Vande Mataram is a 1997 studio album by Indian musician A. R. Rahman. It is Sony Music India's largest-selling non-film album to date. It released on 12 August 1997 by Sony's music labels Columbia Records and SME Records. It was released on the Golden Jubilee anniversary of India's independence and has been instrumental in instilling a sense of patriotic pride and national unity amongst the people of India. Ever since release, both the album and its title song "Maa Tujhe Salaam" have had a profoundly positive and unifying impact on the nationalistic and patriotic mood of the country. The album also features "Gurus of Peace" which Rahman recorded with the late Pakistani Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was a Pakistani singer, songwriter, and music director. He was primarily a singer of qawwali, a form of Sufi devotional music. Often called the "Shahenshah-e-Qawwali", he is considered by The New York Times to be the greatest Qawwali singer of his generation. He was described as the fourth greatest singer of all time by LA Weekly in 2016. He was known for his vocal abilities and could perform at a high level of intensity for several hours. Khan is widely credited with introducing Qawwali music to international audiences. He was also a master of Hindustani classical music.