The Required Qualities of Dancers
from the Oration of the Geographer Ibn Khurdadhba (d. 911)
in front of the Caliph al-Mu‘tamid (d. 892)
[As reported in The Meadows of Gold of al-Mas‘udi (d. ca 957)]

The Dancer needs certain qualities in his/her natural disposition, in his/her physical constitution and character, and in his/her performance.

1 - Natural Disposition: What he/she needs is grace and charm, good innate sense of rhythm, and to joyfully seek creativity in his/her dance.

2 - Physical Dispositions: What he/she needs is a long neck and long side burns, coquetry and flirtation, good nature, ability to sway the sides of the body, narrowness of waist, sprightliness and agility, good body proportions, floating girdles, circular shape of bottom of dress (while turning), good breath control and rest, patience in enduring the process to reach a long goal, graciousness of feet, suppleness of fingers and mastery over fingers movements in the various types of dances such as the camel and horse dances, suppleness of joints, speed of motion during turns, suppleness of sides of the body.

3 - Performance: What he/she needs is the knowledge and mastery over a large repertoire of all types of dances, turning around well while feet are in control during the rotation, left foot motion must be similar to right foot motion. The setting of the feet on the ground and the raising of the feet off the ground is done in two ways: one follows the iqa‘ and the other one lags behind it. What is better and more perfect, is the one which follows the iqa‘ because it relates to love and beauty; as for the one that lags behind, what is better and more perfect, is that in which the foot leaves the ground with the iqa‘, but touches the ground lagging behind it.

Translated by George Dimitri Sawa

Characteristics of Melodies
(from The Grand Book of Music of al-Farabi, d. 950)

“The things from which a melody is realized are of two types: a type through which its necessary [most basic] existence is realized and a type through which its better, more excellent existence is attained.”

… Every melody consists of two types of notes. The first type is equivalent to the warp and woof in a cloth, the mud bricks and wood in buildings. The second type is equivalent to the carving, engraving, facilities and exteriors in buildings, and the dyes, smoothing [ironing?], ornaments and fringes in the cloth. This is apparent in the melodies to every person who listens attentively to them, and very apparent to those who practice music. The notes which are equivalent to the warp and woof in a cloth we shall term basis and fundamentals of melodies while the second type we shall term tazyidat (additions, embellishments) to the melodies. Then we find melodies whose additions are pleasant and they make the melodies gain more beauty, [and melodies whose] additions are not beautiful, thus detrimental to and spoil the melody to the hearing sense. Therefore, some additions are natural and [bring] perfection to the sound and some are not.

(translated by George Dimitri Sawa in Music Performance Practice in the Early Abbasid Era. 132-320 AH/750-932 AD, p. 72. Quoted here with the permission of the publisher: The Institute of Mediaeval Music, Ottawa, mediaeval1@rogers.com)

Characteristics of a Good Singer
(from the Book of Songs of al-Isbahani, d. 967)

“The good and sound among singers is the one who ornaments the melodies, fills [the musical notes with proper and sufficient] breath, scans the poetic measures, clearly articulates the words [of the sung poem], …, takes care of the grammatical inflections, holds long notes and cuts off short notes according to their proper time values, performs [the songs correctly according to their various] genres of iqa‘s (rhythmic modes), grasps the places of the intervals and follows them on his accompanying instrument.”

(translated by George Dimitri Sawa in Music Performance Practice in the Early Abbasid Era. 132-320 AH/750-932 AD, p. 172. Quoted here with the permission of the publisher: The Institute of Mediaeval Music, Ottawa, mediaeval1@rogers.com)

Relation between Musical Rhythm and Poetry. Sense of Rhythm
(from A Select Choice from the Book of Entertainment and Musical Instruments of Ibn Khurdadhba, d. 911)

“Ishaq ibn Ibrahim al-Mawsili (d. 850) said: ‘The position of the iqa (rhythmic mode) with respect to singing is similar to the position of prosody (arud) with respect to poetry.’ … And Ishaq said: ‘The iqa‘ is the measuring; the meaning of correctly keeping/tapping the rhythm is to measure; [the meaning of] not correctly keeping/tapping the rhythm is to get off the measure, and getting off the measure [occurs] either [because of] slowness or fastness in the measure.’”

(translated by George Dimitri Sawa in Rhythmic Theories and Practices in Arabic Writings to 339AH/950AD. Annotated Translations and Commentaries. In preparation, to be published by The Institute of Mediaeval Music, Ottawa, mediaeval1@rogers.com)

Al-Farabi’s Classification of Musical Instruments:
A Hierarchical, Aesthetic, Culture Specific and Philosophical System
(from his Grand Book of Music, pp. 77-80 of the Cairo 1967 edition)

The system starts from the lowest to the highest:

1. Instruments used in war to frighten the enemy. These instruments are very loud and unbearable to the human ear, e.g. bells used by the ancient Egyptian kings, instruments used by the Byzantine kings, or shouters used by the Persian kings.
2. Zafn, which consists of moving the shoulders, eyebrows, head and similar organs. These are only movements and they generate no sound.
3. Clapping, dancing, playing the tambourines and the kettledrum (?) and the cymbals.  All these are of a similar class and they are superior to the zafn by the fact that they produce a sound at the end of the movement. However, they do not produce musical notes.
4. The ‘ud (lute), tunbur (long-necked lute), mi‘zafa (lyre), rabab (spike fiddle) and mizmar (flute ?, oboe ?) are superior to the above ones because they produce musical notes.
5. Nothing is more perfect than the voice because it contains all the qualities of the above instruments, and, probably in the mind of al-Farabi, because it uses words that have meanings and express emotions.

Al-Farabi then divides category 4 into instruments that imitates the voice best, that is, those having a sustained sound similar to the voice and almost affect the listener the same way, such as the rabab and the mizmar, then the ud, and then the mi‘zafa and instruments similar to it.

(Summarized and translated by George Dimitri Sawa)