chapter 12 

Zahı̄rok
The Musical Base of Baloch Minstrelsy

sabir badalkhan

Z ahı̄rok is both a genre of song expressing loss or absence (especially of distant

loved ones) and a general term for several melody types used in narrative song
(šeyr) performance.1 The term derives from the word zahı̄r, meaning “yearning,
longing for, homesick, heartsick,” and so on, and has come to mean a lament for
one’s homeland or a song of yearning for one’s family (see Elfenbein 1990, 2:164).2
According to some Baloch, the term zahı̄rok is composed of the words zahı̄r and
rok (“burning”), which accounts for an additional meaning: a song “coming from
the burning heart of a yearning person.”
Some believe that zahı̄rok originated from the cuckooing of the wood pigeon
(kapot/kahnı̄). The story is that a man from Makran traveled to Sind, a fertile country
whose greenery contrasted the barrenness of the Baloch land. There a wood pigeon,
perched on a tree, was singing yearning songs in a wailing tone. The man asked why
it was wailing in such a land of paradise. The bird missed its homeland, Makran.
This is the source of the famous Balochi proverb, “one wails for the homeland even if
it is as dry as a piece of dry wood” (wāe watan u hušken dār). The bird’s melody gave
rise to the zahı̄rok genre and from that, all types of Balochi songs and music.
In this chapter I investigate the texts, contexts, and performance characteristics
associated with the zahı̄rok genre. Because Baloch understand the zahı̄rok to be at
the very foundation of their “local”—that is to say, southern Balochistan—musical
tradition, it is an ideal point of departure for considering what it means for the
Baloch to “theorize” about music and musical experience. Balochistan straddles the
modern republics of Pakistan and Iran; it is our bridge for considering traditions
that flow across and beyond the borders of South Asia.

229

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 230 t h eo ri z i ng so c ial ac ti o n

figure 12.1. Pahlawān Mullah Saleh sings and performs on

the dambūrag. Photographed by Sabir Badalkhan, Shahi Tump, Turbat,
Pakistan, September 2003.

Only Baloch of the Makran region (Pakistan and Iran) and in the city of
Karachi know zahı̄rok tunes, although songs such as lı̄ko expressing similar senti-
ments and states of mind have also been recorded in neighboring regions.3 Lorraine
Sakata reports on the falak song genre, which is popular in the northeastern areas of
Badakhshan and Kataghan in Afghanistan. People in Badakhshan describe falaks as
being sad ( ghamghin), expressing “a longing for a lover, friends, family, and home.”
Falaks are also melody types of some five identifiable varieties, including one called
zahiri (sad, melancholy) (Sakata 1983, 53–59; cf. Slobin 1970, 98). Both genres
express similar states of mind and have relatively similar singing styles, though
the Balochi zahı̄rok is apparently more elaborate and developed. The gharı̄bı̄ song
genre of Iran also shares subject matter and singing style with the Balochi zahı̄rok

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 z a h ı̄ ro k : t h e m u s i ca l b a se o f balo c h m i nstre l sy 231

and the Afghani and Tajik falak. The gharı̄bı̄ (< gharı̄b, “a stranger or outsider”) in
Iran “gives voice to yearning for a home that has been lost or abandoned” (Blum
2002, 829; see also Cejpek [1968, 608] regarding Tajik gharı̄bı̄).4 The gharı̄bı̄ song
genre, with similar connotations, is also found in Sistan, northeastern Iran (Weryho
1962, 292) as well as in Kurdistan.5

