Abdul Rahim Sarban

Abdul-Rahim Sārbān' (Persian: عبدالرحیم ساربان) (1930 – April 2, 1993), known as Sarban, was an Afghan singer who was born in Kabul.

In 1984, Sarban suffered a stroke which left him paralysed and unable to speak. This ended his musical career. During political turmoil in Afghanistan in the 1990s, he and his family emigrated to Pakistan and became impoverished. He died in Pakistan and twelve years after his death, the Afghan Government made arrangements with his family to relocate his remains to Kabul.

Sarban's artistic greatness was due to his eccentric and mysticist temperament, however it did not translate into financial prosperity. He was famed for refusing to do home (majlisi) shows for pay, and for giving the proceeds from his highly successful concerts to the beggars, without regard for his own or his family's financial well-being. Sarban stopped producing songs in the 1960s. During the 1970s, he was mainly involved in concerts & in re-recording his earlier music for audio cassettes (his original recordings at Radio Kabul at the time could not be converted to audio cassette form due to lack of high quality sound equipment in Afghanistan.)

Almost all of Sarban's songs were recorded in the first decade of his career—1960s. The vast majority of his original repertoire, which was recorded with a full orchestra, is not available. Except for a few songs from the original recordings (Khorsheede Man, Asare Shikanje Maujam, Az Bas Ke Nazanini), the majority of Sarban's songs are re-recordings which were done in the late 1970s and released in audio cassettes. These later versions lack the full orchestra and chorus and rely on only a few instruments. Sarban's vocal gifts were past their prime at that point. Most originals recordings which were held at Kabul Radio, were destroyed by the Taliban in the late 1990s. Recently a few vintage and rare recordings of Sarban's records (for instance the original of his song Khorsheede Man, and Asare Shikanje Moujam) were uploaded on YouTube.

Sarban was shy and reclusive throughout his life. He seemed indifferent to fame, celebrity, and wealth for his entire life, even when through the prime of his career, which began peaking in the 1960s. At the peak of his celebrity, he polarized the Afghan intellectual class between those who loved and referred him for his art and those who criticized him for his personal life. Speculations said he had a constant problem with alcohol with claims he couldn't sing live on Kabul Radio without having a drink first.