To me, Sufi music is perhaps the pinnacle of musical experience. It is music whose goal is to help those participating in the music, as musicians, dancers, or listeners, achieve mystical union with the divine. It does this through musical form which manipulates extremes of emotion and tension. Sufi music tends to be intensely teleological, with the music being driven inexorably to a desired ecstatic destination. There is an enormous variety to the music though. One piece may be intended to build up to an intense spiritual state, where the participants are suffused with baraka (filled with blessings and spirit, in Islamic mysticism). Another piece may be intended to maintain that transcendent level. Yet another may be to slowly relax the tension and bring the participants down gently back to everyday reality. Today, we will start with one of my trinity of incomparable Sufi singers, Sheikh Yasin Al-Tuhami from Egypt (the other two are Shahram Nazeri and of course, Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan). The piece we are going to hear from Sheikh Yasin Al-Tuhami is from a series of live recordings made at the 16th century Sultan Al-Ghuri complex in central Cairo. This is one of his pieces which slowly builds the music to a number of peaks with just his incredible voice covering an enormous range of expression. After nearly an hour, Al-Tuhami reaches his greatest peak and then the drums come crashing in, sustaining the intense spiritual high to the end.