Zahı̄rok as a Song Genre

Zahı̄rok songs are strongly melancholic, expressing deep emotions and strong sen-
timents about separation: feelings of those who are away from home traveling or
in search of labor; deep yearnings of women left behind by their sons, husbands,
brothers and/or fathers; the sense of suffering women express over performing
heavy chores for client families (in the case of maid-servants) or such repetitive
tasks as grinding grain with a hand mill or weaving carpets or quilts on a loom.
Zahı̄rok and lı̄ko songs were the only company of camel-drivers in their long
journeys.6 In earlier times, Baloch traveled, traded, and transported goods on cam-
elback. People spent weeks, and even months, traveling from one major town to
another or from one region to another. As a travel song, zahı̄rok is almost exclu-
sively related to camel drivers; travelers riding other beasts, such as horses or don-
keys, do not sing them. Perhaps this is because people say the zahı̄rok (like the
lı̄ko of the northern and northeastern dialect) in melody and rhythm matches the
camel’s gait and movements.
Another theory is offered by the Baloch scholar Gul Khan Nasir, who believes
that zahı̄roks were originally women’s compositions.7 He maintains that women
sang zahı̄roks for their menfolk who were away from home and family fighting
tribal wars, exchanging commodities, or searching for pastures (1979,12, 61).

Singing Technique

When solitary workers or cameleers sing zahı̄roks, the poem is usually in couplets
with a third line acting as a refrain; it may also have a two-line refrain with a single
line added at the end. Refrains usually follow a couplet or line but occasionally
precede them. When the refrain comes first, the singer renders it in a melismatic
style. Singers sometime take five to eight minutes, repeating lines and letting the
suroz (bowed stringed instrument) repeat the whole one or more times before join-
ing the suroz and singing the last line. The lyrics of a zahı̄rok describe deep nostal-
gic feelings of longing and yearning in such a strong melancholic style that they
penetrate one’s inner feelings. Baloch say that the surozı̄ (suroz player) often makes
his instrument cry.
One person sings a couplet, the second joins in the singing of the refrain and
then sings another couplet, then the third joins in the refrain and sings another

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 232 t h eo ri zi ng so c ial ac ti o n

couplet, and so on. It is never sung in chorus. No instruments accompany zahı̄rok

when women sing while working, when men sing while riding their camels, or when
they plow land or collect dates. But when professional zahı̄rok singers (pahlawān)
sit and perform for entertainment, they are ideally accompanied by a suroz. Less
famous or amateur singers may also sing to the accompaniment of a beynjo (a keyed
zither), nal (flute), or surnā (shawm). Baluch say that zahı̄roks were originally sung
with the exclusive accompaniment of a suroz, or played on a suroz alone. [audio
example 12.1 and 12.2] Since suroz is the preferred accompaniment instrument for
zahı̄rok, all suroz players should know some of their melodies. This is the test for
any suroz player: in the first encounter with a surozı̄, people will ask him to establish
his level of command of Balochi art music by playing some zahı̄roks. Occasionally,
singing with the suroz is further accompanied by a dambūrag (a fretless lute), which
the player strums delicately. When a suroz player performs without a vocalist, no
other instrument accompanies him.

Singers

Singers of zahı̄rok in the working context may come from any social background.
The best known nonprofessional female zahı̄rok singers in Makran, however,
belong to a low social class called molid (maid-servant), traditionally associated
with performing housework for a family. These molids had to grind grain for a
large family of their masters as well as for their guests (cf. Hashmi 1986, 111). Each
day they would start grinding grain at about three or four in the morning (only
a few hours after they would finish the work of the day before, such as washing
dishes and clothes) with the millstone (jintir), whose heavy weight was often com-
pared with that of a hill (kohen jintir, lit., “hill-like millstone”), and continued until
daybreak, when they had to prepare breakfast, which was usually not less than a
normal lunch, for the family of their masters.
These molids were mainly from low social classes, probably descendants of
former slaves of African origin; however, such domestic servants also came from
other low social groups. Baloch believe that God endowed them with sweet voices,
which, under the burden of heavy tasks, allowed them to sing zahı̄roks expressing
the whole picture of their sufferings and hard life. In this context, zahı̄rok was a
song of purgation as well as a strong means of catharsis that accompanied their
work on the one hand and provided them with a means to express their suffer-
ings on the other. It was also a means to make the people of the neighborhood
share their sufferings. They accompanied their work of grinding grain with such
melodious and touching melancholic zahı̄roks that sometimes whole villages would
wake up to listen to their singing. Their sweet voices on the one hand, and their
life full of suffering and hardship on the other hand, together with the weepy
nature of zahı̄rok songs, made the atmosphere so touching that people began to
cry (cf. Hashmi 1986, 111). I was told, for example, that the molid of the Sardars

