directing the video and producing the audio.

The naat, sung in Punjabi, is a simple expression of love for the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), without elaborate metaphor or stylistic flourish. Zafar has described it as a humble tribute, and that humility comes through. It isn’t his most technically ambitious work. Some things don’t need ambition; they need sincerity and this has it.

‘Aik Alif’ by Noori and Saeen Zahoor (Coke Studio Season 2)

‘Aik Alif’ first appeared on Coke Studio Season 2 in 2009 and has never really left. A gentle dismantling of pride, a reminder that what resides within your own heart and soul is something worth understanding. Going to any place of worship without such reflection is a futile exercise. It is a larger commentary on dogmatic principles and what is needed to understand the will of the divine. What made the recording work was the pairing: Noori, a rock band, alongside Saeen Zahoor, who has spent decades singing at shrines before most people had heard of him. It is Ali Hamza’s verse, in particular, that catches you off guard. He sings, “He who does not recognise the power of truth/The lord does not grant him strength and courage/We drowned in the river of the soul/What boat, and what swirling depths? Cease this pursuit, my friend/Cease this pursuit of overt knowledge.”

It was later described as less of a musical performance and more an internal journey for everyone involved. Fifteen years later, that still shows and the single continues to resonate as a spiritual message that we could and should learn from.

‘Allah Hoo’ by Saeen Zahoor (Khuda Kay Liye OST)

Before Coke Studio made Saeen Zahoor a known name, Rohail Hyatt recorded him for the Khuda Kay Liye soundtrack in 2007.

Hyatt’s instinct was correct: Zahoor’s voice, unpolished and entirely its own, needed very little around it.

The production keeps its distance and the effect is something closer to a field recording than a studio session. Shoaib Mansoor’s film wrestled with the weaponisation of faith. ‘Allah Hoo’ sat alongside that argument as its counterpoint: this is what belief actually sounds like when nobody is using it for an agenda or personal gain.

‘Tajdar-e-Haram’ by Atif Aslam (Coke
Studio Season 8)

The Sabri Brothers first recorded ‘Tajdar-e-Haram’, which was released in the ‘70s, and no version can compete with it. That said, Atif Aslam’s 2015 Coke Studio rendition did something the original couldn’t: it reached over 620 million YouTube views and introduced this beautiful qawwali to listeners who had grown up entirely outside that tradition. Whether that counts as preservation or dilution depends on who you ask. What’s harder to argue with is the heart in Atif’s rendition. Powerful, personal and universal, it speaks of longing for the divine and a yearning for places of worship in the most beautiful manner possible. Not pitch-perfect, not per-fectly enunciated, but the effort and sincerity Atif puts into this rendition is what makes it so pure and therefore popular.

Wajd by Hadiqa Kiani

Wajd is not a single release. It is a six-chapter visual album, described by Hadiqa Kiani as an amalgamation of Sufi poetry, divine inspiration and a celebration of ethnic diversity, lang-uages and rich traditions. Beginning with ‘Kamlee Da Dhola’, a Siraiki folk qawwali, it moves through Sindhi, Braj Bhasha, Punjabi and Farsi chapters, each instalment requiring its own listening. Chapter 3 features Ustad Dildar Hussain, who played tabla alongside Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan for years. Chapter 5 sets Amir Khusro’s ‘Chaap Tilak’ within a traditional wedding context. The project is un-hurried and expects the same from its listener. What it documents, quietly, is a major pop artist setting aside everything she already knew in order to go somewhere older and less familiar. Ramazan’s quieter hours are where it belongs.

‘Faslon Ko Takalluf Hai’ by Bossmenn

Qari Waheed Zafar Qasmi’s recording of this naat has been playing in South Asian Muslim homes for so long that most people who know it couldn’t tell you when they first heard it. Written by Iqbal Azeem, the lyrics sit with a simple, almost stubborn idea: that distance from Medina cannot suppress genuine devotion.

Bossmenn’s version does not try to improve on Qasmi’s; it places the naat in a different room, with a different sound, for a listener who might not have found their way to the original. That is, in itself, a kind of service.

‘Khabar-e-Tahayyur-e-Ishq’ by Ali Sethi
& Noah Georgeson
(original kalam by Siraj Aurangabadi)

Siraj Aurangabadi was an 18th-century mystic who eventually gave up possessions, reputation and worldly life to pursue the kind of dissolution his poetry describes.

That context matters when listening to Ali Sethi and Noah Georgeson’s recording, which maps bewilderment, annihilation and the strange fearlessness that follows. Georgeson’s production doesn’t try to update the material. Sethi doesn’t perform it so much as moves through it. It’s a slow listen and in a month that demands the most of oneself, this is the track that earns its difficulty.

‘Sik Mitraan’ by Saakin (Zindagi Tamasha OST)

Peer Syed Mehar Ali Shah’s kalam is rooted in devotion: a meditation on the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), his radiant beauty and the nature of divine love. This version came into being when director Sarmad Khoosat made Zindagi Tamasha, a film about a naat-khwaan whose public image falls apart against the weight of his own very human failures. Saakin’s arrangement serves the kalam without over-powering it, and Usman Shakeel and Ali Hamdani’s rendition is precise in the right places and open in others. Many versions of this kalam exist. None sit quite like this one.