Fareed Ayaz

Ghulam Fariduddin Ayaz Al-Hussaini (born 13 November 1952) is a Pakistani Sufi devotional singer and qawwal of the well-known Qawwal Bachon ka Gharana of Delhi; with his relatives he carries the banner of that school and leads the qawwali party with his younger brother, Abu Muhammad. ^{1 2}

He descends from Mir Qutub Bakhsh, given the title Tanras Khan by the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, whose music tutor he was, and the family tree reaches back to one of Amir Khusrau's earliest disciples. Born in Hyderabad, India, he moved with his family to Karachi in 1956 and trained in classical music with his father, Munshi Raziuddin. ¹

He performs genres of Hindustani classical music — dhrupad, khayal, tarana, thumri and dadra. Fareed Ayaz and Abu Muhammad's party is considered the most popular in Pakistan, and has sung in Britain, Australia, the United States, Canada, Europe, India, Iran, the Gulf, Africa and beyond, including at 'Aman ki Asha', the joint initiative of the Times of India and the Jang Group. ¹

His Coke Studio pieces include 'Kangna' (2011) in raag Malkauns, used in the 2012 film 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist', 'Mori Bangri' (2011), 'Aaj Rung Hai' and 'Khabram Raseeda' (2012), 'Shikwa/Jawab-e-Shikwa' with Natasha Baig and 'Piya Ghar Aaya' (2018), and 'Aadam' (2019). ¹

The Government of Pakistan gave him the Pride of Performance in 2006, among the Pakistan Day awards, under his full name Farid Ayaz Al-Hussaini, as Dawn reported on 24 March 2006. ¹

Wikidata listed articles on him in six Wikipedia editions on 6 November 2026: Bengali, English, Hindi, Punjabi (both scripts) and Urdu. ²

• English Wikipedia article, revision of 2 November 2026. ¹

• Wikidata item Q5434930. ²