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of Sami (a village some fifty kilometers east of Turbat) had such a sweet voice and
such a vast repertoire of zahı̄roks that each morning she would wake up the whole
village with her melodies.8
Besides the molids who worked for the families of their masters, women of
other communities too (i.e., not of low class) had to grind grain for their families.
As they also had other tasks, either in the house or in the fields (or herding baby
goats/sheep if they were nomads), the best time for grinding grain was, again, early
in the morning. Usually two women would ease their burdens by singing zahı̄roks
and grinding grain together—first of one and then of the other. The melodies
of the zahı̄roks were said to follow the movements of the jintir (hand-millstone).
Women from all walks of life could sing zahı̄roks in Baloch society, which was oth-
erwise strict about women singing loudly or otherwise appearing in public. Most
women should sing only on such festive occasions as the birth of a child, circumci-
sions, and weddings. Even then, they should sing in groups; the only exceptions
are lullabies and religious songs, which can be sung in private, provided men are
not present. Other kinds of singing and dancing are appropriate only for women
of low social classes.
Until the early 1970s, camel drivers routinely sang zahı̄roks in the morning,
especially during the summer, when the date and rice harvests in Makran stimu-
lated trade and travel. In the pleasant early-morning weather, the drivers were lively
and exuberant, singing as they passed by settlements during the early hours of the
day. The cameleers would take turns: the person riding on the lead camel sang
the first couplet, then the second one joined him, singing with the last hemistich
or the refrain, and then sang another couplet; then the third joined and followed
with another, and so on. They followed other patterns as well: the man riding on
the lead camel would sing the first couplet; the last cameleer would join in on the
refrain and add a couplet, then the second cameleer from the front would sing and
then the second one from the back, and so on. Most often there would be tens of
camels, and every cameleer would sing in his turn, often improvising the song and
adding more couplets, keeping roughly the refrain only. In the pin-drop silence of
the early hours of dawn, along with the jingling of bells tied around the necks of
camels, the singing of zahı̄roks created such a wonderful atmosphere that some-
times the whole village would wake up to listen to them. I was told that on many
occasions some music-loving people followed caravans of camels for miles just to
listen to zahı̄roks. Now traders move goods by truck rather than by camel. Rather
than the jingling of bells around the necks of camels and the zahı̄roks of cameleers,
one hears instead Hindi film songs played loudly from powerful loudspeakers fixed
in front of trucks or buses. These songs are heard miles away. The vehicles arrive
much later, descending from one hillock and ascending another one, running on
dirt roads with huge stones and dry river beds.
A similar atmosphere was also created by farmers working in their fields.
During the paddy-growing season (April-May) men start plowing as early as about

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five in the morning—as soon as there is enough light. Commonly, in the past, one
farmer would start singing a zahı̄rok from his field while plowing. and another in a
nearby field would respond with another zahı̄rok or would add a couplet. In a short
time the whole oasis would echo with farmers joining in to sing from all sides. This
type of singing also functioned to soothe the bullocks, who responded more will-
ingly to the heavy burden in the company of singing men. The same was repeated
during the date harvest, when one farmer from the top of a date tree started singing
a zahı̄rok, soon joined by another one, then by another. All such practices have
been discontinued, and we can only speculate why. I believe that, beginning in the
1970s with the economic uplift and weakening of class stratification in Baluchistan,
such singing has been on the decline because it is considered low class. In the
not-so-distant past even Baloch from upper social backgrounds sang work songs
without any reservations; in modern times people from low social classes consider
it shameful to sing in public unless they are professional or amateur singers.
Zahı̄roks are generally made of couplets with irregular rhymes and more or less
fixed refrains. In some cases, such as the following, poets have composed zahı̄roks

figure 12.2. Surozı̄ Ostad Omar accompanies, on suroz, the šeyr-singing of pahlawān
Mullah Saleh. They perform zahı̄rok melodies. Ostad Omar is considered one of the greatest
living instrumentalists who perform zahı̄roks. Photographed by Sabir Badalkhan, Shahi
Tump, Turbat, Pakistan, September 2003.

