Question

Improvisational girah bandhi, or “knot-tying,” during performances of this art helps listeners in the sama’ “attempt to understand the meaning that arises from different voices,” per an anonymous Chishti saint. For 10 points each:
[10m] Name this devotional genre of music often performed at dargāhs. This tradition’s repertoire includes hamds in praise of Muhammad, manqabat in praise of ‘Ali, marsiya laments, and ghazals.
ANSWER: qawwālī (In Hindi/Urdu, girah bandhi refers to the qawwal improvisationally selecting sections, lines, and versions of texts which are most appropriate for “tying knots” of textual meaning for their particular audience.)
[10e] Qawwals also improvise mid-song interjections like bas!, which means “enough” but also indexes all of the Qur’an’s meaning, since the Quran ends with the letter sin after opening with this phrase starting with the letter ba.
ANSWER: bismillāh [or the basmalah; or Bismillāh al-Rahman al-Rahim or Bi-smi llāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīmi] (When the qawwal exclaims “bas!” mid-performance, it literally means that they have said enough, but it also emphasizes that the knowledge they impart is all from the Qur’an and sunnah and that alone is enough, bas!)
[10h] The wali Jahangir Simnani used al-Ghazali’s notion of this discipline as the transfer of knowledge between states to describe the transfer of religious knowledge resulting from a qawwal’s improvisational choices and the listener’s intentions.
ANSWER: alchemy [or al-kimiya; prompt on chemistry]
<AS/HK, Religion (Islam)>

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Data

TeamOpponentPart 1Part 2Part 3Total
Goldman & JacksonWater Buffalo1010020
The Chard Problem of Consciousness2 Indiscernible Broke Girls010010
Three CantabrigiansYesodei HaTorah 2:7010010

Summary

TournamentEditionExact Match?HeardPPBEasy %Medium %Hard %
2025 RMP Fest Online Mirror05/31/25Y313.33100%33%0%
2025 RMP Fest CO Mirror08/10/25N615.0083%67%0%