Abida Parveen (born 20 February 1954) is a Pakistani singer, composer and musician of Sufi music. She is also a painter and entrepreneur. Parveen is one of the highest paid singers in Pakistan. Her singing and music has earned her many accolades, and she has been dubbed as the ‘Queen of Sufi music’.

Born and raised in Larkana into a Sindhi Sufi family, she was trained by her father Ustad Ghulam Haider who was a famous singer and music teacher. She plays Pump organ, Keyboard and Sitar. Parveen started performing in the early 1970s and came into global prominence in the 1990s. 

Since 1993, Parveen has toured globally, performing her first international concert at Buena Park, California. She has also performed in Churches several times. Parveen features in Pakistan’s popular musical show Coke Studio and was a judge on the pan-South Asia contest show Sur Kshetra[6] alongside Runa Laila and Asha Bhosle hosted by Ayesha Takia. She had appeared in various Indian and Pakistani Music reality shows including Pakistan Idol, Chhote Ustaad and STAR Voice of India. She is among The 500 Most Influential Muslims of the world with the power to induce hysteria in her audience, Parveen is a “Global Mystic Sufi Ambassador”. In the last few years she has sung in a Pepsi commercial collaborating with Atif Aslam for this.

Parveen is regularly referred to as one of the world’s greatest mystic singers. She sings mainly ghazals, thumri, khyal, qawwali, raga (raag), Sufi rock, classical, semi-classical music and her specialty, kafi, a solo genre accompanied by percussion and harmonium, using a repertoire of songs by Sufi poets. Parveen sings in Urdu, Sindhi, Punjabi, Arabic and Persian. Parveen notably sung a famous song in Nepali language called “Ukali Orali Haruma”, originally by Nepali singer Tara Devi, in a concert in Kathmandu, Nepal and in 2017, she was designated a ‘Peace Ambassador’ by SAARC.

Parveen is best known for singing in an impassioned, loud voice, especially on the song Yaar ko Humne from the album Raqs-e-Bismil and Tere Ishq Nachaya which is a rendition of Bulleh Shah’s poetry. She was bestowed Pakistan’s second highest civilian award Hilal-e-Imtiaz in 2012 and the highest civilian award Nishan-e-Imtiaz in March 2021 by the President of Pakistan.

Parveen was born in Ali Goharabad in Larkana, Sindh, Pakistan. She received her musical training initially from her father, Ustad Ghulam Haider, whom she refers as Baba Sain and Gawwaya. He had his own musical school where Parveen got her devotional inspiration from. She and her father would often perform at shrines of Sufi Saints. Parveen’s talent compelled her father to choose her as his musical heir over his two sons. Growing up, she attended her father’s music school, where her foundation in music was laid. Later Ustad Salamat Ali Khan of the Sham Chaurasia gharana also taught and nurtured her. Parveen always remembers that she was never forced towards this occupation and she sang her first complete kalam when she was only 3 years old.

Parveen had already begun performing at Dargahs and Urs in the early 1970s, but it was in 1973, on Radio Pakistan, that she achieved her first real breakthrough with the Sindhi song Tuhinje zulfan jay band kamand widha. In 1977 she was introduced as an official singer on Radio Pakistan. Since then, Parveen has risen to prominence and is now considered one of the finest vocal artists of Pakistan. She has imbued Sufi music with a new identity, marking the beginning of this journey at Sultana Siddiqui’s Awaz-o-Andaz in 1980.

Parveen travels internationally, often performing at sold-out venues. Her 1988 performance in Chicago was recorded by the Hazrat Amir Khusrau Society of Art and Culture, which issued an LP of her songs. Her 1989 performance in London’s Wembley Conference Centre was broadcast on the BBC. Parveen cites her motivation for international travel as being to spread Sufism, peace and the divine message. In doing so, she also promotes Pakistani culture.

In the 1990s Parveen licensed her spiritual ghazals to Bollywood, since her “spiritual brother”, Khan, recorded songs for Bollywood. Recently Abida also performed at the grand finale of Sindh Festival arranged by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in Thatta.

Abida had a special appearance in the super hit Lollywood movie “Zindagi” starring Sultan Rahi, Arif Lohar, Attaullah Khan Esakhelvi in lead cast for which she performed her famous rendition of Sufi Sachal Sarmast ‘mahi yar di gharoli bhar di’. In 2007, Parveen collaborated with Shehzad Roy on a song entitled Zindagi, dedicated to children’s social problems . In the same year she performed at the annual Oslo mela in Norway. In 2010, Parveen performed at London’s prestigious Royal Albert Hall, along with Bollywood playback singer Sonu Nigam.

In 2010, Parveen performed at the Asia Society’s Sufi Music Festival in New York City. In 2010, she performed in Union Square, Manhattan, in first Sufi Music Festival in New York City. Parveen performs annually at the Indian film-maker Muzaffar Ali’s Jahan-e-Khusrau event where she is reputed to be the top performer. In 2010, she judged the Indo-Pak venture Sur Kshetra TV Show. She performed in Manchester International Festival, 2013 in Bridgewater Hall. Abida also collaborated in Manchester in 2013 with composer John Tavener for remarkable composition ‘Mahamatar’ for a Werner Herzog film about pilgrimage. She had performed in Holland festival 2014 in Stopera, Amsterdam. Praveen was the grand performer of Dhaka International Folk Fest, 2015 in Bangladesh where she also received an award.