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to be sung as whole poems, normally in a working context, especially by women

grinding on their millstones, doing embroidery, or working on looms. The texts
of all Balochi folksongs are subject to improvisation (cf. Badalkhan 2002, 302 n2)
and this is also true for zahı̄roks in couplets. As in the following examples, not
all zahı̄roks talk of travel, homesickness, and yearning. Some develop themes of
love. Being basically a melancholic song, singers always sing zahı̄roks from the very
depths of their hearts.
dil khayāle pa gonage kārı̄t
dil manā bārt u dı̄r pirrenı̄t,
dil manā pešı̄ trānagān gejı̄t,
konóumā jant čo banden naryānā,
girr bandı̄t čo gwānzagı̄ tiflā,
čo óāčı̄ā danzı̄t pa watı̄ hirrā,
još kārı̄t čo roden lohı̄ā (Nasir 1979, 62).

My heart brings a remembrance to me in a strange way,

My heart takes and throws me far away,
My heart brings to me the memory of past days,
It [becomes so stubborn that it] stampedes like a fastened stallion,
It demands stubbornly [the lover] like a baby in its cradle,
Like she-camels who kick dust [calling] for their baby camels,
It boils like a bronze pot.
Another beautiful zahı̄rok runs as follows:
zahı̄r manı̄ baššāmı̄ draden hawr ant,
ki dāimā grewān ant manı̄ čammān,
hič manā naylant pa šapı̄ wābā,
šap manı̄ sāl ant, roč manı̄ šaš māh,
šap manı̄ sālen na bant bāmgāh,
roč manı̄ tı̄rmāhı̄ tap ant trunden (Nasir 1979, 64).

My zahı̄r are like heavy showers of monsoon rains,

They always pour down from my weeping eyes,
They never allow me to have a night’s sleep,
My nights are as long as full years, and my days are as long as half years,
My year-long nights never see a dawn,
My days are like the burning fevers of early summer months.9
The following are a few examples from a famous zahı̄rok in Makran, as sung by
the renowned zahı̄rok singer Amir Jusakki, from a village near Turbat. It describes a
famous event when a ship carrying passengers from Gwadar to Muscat caught fire
and was wrecked, resulting in the death of all passengers. This incident probably

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 236 t h eo ri z i ng so c ial ac ti o n

occurred in the 1950s, when Gwadar was still under the rule of the Sultanate of
Oman. (Several other heart-breaking zahı̄roks and motks [dirges] also recount this
event.) A few couplets of this zahı̄rok show how the refrain is used.
bačč manı̄ sargiptag mazārbı̄mmen,
deme dātag man Maškatā šūmmen,
kādirey nūr manı̄ baččı̄ taı̄ bāhoñ int.

My son of the wrath of a lion has prepared [for the journey],

He has started [the journey] to the damning Muscat,
O, the light of the Protector, my son is under your protection.

yā hudāwand u kirdagār šāhen,

malkamūt seylānı̄ [bali nı̄n] šikārā int,
u keyt hamā arwāhey sarā nindı̄t,
gwānzagı̄ tiplān ča mādarān sindı̄t,
kādirey nūr manı̄ baččı̄ taı̄ bāhoñ int.

O God, the King and Creator,

The watchful Angel of Death is out hunting [for victims],
He comes and sits on the spirit [i.e., on lives],
He separates babies in cradles from their mothers (i.e., he is too cruel
and merciless),
O, the light of the Protector, my son is under your protection.

