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Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was a singer and performer of Qawaali, a style of Islamic religious singing developed by the Sufi denomination. In his native Pakistan, Nusrat did not become a singer until he was nearly thirty years old when, he said in various interviews, he received a call from Allah to become a singer. His powerful voice made him a superstar in the Islamic world, and he was the first South Asian singer to reach audiences in Western culture.

In 1992 he collaborated with Norwegian jazz musician Jan Garbarek on Ragas and Sagas, and he reached out to Western audiences with a series of records produced by Canadian guitarist Michael Brook. In 1995, he collaborated with Eddie Vedder on the soundtrack to Dead Man Walking. His contribution to that and several other soundtracks and albums, as well as his friendship with Peter Gabriel, helped to increase his popularity in Europe and the United States.

Nusrat was responsible for the modern evolution of qawaali. Although probably not the first to do so, he popularized the blending of khyal singing and techniques with Qawaali. This in short took the form of improvised solos during the songs using the sargam technique which the performer sings the names of the notes he is singing (for example in western notation it would be "do re re mi".) He also attempted to blend Qawaali music with more western styles such as techno.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan holds the world's record for the biggest recording output by a Qawaali artist (a total of 125 albums of recorded music).

His early career is the subject of a documentary film made in 1997 entitled Nusrat Has Left the Building...But When?

After Nusrat passed away in 1997, his nephew Rahat Fateh Ali Khan took up his torch and followed in his footsteps as a singer.