Main Performers | Ghulam Farid Sabri, Maqbool Ahmad Sabri (Sabri Brothers) - vocals |
Orchestra or Band | Qawwali Singers from Pakistan |
Performance Notes | This event and a performance the previous evening at the Hall were part of the 1976 World of Islam Festival, opened by HM Queen Elizabeth II which ran from April-June 1976. The Festival was an attempt to showcase and develop a deeper understanding of Islamic civilisation through its art, geography, philosophy, literature, religion etc. As the director Paul Keeler said, the Festival represented "a unique collaboration between scholars, institutions and governments from both the Islamic world and the West."
The Royal Albert Hall in London was the venue for a series of pan-Islamic concerts which was organized throughout April and May and included musicians from Iran,Turkey, India, and Pakistan.
Exhibitions were held at the British Museum, the British Library, the V&A, the Science Museum and the Hayward Gallery to name but a few. 6,000 manuscripts and objects from 250 public and private collections in 32 countries were gathered together for display. A Quran recital was held at the Royal Festival Hall; 20 concerts at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Rooms and Horniman Museum; 23 seminars and over 100 lectures took place in universities and learned societies; a series of 6 films produced, broadcast on the BBC twice during the Festival, and over 50 books published.
Many institutions elsewhere participated as well: the Metropolitan Museum of New York, the National Art Gallery of Washington, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Seattle Art Museum, the St. Louis Art Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in the United States; the Hermitage Museum, the Academy of Sciences and the State Library in the USSR; the Bibliotheque Nationale and the Louvre in France; the Museum of Islamic Art and the National Library in Egypt; the Bastan Museum, the Imperial Library and the Imam Riza Library and Museum in Iran; museums in both the Germanys; and museums, galleries and libraries in Austria, Canada, Denmark, Greece, Hungary, Iraq, Italy, Lebanon, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria and Tunisia. |
Related Archival Material | Programme (RAHE/1/1976/92) |