Zahı̄rok as a Term for “Melody Types”

When cameleers or women at work sing zahı̄rok songs, they may use a single mel-
ody or several different ones. But zahı̄rok is also a term for the melodies of zahı̄rok
songs, and more abstractly, for melody types. Two Baloch musicians from Karachi,
Abdul Rahman Surizai (who is a master of beynjo) and Karim Bakhsh Nuri (a suroz
player) led Jean During to represent zahı̄rok as a kind of incipient classical music:
“a significant point is that in the same way that knowledge of the zahirig-s as modes
serves to increase the competence of a singer or instrumentalist at the height of
one’s mastery, the zahirigi-s are considered as the essence of Baluchi music, i.e.,
its very principle (asil ), the matrices of all the melodies, tunes or songs” (1997,
41). Likewise, Baloch men with some knowledge of the tradition often argue that
zahı̄rok is the basis of all Balochi music and the essence of the melodies used in
singing Balochi narrative song (šeyr).10 Janmahmad, a Baloch writer from Dasht in
Makran, maintains, moreover, that “the entire Balochi musical structure is based
on zaheerag. Some of the folk-music appears to be somewhat different from it,

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but in their formal structure all musical derivatives have their base in Zaheerag”
(1982, 59–60).
According to Baloch pahlawāns (professional šeyr singers), narrative songs
(šeyrs) comprise tunes that derive from different zahı̄roks. Each part of a šeyr has
a different message. Some sections are to be sung with different zahı̄roks. In this
view, there are zahı̄rok tunes to express any sentiment or state of mind. As a rule,
only certain parts of a šeyr are sung in zahı̄roks while other parts are sung in dif-
ferent styles, such as gālreč (rapid singing without melisma), dapgāl (singing in a
low register without melisma) and others (see Badalkhan 1994, 147–49). Pahlawāns
often begin a šeyr with an appropriate zahı̄rok, and they usually mark shifts of scene
with a čı̄hāl—a free-rhythmic vocal section accompanied by suroz—which is in a
specific zahı̄rok. [audio example 12.3] The čı̄hāl is an important way of captur-
ing the listeners’ attention as well as an indication for the scene shift. Audiences
highly appreciate virtuosity, and if a pahlawān has a smooth tenor voice with a
good knowledge of zahı̄roks, and when he lingers for a long time on a melisma, he
is showered with “šābāš” and “wāh wāh” (“bravo”), and some music lovers in the
audience express their appreciation with shrieking shouts and yells.11
Being the richest body of Balochi music, zahı̄rok is also the most complex.
Not all suroz players and minstrels are capable of playing or singing many zahı̄roks.
Suroz players who perform with pahlawāns are expected to be able to play most
of the well-known zahı̄roks, while those who do not play for pahlawāns have less
need even to know zahı̄roks by name. Suroz players claim that it takes from ten to
thirty years of experience before one is able to play the most common zahı̄roks in
full without confusing one with another. In fact, few living suroz players can play
certain zahı̄roks in full; many, however, can name the most common ones without
being able to play them correctly.
Every zahı̄rok has a beginning section called a “picking up” (čist kanag) and a
rising section called a “carrying up” (burzā barag). Once the zahı̄rok has reached
its “peak” (burzı̄), the pahlawān and/or surozı̄ must “bring it down” (er ārag) in a
prescribed manner in order to conclude or “kill” (kušag) the zahı̄rok. [audio
examples 12.1-12.3]
Every zahı̄rok has certain vocal/instrumental modulations, and the performer/
singer is expected to follow them strictly. If a pahlawān or surozı̄ does not respect
the accepted standards people may shout at them or the singer and the performer
may rebuke each other for combining zahı̄roks (cf. Badalkhan 1994, 166).12 The
communication process between pahlawān and surozı̄ creates a need for zahı̄roks
to be named.13 Usually all pahlawāns of some fame have their own surozı̄s who
understand their style and mood, and famous pahlawāns do not perform with the
accompaniment of other surozı̄s.
The vocal-instrumental zahı̄rok in performances of šeyr differs from the zahı̄rok
as a song genre in the following respects. Foremost is the čı̄hāl, which is highly
melismatic and expressive, sung either to a line of poetry or on a single vowel or

