Jean During, a specialist in Central Asia and author of numerous books, here describes the particular characteristics of Ostad Elahi’s music, putting it in relation with his spiritual teachings. The questions examined are the following: Why is Ostad Elahi recognized as the “master” of tanbur? To what extent and how did he reinvent its musical [...]

Bahram Elahi, Paraview, 2005 The latest version (2002) of The Path of Perfection by Bahram Elahi is a profoundly reworked reissue of a book already published four times between 1976 and 1992. In addition to the content of the book, briefly reviewed below, it is the pertinence of a thought in progress, demonstrated in these [...]

But what exactly is practicing? In everyday language, practicing is generally understood as “practicing a religion”, that is observing a set of rites and instructions, such as prayers, fasts, dietary laws, commemorations or specific ceremonies on certain occasions. People usually tend to reduce spirituality to religion and to consider that practicing means abiding by more [...]