Noor Mohammed

Noor Mohammad’s full name is Noor Mohammad Shah. He is a Kashmiri Sufi musician, songwriter, and a virtuoso of the rabab. Noor Mohammad was born in 1954 in Baki-Aker village in Handwara town, in the Kupwara district of North Kashmir, India. Noor Mohammad introduced his talent with the musical instrument, an idiophone-style Kashmiri percussion instrument of nout (clay pot), in 1970. He was initially noticed by the local singer Mohammad Yousuf Shah, who later invited him to his troup for work and training. After becoming a successful musician in his own right, Noor Mohammad sang and played for the Sufi saint Ahad Sahib of Sopore (1930 – 2010) for three decades.

In 2016, in the posh Rawalpora (Colony) section of Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, a group of young men for whom Noor Mohammad performed filmed Shah on a mobile phone, and later uploaded the video to the internet. He sang a song titled “Kato Chukh Nudibaney Walo Mashiko Myani” which was filmed by Shah Jahan Tantray of Rawalpora. He sang for a famous elegy by a 16^th-century Kashmiri Muslim poet, ascetic, and the Nightingale of Kashmir Habba Khatoon (who was also Empress Consort of the last Emperor of Kashmir). He became a celebrity from one of his videos, “Without the humble and God-fearing musician’s knowledge” went viral on the web. In the beginning, he performed in mehfils (Dervish gatherings and for weddings. But presently, his songs are listened to online all over the world.

In 2018, Noor Mohammad was invited by the Kashmiri & Urdu-language poet & musician Mohammad Muneer Nazir and his band Alif to produce a Kashmiri-language single, “Ride Home.” Bollywood’s top music director duo Salim-Sulaiman has collaborated with Noor Mohammad to produce a sensational Kashmiri song. “Nazneen Yaar’e Myan’e Ye Tche Mulaqat” is one of his songs, begins with Noor Mohammad’s voice and is followed by Salim-Sulaiman, Raj Pandit, and a chorus of fifteen singers. He has more than thirty-five years of experience in performing Kashmiri songs.