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 238 t h eo ri z i ng so c ial ac ti o n

figure 12.3. Rasul Bakhsh Zangishahi (from Iranian Makran) plays zahı̄rok and sings šeyr
melodies. He is accompanied by Shahan Bugti (center) from Dera Bugti and Allaidad, son
of Rasul Bakhsh Zangishahi. Rasul Baksh Zangishahi is considered one of the greatest living
instrumentalists who perform zahı̄roks. Photographed by Sabir Badalkhan, Paris, June 1996.

several vocables. A zahı̄rok always begins with čı̄hāl, which is followed by a small
number of lines, some of which are normally repeated. The shift from čı̄hāl to verses
is marked by the introduction of a steady beat, which the pahlawān keeps by strum-
ming on the dambūrag as he sings. Čı̄hāl is always in a high register, and the verses
are sung in a lower and narrower register. The suroz player begins the čı̄hāl and is
joined by the singer. It is as if the suroz player takes the singer’s hand for climbing a
mountain, but the singer takes the lead as soon as he enters, and the surozı̄ echoes
his phrases. When they have reached the peak of the singer’s vocal range, the singer
rests a while as the surozı̄ continues to ascend. The surozı̄ reverses the melodic direc-
tion, the singer reenters and takes the lead as they begin the descent. They come
down together, and the singer finishes first while the surozı̄ continues to descend
into the lower register. A pahlawān with a good knowledge of zahı̄roks may sing the
same lines several times and hang around for up to twenty or more minutes before
going on with the šeyr. In all these cases the singer is accompanied by the surozı̄,
and sometimes this latter repeats the whole zahı̄rok more than once on the suroz.
It is easier for a surozı̄ to accompany a pahlawān than to play a purely instrumental
zahı̄rok, because in the latter he continues to play in high register rather than sub-
ordinating himself to the singer at the melodic climax.14

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 z a h ı̄ ro k : t h e m u s i ca l b a se o f balo c h m i nstre l sy 239

figure 12.4. Ostad Omar Surozı̄ (village Sur, district

Gwadar). Photographed by Sabir Badalkhan, Shahi Tump,
Turbat, Pakistan, September 2003.

As zahı̄rok is the most important variety of music in southwestern Balochistan,

we find different types related to different regions, to different types of work and
conditions, taking names of famous singers and musicians, as well as referring to
certain states of mind. As the number of expert zahı̄rok players and singers has
declined, the actual number of zahı̄rok tunes is difficult to establish. Some put the
number at thirty-six;15 others put it even higher. Someone suggested that there are
four main types, related to the four different parts (pās) of the night, with tens of
other subtypes.16 Here I list thirty different types that musicians in Balochistan
have named over the years. However, this list is far from complete.
All of my pahlawān informants agreed that the night is divided into different parts,
and each part has its particular zahı̄rok. Bashsham, one of the most famous pahlawāns,
inherited the art of minstrelsy from his father, who was a suroz player before becoming
a pahlawān himself. Bashsham was his father’s surozı̄ until his father died; then Basham
became a pahlawān. Basham told me that in the early hours of the night he sings with
the melodies of kurdı̄, baločı̄, baškardı̄, and other zahı̄roks of low register because these
are good to warm the throat as well as the strings of the suroz; the zahı̄roks of midnight
are medı̄, kūkkār, and others from the same group; while the zahı̄roks sung after three
in the morning are ašrap-i durrā, ñañ, and others of the high register.

