Bismillah Khan Quotes (15 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

Bismillah Khan: 15 quotes13 likes

Famous Bismillah Khan Quotes

“God knows no religion. God belongs to mankind. I realized this while playing at the Balaji temple.”

Quote, Encyclopedia of Bharat Ratnas

“After a year and half Mamu told me if you see anything don’t talk about it. One night I was playing deep in meditation. I smelled something. It was an indescribable scent, something like sandalwood and jasmine. I thought it was the aroma of Ganges but the scent got more powerful. When I opened my eyes, there was Balaji standing right next to me, exactly as he is pictured. My door was locked from inside; nobody was allowed to enter when I did riyaz.”

Bismillah Khan

He said ‘play my son’ but I was sweating. I stopped playing.
Khan used to do riyaz (practice) before the temple of Balaji as advised by his mamu (maternal uncle) who had also told him not talk to any body about anything that might happen. But when he told his mamu about his seeing Balaji, mamu was annoyed and slapped him.
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“Even if the world ends, the Music will still survive…. Music has no caste.”

Bismillah Khan

Quoted in [Ekbal, Nikhat, Great Muslims of undivided India, http://books.google.com/books?id=JsDNDeHkb8AC&pg=PA45, 2009, Gyan Publishing House, 978-81-7835-756-0, 45–]
Quote

“Tradition takes time to change. But it changes, all right. All that I have to do is to keep trying.”

Bismillah Khan

After this he was invited to play the Shehnai solo on the All India Radio
Quote, Encyclopedia of Bharat Ratnas

“These are the people who made the instrument become identified with them. If you said shehnai, you said Bismillah Khan. You did not say anybody else, it became synonymous.”

Bismillah Khan

Zakir Hussain, the famous tabla player quoted in "The Dawn of Indian Music in the West" page=121

“Allahee… Allah-hee… Allah-hee…. I continued to raise the pitch. When I opened my eyes I asked them: Is this haraam? I am calling the God. I am thinking of him. I am searching for Him. Why do you call my search haraam?”

Bismillah Khan

In reply to the Shia Maulvis in Iran who were arguing with him that Music should be banned, he sang the song in Raag Bhairavi and posed a question to them to which they had no answer.
Quote, Power Profiles

Bismillah Khan Quotes about music

“If music is haraam then why has it reached such heights? Why does music make me to soar towards heaven? The religion of music is one; all other are different. I tell the Mullas that this is the only haqeeqat (reality). This is my world. My Namaaz is the seven ‘sudh’ [pure] and five ‘komal’ [soft] surs”

Bismillah Khan

His reply to the hardliner Shia mullas who wanted to ban music.
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“Music lets me forget bad experiences. You cannot keep ragas and regrets in your mind together.”

Bismillah Khan

Quotations by 60 Greatest Indians, Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology http://resourcecentre.daiict.ac.in/eresources/iresources/quotations.html, <br class="br">Quote

“He was the undisputed jewel in the crown of Indian music; one who will not be born in the next few centuries. He gave a new meaning to shehnai.”

Bismillah Khan

“Khan saheb’s music has found its way, penetrating barriers of religion, caste and class, to the hearts of millions of our people, uniting them in a shared ecstasy…. He has never accepted that there is any contradiction between music and his religious faith, rather he sees perfect unity, a connection between the two….”

Bismillah Khan

Bismillah Khan Quotes

“I wish I could hold a concert…. It is unfair that the Shehnai is not played at concerts. Why should not the Shehnai be played at the concerts?… Then let me do it now. Let me break tradition…. May Lord Balaji help me.”

Bismillah Khan

When he was perturbed at not being invited to play in concerts when other instrumentalists held solo performances, and it is when Lord Balaji whispered in his ears “All good things begin with Shehnai”.
Quote, Encyclopedia of Bharat Ratnas

“An image can never be the real thing. Varanasi is where the Ganga flows, where I can play the Shehnai for Lord Balaji. I shall be at home, nowhere else but in India.”

Bismillah Khan

Sukriya.
When he was asked to stay back in America following his concerts there, even with a promise that a Varanasi would be replicated for him there.
Quote, Encyclopedia of Bharat Ratnas

“Ustad Bismillah Khan’s specialization lies in his ability to produce intricate sound patterns on the Shehnai, which was hitherto, considered impossible on this instrument.”

Bismillah Khan

Raj Kumar in [Kumar, Raj, Essays on Indian Music, http://books.google.com/books?id=wwwX6DWfn3gC&pg=PA205, 1 January 2003, Discovery Publishing House, 978-81-7141-719-3, 205–]

“Along with the steady diet sitar, sarod, and tabla, several new instruments and players came to my attention. The first of these was Ustad Bismillah Khan, master of the sonorous double-reed instrument known as shehnai. This beautiful wind instrument, with finger holes and a bell-shaped opening at the bottom, sounded to me like a hybrid of soprano saxophone and oboe, and Bismillah Khan’s tone very much influenced what Coltrane and Terry Riley would do with the soprano sax. Primarily used at weddings, the shehnai had been rejected as a classical instrument until Bismillah Khan elevated it to a higher status among listeners. His unique fingertips and sublime breath control produced the necessary range of sounds for raga making shehnai one of the more popular instruments in North India.”

Bismillah Khan

Peter Lavezzoli in his bo [Lavezzoli, Peter, The Dawn of Indian Music in the West, http://books.google.com/books?id=OSZKCXtx-wEC&pg=PA375, 24 April 2006, Continuum, 978-0-8264-1815-9, 32]

“Allahee…Allah-hee… Allah-hee…. I continued to raise the pitch. When I opened my eyes I asked them: Is this haraam?”

Bismillah Khan

I am calling the God. I am thinking of him. I am searching for Him. Why do you call my search haraam?
In reply to the Shia Maulvis in Iran who were arguing with him that Music should be banned, he sang the song in Raag Bhairavi and posed a question to them to which they had no answer.
Quote, Power Profiles