Arab
music covers a vast geographical area ranging from the Atlas Mountains
and parts of the Sahara in Africa to the Persian Gulf region and the
banks of the Euphrates. Whether from Morocco, Egypt, or Iraq, Arabs are
able to identify today with a multi-faceted musical heritage that
originated in antiquity, but that gained sophistication and momentum
during the height of the Islamic Empire between the eighth and the
thirteenth centuries. Since the spread of Islam from the Arabian
Peninsula towards the middle of the seventh century until the present
century, Arab music has been shaped by five principal processes, some
purely intellectual and cultural, others political.
Contact with Assimilated Cultures
The
first process took place during the early centuries of Islam, with the
growth of cosmopolitan cultural centers in Syria under the Umayyads
(661-750) and in Iraq under the Abbasids (750-909). The ethnic blending
that occurred during these centuries brought the music of Arabia into
close contact with the musical traditions of Syria, Mesopotamia,
Byzantium, and Persia. This contact resulted in the cultivation of new
Arab music. While retaining strong local elements, such as the singing
of poetical lyrics in Arabic the language of the Qur'an and the
lingua franca of the Islamic Empire this music featured new
performance techniques, new aspects of intonation, and new musical
instruments. Proponents of the new trend included Persians and others
from non-Arabian backgrounds.
Court affluence and
acquaintance with the worldly splendor of conquered empires stimulated
humanistic interests and artistic and intellectual tolerance on the
part of the Arab rulers. In a short time court patronage of poets and
musicians became common practice, in contrast to the antipathy of some
early Muslims towards music and musicians. The Abbasid caliphs
al­Mahdi (reigned 775-85) and al-Amin (reigned 809-13) are
particularly known for their fondness for music. In contrast to the
quynat, or female slave singers, who were prevalent during the early
decades, the emerging court artists were often well-educated and from
distinguished backgrounds. Among such artists were the singers and
scholars Prince Ibrahim al-Mahdi (779-839) and Ishaq al-Mawsili
(767-850), and the 'ud (lute) virtuoso, Zalzal (died 791), who was
Ishaq's uncle.
Contact with the Classical Past
The
second process was marked by the introduction of scholars of the
Islamic world to ancient Greek treatises, many of which had probably
been influenced previously by the legacies of ancient Egypt and
Mesopotamia. This contact was initiated during the ninth century under
the Abbasid Caliph al-Ma'mun (reigned 813-33.) This ruler established
Bayt al-Hikmah, literally "the House of Wisdom," a scholarly
institution responsible for translating into Arabic a vast number of
Greek classics, including musical treatises by major Pythagorean
scholars and works by Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus.
The
outcome of this exposure to the classical past was profound and
enduring. The Arabic language was enriched and expanded by a wealth of
treatises and commentaries on music written by prominent philosophers,
scientists, and physicians. Music, or al­musiqa, a term that
came from the Greek, emerged as a speculative discipline and as one of
al­ulum al­riyadiyyah, or "the mathematical sciences,"
which paralleled the Quatrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry, and
astronomy) in the Latin West. In addition, Greek treatises provided an
extensive musical nomenclature, most of which was translated into
Arabic and retained in theoretical usages until the present day.
Theoretical
treatises written in Arabic between the ninth and the thirteenth
centuries established an enduring trend in Near Eastern musical
scholarship and inspired subsequent generations of scholars. An early
contributor was Ibn al Munajjim (died 912) who left us a description
of an established system of eight melodic modes. Each mode had its own
diatonic scale, namely an octave span of Pythagorean half and whole
steps. Used during the eighth and ninth centuries, these modes were
frequently alluded to in conjunction with the song texts included in
the monumental Kitab al - Aghani, or Book of Songs, by Abu
al­Faraj al­Isfahani (died 967). In this system, each
mode was indicated by the names of the fingers and the frets employed
when playing the 'ud.
Another major contribution was made
by the philosopher al-Kindi (died about 873), who in his treatises
discussed the phenomenon of sound, intervals, and compositions.
Al-Kindi presented an elaboration on the diatonic 'ud-fretting known at
his time and proposed adding a fifth string to the four-stringed 'ud in
order to expand the theoretical pitch range into two octaves. Al-Kindi
is also known for the cosmological links he made between the four
strings of the 'ud and the seasons, the elements, the humors, and
various celestial entities. Comparable emphasis on cosmology and
numerology was presented by the Ikhwan as-Safa', "Brethren of
sincerity," in their tenth century epistle on music.
One
of the most prolific contributors was Abu Nasr al-Farabi (died 950),
whose Kitab al-Musiqa al-Kabir, The Grand Treatise on Music, is an
encompassing work. It discusses such major topics as the science of
sound, intervals, tetrachords, octave species, musical instruments,
compositions, and the influence of music. Al-Farabi provided a lute
fretting that combined the basic diatonic arrangement of Pythagorean
intervals with additional frets suited for playing two newly introduced
neutral, or microtonal, intervals. Al-Farabi also described two types
of tunbur, or long-necked fretted lute, each with a different system of
frets: an old Arabian type whose frets produced quarter-tone intervals,
and another type attributed to Khorasan with intervals based on the
limma and comma subdivisions of the Pythagorean whole-tone. Discussions
on the phenomenon of sound, the dissonants and the consonants, lute
fretting, and references to melodic modes by specific names are also
found in the writings of the famous philosopher and physician Ibn Sina,
or Avicenna, (died 1037.)