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 240 t h eo ri zi ng so c ial ac ti o n

Zahı̄rok names derive largely from:

1. terms for different parts of the night (šapey pās), such as saršapey (“of ear-
ly night”), nemhangāmey (“of midnight”), gwarbāmey (“of early dawn”), or
bāmey (“of dawn”)
2. regional or tribal names17 with an attributive ı̄ suffix, such as baškardı̄
(“of Bashkard” in southwestern Iran), rodbārı̄ (“of Rudbar”), jahlāwānı̄
(“of Jahlawan” in central Balochistan), sarhaddı̄ (“of Sarhadd” in Iranian
Balochistan),18 or baločı̄ (“of Baloch”),19 jadgāley (“of the Jadgāl” tribe in
Makran), sāsolı̄ (named after the Sasoli tribe in Pakistani Balochistan), kurdı̄
(“of Kurds”; possibly named after the Kurd tribe in Balochistan), kiblaı̄
(“western” regions of Balochistan), and zirkanikkı̄ (“coastal”).
3. the names of singers who introduced new zahı̄rok tunes, for example, ašrap-i
durrā (named after a famous zahı̄rok singer who came from the Gichki family
of Kech, Makran)20 and begamı̄ (after Begam, a nineteenth- to twentieth-
century woman zahı̄rok singer from Gwadar).
4. terms for the strings of a suroz,21 for example, ñañ (the first string from the
upper side, facing the player, also called ñı̄pp), myānag (the middle string,
also called zı̄ll or dastgard), gor u bām (gor is the gut string and the third
in sequence, while bām is the fourth and the lowest string); or named after
a musical instrument with the possessive -ey (“of ”), such as surnā-ey (“of
shawm,” which is said to had been invented by a shawm player in response to
Ashrap-i Durra) and gurr-ey (“of conch/shell instrument”).
5. various other aspects, such as context, typical performer, or style, for exam-
ple, uštir-ey (“of camel,” sung by cameleers, also called sārbān-ey, “of camel-
eer’s”), jintir-ey (“of hand-millstone,” sung by women while grinding grain),
balluk-ey ( “grand mother’s,” sung by aged women to show their sufferings
under hard working conditions or for their absent sons), janozām-ey (“of the
widow”), medı̄ (“of Med fishermen”), kūkkār (“of shouting,” which shows
the style of the zahı̄rok), jagarsind (“heart-rending”), and salāt-ey (“of the call
to prayers”).
Pahlawān and surozı̄ informants whom I have interviewed argue that most of these
zahı̄roks have subtypes: baločı̄ has šahr baločı̄ and irānı̄ baločı̄ as subtypes; kurdı̄ has
kurdı̄ and šahr kurdı̄ as its subtypes.22 The legendary pahlawān Faiz Mahmad Bal-
och [audio example 12.3] once said in an interview that there are more than two
hundred zahı̄rok tunes (Shad 200[1998] 2000, 252).23 Faiz Mahmad was endowed
with an hypnotizing tenor voice, ideal for zahı̄rok singing. As a great master of
pahlawān minstrelsy tradition, he was well aware of the importance of zahı̄rok
tunes in Balochi šeyr singing, so he would often tell his audience which zahı̄rok he
was singing in that particular part of a šeyr. As the best time for zahı̄rok singing is
in the last hours of the night, Faiz Mahmad would hypnotize his audience with his
zahı̄roks when dawn was approaching. In that part of a night-long performance, a

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 z a h ı̄ ro k : t h e m u s i ca l b a se o f balo c h m i nstre l sy 2 41

pahlawān sings a šeyr passing from one zahı̄rok to another. At this stage, the strings
of the suroz are fully warmed, the audience is selective, and the singing reaches its
highest peak.24 People describe this type of singing as pahlawānā čı̄hāl pa čı̄hāl kutag
(that is, the pahlawān is now singing čı̄hāl after čı̄hāl, that is, repeated singing in a
virtuoso melismatic style in zahı̄roks).
Zahı̄rok is one of the most important and well-known song genres as well as
the most elaborated music of the Baloch, often described as the “Balochi classical
music” by the Baloch themselves. It is also the richest music with respect to its vari-
eties and regional types. At the same time, like the rest of Balochi music and songs,
it has not been recorded systematically or studied properly so far.25

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