On a hot April night in 2005, during the Sufi Soul shoot, I took the young Rahat Fateh Ali Khan to the shrine of Baba Farid at Pakpattan. We filmed for hours, and then we got this: one of the great renditions of Amir Khusro's Man Kunto Maula:

via @YouTube

Man Kunto Maula
shaah-e-mardaan
sher-e-yazdaan
quvvat-e-parvardigaar
laa fatah illaa Ali
laa saif illaa zulfiqaar

King of the brave,
lion of God,
[and] strength of God.
There is no one like Ali [and]
there is no sword like Zulfiqaar

We filmed for hours, long after the sun had set, and this take came shortly after midnight. It just shows what Rahat was capable of- before he discovered Bollywood....

We also filmed Abida Parveen at Bhit Shah... Let me see if I can find the footage...

Simon Broughton was the director and Chris Vile the cameraman.
Simon remembers: "What helped the filming a lot was they stopped the qawwal for the call to prayer and then restarted again from the beginning. That helped a lot getting extra shots." 1/2

Simon Broughton continues: "Even though Rahat does v commercial shows these days, he usually does some traditional numbers within them."

I saw one in Karachi in March, just before lockdown and when he drops the Bollywood synths he can still reach this peak.