“God had given him a gift, he had such a melodious voice that there is no one like him,” said Hasaan Ahmed Siddiqi, a student of Maqbool Sabri. “I have always tried to follow them and hope to take their work forward.” Amjad added that he had always tried to take their work a step further and expected Maqbool Sabri’s son Shomail to step into the field soon. “No one can reach the peak that they did in qawwali as people like them are born once in a lifetime,” he said.
“My father and uncle lived in this world together, they have been buried in the same place and will be in heaven together too,” he said. Maqbool Sabri’s nephew Amjad Farid Sabri told The Express Tribune that the death of his uncle was the death of the Sabri brothers and the future of qawwali in Pakistan. The funeral prayers were offered by the Jamaat-e-Ahle Sunnat vice chairman Maulana Humza Ali Qadri at Forqania Masjid in Liaquatabad. He was laid to rest in the Paposh Nagar graveyard right next to his brother Ghulam Farid Sabri on Saturday. Sufi poetry and qawwali lovers strained to catch one last glimpse of renowned qawwal, lead vocalist and harmonium player of the Sabri brothers, Maqbool Ahmed Sabri, at his funeral on Saturday.
