Early years
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By the 11th century, Moorish Spain was a centre for the manufacture of instruments. These spread gradually through France, influencing French troubadours and reaching the rest of Europe. The English words lute, rebec, guitar, organ and naker are derived from Arabic oud, rabab, qitara, urghun and nagqara'. al-Ghazali (1059 - 1111) wrote a treatise on music in Persia, including the words "Ecstasy means the state that comes from listening to music". The oud was popular between the tenth and sixteenth centuries then fell into disuse, but re-emerged in the nineteenth century. The Persians invented the Ghazal (love song).


The sixteenth century
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Bartol Gyurgieuvits (1506 - 1566) spent 14 years as a slave in the Turkish empire. After escaping, he published "De Turvarum ritu et caermoniis" in Amsterdam in 1544. It is one of the first European books to describe music in Islamic society. In India the Islamic Mughal emperors ruled both Muslims and Hindus. The greatest of these, Akhbar (1542 - 1605) had a team of at least 50 musicians. 36 of these are known to us by name. Akhbar was not a strict Muslim, and even started a new faith called Din-i-Ilahi, a mixture of Islam, Hinduism, Christianity and Jainism. The origins of the "belly dance" are very obscure as depictions and descriptions are rare. It may have originated in Persia or Turkey, possibly developed with the harems. Essential elements of belly dancing are the zills (finger cymbals). Examples have been found from 200 BC, suggesting a possible pre-Islamic origin.


Female slaves
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Slavery was widespread in early Islam. Just as in the Roman empire, they were often brought from Africa. The Qu'ran specifically allows them to earn money. Black slaves from Zanzibar were noted in the eleventh century for the quality of their song and dance. The "Epistle on Singing Girls", written in Baghdad in the ninth century satirises the excessive money that can be made by singers. The author mentioned an Abyssinian girl who fetches 120,000 dinars at an auction - far more than an ordinary slave. A festival in the eighth century mentions fifty singing slave-girls with lutes who acted as backing musicians for a singer called Jamilia. In 1893, "Little Egypt", a belly-dancer from Syria, appeared at the Chicago world's fair and caused a sensation.


Male instrumentalists
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Male instrumentalists were condemned in a treatise in the ninth century. They were associated with vices such as chess, love poetry, wine drinking and homosexuality. Many Persian treatises on music were burned by zealots. Following the invasion of Egypt, Napoleon commissioned reports on the state of Ottoman culture. Villoteau's account reveals that there were guilds of male instrumentalists, who played to male audiences and "learned females" who sang and played for women. The instruments included the oud, the zither and the ney (flute). By 1800 several instruments that were first encountered in Turkish military bands had been adopted into European classical orchestras: the piccolo, the cymbal and the kettle drum. The Santur or hammered dulcimer was cultivated within Persian classical schools of music that can be traced back to the middle of the nineteenth century. There was no written notation for the santur until the 1970s. Everything was learned face-to-face (to chest-to-chest as the Persian language has it).


The Twentieth century
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The first Conference of Arab Music was held in Cairo in 1932. Umm Kalthum (1904 - 1975) was by far the most popular singer of the Arab world. There are many spellings of her name, including "Oom Kalsoum". More recent popular artists are Cheb Khaled, Amr Diab and Natacha Atlas. Radio Tarifa play a mixture of electric guitars and antique instruments. Their music consists of historical styles from Moorish Spain and the Maghreb countries of Northern Africa. Traditionally Arab music has no chords but over the past 40 years they have been used more frequently. Islam has an obligation called Tajwid or Tajweed - to recite every letter correctly. Records broadcast in Islamic countries often have to pass a test of clarity. Compared to the rest of the world, the diction of singers is of very high quality.

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