‘Music is a universal language’: Natasha Baig defends her stance on Abdullah Qureshi quitting the music industry

A day after singer Abdullah Qureshi announced his exit from music industry for “religious reasons” on Thursday, fellow singer Natasha Baig said she will never appreciate musicians “who leave behind their career in the name of awakening”. She received backlash for her statement and has now issued an explanation, saying that she never said he did “wrong”.

On Friday, Baig tweeted, “there is nothing wrong in becoming a devotee of your creator and I think it is a beautiful journey Abdullah Qureshi has chosen. People need to calm down because I never said he did wrong.”

She added that music is a “universal language” and that the people who bash her “200 per cent of them resort to music whenever they get a chance.” Baig suggested that people need to understand her thoughts that she penned “at least 10 times”.

“I’m a proud Muslim and a follower of Allah and Rasool Allah (PBUH) too and it hurts my sentiments too because just like you I have a tendency to be emotional too. You can’t decide who’ll go to heaven or hell but if I’m doing music that makes me no less than any other Muslim,” Baig wrote.

Initially, Baig had tweeted without naming Qureshi. She had written that “those musicians” who leave the industry prove the “wrong narrative that has been attached with music” and asked them not to paint musicians like herself like villains in the process of their awakening.

“It has nothing to do with any sinful act unless you are unable to control your nafs [ego] and nafs can become a problem in any profession,” she reasoned.

Her reasoning was echoed by actor Hamza Ali Abbasi, who once quit showbiz to devote his life to religion, on Twitter where he told Qureshi that music is not completely a “haraam [forbidden]” act in Islam and suggested two videos for him to watch, one where Abbasi is conversing with Islamic scholar, Javed Ahmad Ghamidi, and the scholar’s 10-part series on singing and music in religion.

In his statement, Qureshi had written, “I know I’ve been lost since a long time and I have received a ton of messages in this time asking about where I have been. i was on a break, pressed the pause button for a while and took this time to find who I was, where I’m headed and who do I want to become.”

The ‘Tu Aaja’ singer also said that he has learnt from the best people but believes the “actual purpose of life is way bigger than all of this” and that we have little time in this world to make “our afterlife better”.

He added that if he is needed for any event or social media campaigns, he will do it if it interests him and it “falls within the folds of our religion”.