Dawn Images

On his first anniversary, late Amjad Sabri’s nieces, Saman Sabri and Anamta Sabri, daughters of Saleem Kamal Sabri, in collaboration with Haider Ali, are paying tribute to the legendry qawwal through a Persian and Punjabi manqabat.

The manqabat is written and produced by Haider Ali, a self-taught musician, who's also appeared in Coke Studio twice, and has been performing in studio as well as live sets with Strings on keyboard for the last decade.

Saman and Anamta were trained by their parents since their childhood. Haider saw both sisters performing together for the first time in a studio while they were recording an OST three months ago. Haider was already working on this manqabat by that time and immediately decided to take Sabri sisters onboard as lead vocalists.

Haider, who was always fascinated by the Sabri family shared, “I met the late Amjad Sabri for the first time on the sets of Coke Studio and I was so inspired by him that I wished to work with him once in my life, if ever I got that opportunity. Unfortunately, that wish couldn’t come true but I’m glad that I am able to pay a tribute to him through this piece and that too, in collaboration with his family members.”

The manqabat, Ali Ali Kerdi was written by Haider in Urdu and was translated in Persian and Punjabi by his friends including Hina Asfahani and Arooj Ahmed, and an Iranina musician Nima Zare, who also taught him correct pronunciation of phrases written in Persian.