[Andalusi Studies] [open access book] Dwight Reynolds, Medieval Arab Music and Musicians (Brill 2022)

[David Wacks]

Medieval Arab Music and Musicians (Brill, 2022) is now available in an OpenAccess edition.  The volume includes complete annotated translations of three medieval texts that may be of interest to a broad audience among scholars and students of the Middle East:

1)      The Biography of Ibrāhīm al-Mawṣilī from al-Iṣbahānī’s Kitāb al-Aghānī

2)      The Biography of Ziryāb from Ibn Ḥayyān’s Kitāb al-Muqtabis

3)      Ibn Sanā’ al-Mulk’s treatise on the muwashshaḥ, Dār al-Ṭirāz
Each section is available for download separately to make them easier to use as assigned readings in university courses.  An additional option to download the entire work as a single PDF will be added to the website soon:
https://brill.com/display/title/61295<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/brill.com/display/title/61295__;!!C5qS4YX3!Gq89AAjer-5Fq4EUFL6QcOk7ET1_gjUJQn5iJF30PXxsurHtsnDbIME1cLj_NeKqbZSXTP0IaOWgqjnQnWou$>
Additional Information:
The biography of the famous 8th-century musician and courtier Ibrāhīm al-Mawṣilī offers an intimate portrait of life in the ‘Abbasid court in Baghdad during the reigns of the caliphs al-Mahdī, al-Hādī, and Hārūn al-Rashīd.  This translation contains an introduction, the complete text in translation, including isnāds and musical indications, along with explanatory annotations, and therefore allows readers to get a sense of how Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣbahānī gathered and organized his materials.  In many ways, this single biography is a miniature version of the Kitāb al-Aghānī as a whole.  Since substantive complete translations from KA into English are few in number, this text may be useful in courses on medieval Islamic history, the history of Arabic literature, and of course the history of Middle Eastern music.  Passages on the purchase, selling, and training of “singing girls” (qiyān) may also be helpful in addressing issues of gender in medieval Islamic society.
The Andalusi historian Ibn Ḥayyān’s 11th-century biography of the most famous of all Andalusian singers, Ziryāb, is the longest and most detailed account of the life of a figure who has become legendary in recent centuries.  The modern “mythic Ziryāb,” however, emerged entirely from the rather hyperbolic account penned by al-Maqqarī in his Nafh al-Ṭīb in the 17th century.  While al-Maqqarī’s text paints an entirely laudatory portrait of Ziryāb, Ibn Ḥayyān’s much earlier text preserves conflicting versions of who Ziryāb was and how he was viewed by his contemporaries.  It is also a fascinating portrayal of the 9th-century Cordoban court of the Emir ‘Abd al-Raḥmān II.
Ibn Sana’ al-Mulk’s 12th-century treatise Dār al-Ṭirāz is the single most important medieval source on the emergence and spread of Andalusi muwashshaḥ poetry and song.  Although a Spanish translation was published some 60 years ago, that translator misunderstood, and therefore dismissed, the musical information contained in the text.  This translation thus offers a significant re-interpretation of a very significant text in the history of Arabic literature and music.
Dwight F. Reynolds

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Dwight F. Reynolds, Distinguished Professor
Arabic Language &  Literature
Department of Religious Studies
University of California, Santa Barbara
<dreynold at ucsb.edu<mailto:dreynold at ucsb.edu>>
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