Rafiq Shinwari

Mohammad Rafiq Shinwari (Pashto: محمد رفیق شینواری ) was a famous singer and composer of Pashto music. Though he also tried his luck with Pashto poetry and wrote a few poems as well but it was his compositions for early Pashto movies that earned him a big name in this field.

A disciple of Hazrat Abdul Sattar Bacha he was brought to Bacha's abode by his mother as a child in late 1940's from Nangarhar, Afghanistan. Rafiq Shinwari started his career as a Qawali singer of Radio Pakistan Peshawar Studio in 1961. Subsequently he became a household name among the Pashtun population of both Afghanistan and Pakistan in the 1970s and 1980s. He primarily sang the Sufi Poetry of Ameer Hamza Shinwari and Rahman Baba. Himself a Sufi by heart, Ustad Shinwari used to sing in a rare husky voice, which would leave his audience in a state of trance. As a music director some of his famous Pashto movies include Orbal, Ehsan, Qaidi, Dameena, Topak Zama Qanoon, Iqrar, Naway Da Yawai Shpai, and Khana Badosh.^[1].

Out of his two sons namely Shaifq and Ghulam Ali, the later committed suicide in 1988 due to unknown reasons and which actually broke the back of this legendary artist and hastened his departure from this world ^[2].

In 2004, the Rafiq Shinwari Ulasi award was established in his honour.^[3]

References

Links to some famous audio and video songs

• Frontier Post article
• Pashto Songs of Rafiq Shinwari
• Sufi Songs of Rafiq Shinwari
• Youtube List of Ustad Rafiq Shinwari's songs

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