Another influential theorist who
contributed to the knowledge and systematization of the melodic modes
was Safi ad-Din al-Urmawi (died 1291) In two authoritative treatises,
Safi ad-Din discussed various aspects of musical knowledge including
rhythm and meter. He also expounded on the subject of melodic modes,
describing the intervals of each mode in accordance with a detailed
theoretical scale similar to the one found in the Khorasani tanbur
described by al-Farabi. Accordingly, each Pythagorean whole step in the
seven-tone scale was divided into two limmas (90-cent intervals) and a
small remainder or comma (a 24-cent interval). Thus, it was possible to
accommodate the neutral intervals found in certain modes. Safi ad-Din's
contribution to modal theory had a profound influence upon later
scholars and particularly upon the musical systems of contemporary Iran
and Turkey. Although there is no evidence that musical notation was
employed in actual performance, al-Kindi and Safi an-Din left us
fragments of songs recorded in a system of notation based on
alphabetical symbols.
Contact with the Medieval West
The
third major process affecting Arab music was the contact between the
Islamic Near East and Europe at the time of the Crusades in the
eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries and during the Islamic
occupation of Spain (713-1492.) This contact had a widespread impact on
both Islamic and European traditions. The westward movement of
scientific scholarship into the Muslim universities of Spain is known
to have influenced the Christian West and to have promoted the
translation of Arabic works, including commentaries on Greek sources,
into Latin. Although it is difficult to assess precisely the nature and
extent of the Near Eastern musical impact upon medieval Europe, such
scholars as Julian Ribera, Alois R. Nykl, and Henry George Farmer have
argued that substantial influence existed in areas ranging from rhythm
and song forms to music theory, nomenclature, and musical instruments.
Influence
in the case of instruments is indicated by name derivations: for
example, the lute from al-'ud; the nakers, or kettledrums, from
naqqarat; the rebec from rabab; and the anafil, or natural trumpet,
from al-nafir. Added evidence comes from manuscript illustrations of
instruments that have obvious Near Eastern origins. One such document
is the thirteenth-century collection of songs entitled Cantigas de
Santa Maria, prepared for the Spanish King Alfonso X, who was known as
el Sabio (the wise). This work was decorated with miniature
illustrations in color, showing musicians, including Moors, performing
on a wide variety of instruments such as the lute, the psaltery, and
the double-reed shawm.
The contributions of Moorish Spain
to Arab music were profound and far-reaching. The Easterners'
adaptation to a new physical environment and the introduction of
Eastern science and literature into settings of wealth and splendor, as
represented in the courts of Seville, Granada, and Cordoba, were
inspirational to the new artistic life of al-Andalus. Zaryab (died
about 850) was a freed slave who moved from Baghdad to Cordoba, where
he became a highly respected singer, 'ud player, and music teacher.
Zaryab is credited with compiling a repertoire of twenty-four nawbat,
(singular nawbah or nubah), each of which was a composite of vocal and
instrumental pieces in a certain melodic mode. The nawbat were
reportedly associated with the different hours of the day. The nawbah
tradition was largely transported to North Africa by the Muslims who
were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in the late fifteenth century.
Moorish Spain also witnessed the development of a
literary-musical form that utilized romantic subject matter and
featured strophic texts with refrains, in contrast to the classical
Arabic qasidah, which followed a continuous flow of lines or of
couplets using a single poetical meter and a single rhyme ending. The
muwashshah form, which was utilized by major poets, also emerged as a
musical form and survived as such in North African cities and in the
Levant, an area covering what is known historically as greater Syria
and Palestine. In this area, the muwashshah genre became popular in
Aleppo, Syria.
The fourth major process influencing Arab
music was the hegemony of the Ottoman Turks over Syria, Palestine,
Iraq, the coasts of Arabia, and much of North Africa (1517-1917.)
During this four-centuries span, the center of power in the Sunni
Muslim world shifted to the Ottoman court in Turkey, while Iran was
gradually emerging as a separate political, cultural, and religious
entity, eventually instituting Shiism as the state religion, Musically,
the Ottoman period was characterized by gradual assimilation and
exchange. Arab music interacted with Turkish music, which had already
absorbed musical elements from Central Asia, Anotolia, Persia, and
medieval Islamic Syria and Iraq. This interaction was most obvious in
larger cities, particularly Aleppo, Damascus, and Cairo. In the rural
communities - for example, among the Syrian Bedouins and North African
Berbers - musical traditions apparently maintained a fair degree of
continuity and stability.
During this period in Arab
history, certain aspects of musical life may have resulted from broader
cultural and political contacts. In the Ottoman world, musicians, like
members of other professions, belonged to specialized professional
guilds (tawa'if). In Egypt, such musicians included the alatiyyah,
literally, "male instrumentalists", and the 'awalim, literally "learned
females." According to M. Villoteau, whose extensive description of
Egyptian music is part of the accounts prepared by the Napoleonic
mission to Egypt, the former groups entertained male audiences, while
the latter specialized in performing for female audiences. Instruments
associated with professional musicians of the cities, included the oud,
the qanun (zither) and the nay (flute) and were commonly used in Turkey
and in the Arab world.
The sama'i (or Turkish saz semai)
and the bashraf (or pesrev), both instrumental genres used in Turkish
court and religious Sufi music, were introduced into the Arab world
before the late nineteenth century. Instrumental and possibly vocal and
dance forms were transmitted partly through the Mevlevis, a mystical
order established in Konya, Turkey, in the thirteenth century. Known
for cultivating music and including famous composers and theorists,
this order spread into parts of Syria, Iraq, and North Africa. Military
bands, similar to the type connected with the Janissary army, existed
in various political centers of the Ottoman world. (An example found in
Cairo was described by Villoteau.) With respect to theory and
nomenclature, Arab and Turkish musical systems overlapped considerably.
Melodic and metric modes in Turkey and in the Arab world, particularly
Syria, have exhibited and still exhibit strong similarities