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The Structure of the Arabian and Persian Lute in the Middle Ages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Henry George Farmer
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Extract

The most popular instrument of music with both the Arabs and the Persians during what we term the Middle Ages was the lute. It was to them what the lyre and cithara were to the Greeks of old. At the same time it was not an instrument of the people. It was the instrument of the professional musician and all music theory was made conformable to its technique.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 71 , Issue 1 , January 1939 , pp. 41 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1939

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References

page 41 note 1 Cairo, 1923, vol. v, p. 114 seq.

page 41 note 2 Cairo, 1891–2, p. 467 seq.

page 42 note 1 See my Studies in Oriental Musical Instruments, i, pp. 91–9, and the Encyclopædia of Islām, iv,985 seq.

page 43 note 1 Al-Maqqarī, , Analectes, ii, 84, 86Google Scholar. Idem, The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain, … translated … by Pascual de Gayangos, i, 411; ii, 119.

page 43 note 2 See my article “Some Musical MSS. Identified”, JBAS., 1926, p. 91.

page 43 note 3 Ahlwardt, Verz., 5530.

page 43 note 4 Scale of measurements:— iṣba' (Arab.), angusht (Pers.) = 2·25 cm.: iṣsba' madmūm (Arab.), angusht munḍam (Pers.) = 4·5 cm.: shibr (Arab.) = 27 cm.

page 44 note 1 According to the Ḥalbat al-humait it was from the wood of the pistachio tree that it was made.

page 44 note 2 Five strings were certainly known during the first half of the ninth century. See the Kitāb al-aghānī, v, 53. Al-Maqqarī, , Analectes, ii, 86–7Google Scholar. In another treatise by Al-Kindi, British Museum Manuscript, Or. 2361, fol. 236v., five strings are mentioned.

page 45 note 1 Bombay edition, i, 98.

page 45 note 2 This refers to the slender strips of wood, graduated at the extremities, out of which the beautiful arched back of the lute was made.

page 46 note 1 Press mark, funūn jamīla, 539.

page 46 note 2 Called the banjāk in Villoteau, Description de I' Égypte, 1st edition, i, 850.

page 47 note 1 Here we see that each of the four (or five) strings was doubled, i.e. two strings were tuned to the same note, as they are to-day.

page 47 note 2 Its date is fixed by a chronogram which is either 1346, 1355, or 1362. Manuscripts are to be found in several libraries. In the present case it is the British Museum copy, Or, 2361, fol. 261v, which has been used.

page 49 note 1 Abridgments of Specifications relating to Music and Musical Instruments, a.d. 1694–1866. London, 1871, p. 125Google Scholar.

page 49 note 2 There is a photostatic reproduction of it at the Egyptian National Library at Cairo (Funūn jamīla, 1), and the present writer possesses a manuscript copy of the Stamboul exemplar.

page 50 note 1 Tarabrab or ṭarab rabb, like shashtā, is a Persian word, and means “Possessor of Joy”. There are other Persian instruments of music with similar names, e.g. the ṭarab zūr and ṭarab al-futuḥ, both of which are described by Ibn Ghaibī. See Encyclopaedia of Islām, iv, 987. Cf. ṭarabrūb in ZDMG., xx, 492.

page 50 note 2 His full name is Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn 'Ayūb al-Khwārizmī.

page 50 note 3 sāz = shīz = sāsam (walnut).

page 50 note 4 This is not the great Abū Naṣr Muḥammad ibn Tarkhān al-Fārābī, but a certain Abū'l-Ḥasan al-Fārābī.

page 51 note 1 These extracts occur on pp. 111, 115, 126, 127, 131. The MS. is paginated not foliated.