Safi al-Din Urmawi
Encyclopedia
Safi al-Din al-Urmawi or Safi al-Din Abd al-Mu'min ibn Yusuf ibn al-Fakhir al-Urmawi (born c. 1216 AD in Urmia
or Baghdad
, died in 1294 AD) was a renowned musician and writer on the theory of music. He is perhaps best known for developing in the thirteenth century the widely used seventeen-tone scale later expanded to the Arabic scale
of twenty-four quarter tone
s.
on 28 Ṣafar 693/28 January 1294, at the age of about 80. According to the Encyclopedia of Islam:
In his youth, he went to Baghdad and was educated in the Arabic language
, literature, history
and penmanship
. He made a name for himself as an excellent calligrapher and was appointed copyist at the new library built by the Abbassid caliph
al-Mustaṣim.
He had also studied Shafii law and comparative law (Khilaf Fiqh
) at the Mustansiriyya Madrasa (opened 631/1234). This qualified him to assume a post in al-Mustaʿsim's juridical administration and, after 656/1258, to head the supervision of the foundations (naẓariyyat al-waqf) in Iraq
until 665/1267, when Nasir al-Din Tusi took over.
al-Urmawi become known as a musician and excellent lute (‘Ud
) player and accepted as a member of the private circle of boon companions, thanks to one of his music students, the caliph's favoured songstress Luḥaẓ. His musical talent made him survive the fall of Baghdad
, by generously accommodating one of Hulaku’s officer. Hulagu the Mongol ruler was impressed by al-Urmawi and doubled his income relative to the Abbassid era.
His musical career, however, seems to have been supported mainly by the Juwayni family, especially by Shams al-Din Muḥammad
and his son Sharaf Din Harun (put to death in 685/1285). After the demise of his patrons, he fell into oblivion and poverty. He was placed under arrest on account of a debt of 300 dinars. He died in the Shafi'i Madrasat al-Khalil in Baghdad.
. In the anonymous Persian Kanz al-tuḥaf (8th/14th cent.), he is also credited with the invention of two stringed musical instruments, the nuzha and the mughnī .
Al-Urmawi's most important work are two books in Arabic Language
on music theory, the Kitab al-Adwār and Risālah al-Sharafiyyah fi 'l-nisab al-taʾlifiyyah. The first book was written while he still worked in the library of al-Mustasim. The Abbassid caliph was well-known for his addiction to music. The second book was dedicated to Sharaf al-Din Harun Juvayni who ordered him to compile it.
The Kitab al-Adwār is the first extant work on scientific music theory after the writings on music of Avicenna
. It contains valuable information on the practice and theory of music in the Perso-ʿIraqi area, such as the factual establishment of the five-stringed lute (still an exception in Avicenna
’s time), the final stage in the division of the octave into 17 steps, the complete nomenclature and definition of the scales constituting the system of the twelve Makams (called shudūd) and the six Awāz modes. It also contains precise depictions of contemporary musical metres, and the use of letters and numbers for the notation of melodies. It is the first time that this occurs in history, making it a unique work of greatest value. Al-Urmawi's 'international' modal system was intended to represent the predominant Arab and Persian local musical traditions.
By its conciseness it became the most popular and influential book on music for centuries. No other Arabic (Persian or Ottoman Turkish) music treatise was so often copied, commented upon and translated into Oriental (and Western) languages. The Kitab al-Adwār was conceived as a compendium (mukhtasar) of the standard musical knowledge of its time.
The Kitab al-Adwār was translated several times into Persian language
and there also exists an Ottoman Turkish
translation.
Al-Urmawi’s second book, Risāla al-Sharafiyya, was written around 665/1267. It is dedicated to his student and later patron, Sharaf al-Din Harun Juvayni (Juvayn is a town in Khorasan
). He was part of the scientific, literary and artistic circle of the Juvayni family. Through these gatherings, al-Urmawi was in contact with the Persian scholar Nasir al-Din Tusi. Nasir al-Din Tusi, who left a short treatise on the proportions of musical intervals perceivable in the pulse may have stimulated al-Urmawī's interest in Greek science and music theory.
These two major books have become the foundation of academic discourse on Arabic music, most notably modern works by Briton Owen Wright.
Commentaries on these theoretical works were written as early as the 1370s.
Urmia
- Demographics :According to official census of 2006, the population of Urmia is about 871,204.- Language :The population of Urmia is mainly Azerbaijani people, with Kurdish, Assyrian Christian, and Armenian minorities...
or Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
, died in 1294 AD) was a renowned musician and writer on the theory of music. He is perhaps best known for developing in the thirteenth century the widely used seventeen-tone scale later expanded to the Arabic scale
Arabic scale
Arabic scale may refer to:*Double harmonic scale, a scale with two augmented seconds*Quarter tone scale, or 24 tone equal temperament*17 equal temperament, a tuning dividing the octave into 17 equal steps*Major locrian scale, a scale similar to locrian...
of twenty-four quarter tone
Quarter tone
A quarter tone , is a pitch halfway between the usual notes of a chromatic scale, an interval about half as wide as a semitone, which is half a whole tone....
s.
Background and life
Safi al-Din Abd al-Muʾmin ibn Yusuf ibn Fakhir al-Urmawi al-Baghdadi (Sufi al-Dīn in some Ottoman sources), renowned musician and writer on the theory of music, was born c. 613/1216, probably in Urmiya. He died in BaghdadBaghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
on 28 Ṣafar 693/28 January 1294, at the age of about 80. According to the Encyclopedia of Islam:
In his youth, he went to Baghdad and was educated in the Arabic language
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, literature, history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
and penmanship
Penmanship
Penmanship is the technique of writing with the hand using a writing instrument. The various generic and formal historical styles of writing are called hands, whilst an individual personal style of penmanship is referred to as handwriting....
. He made a name for himself as an excellent calligrapher and was appointed copyist at the new library built by the Abbassid caliph
Caliph
The Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the ruler of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transcribed version of the Arabic word which means "successor" or "representative"...
al-Mustaṣim.
He had also studied Shafii law and comparative law (Khilaf Fiqh
Fiqh
Fiqh is Islamic jurisprudence. Fiqh is an expansion of the code of conduct expounded in the Quran, often supplemented by tradition and implemented by the rulings and interpretations of Islamic jurists....
) at the Mustansiriyya Madrasa (opened 631/1234). This qualified him to assume a post in al-Mustaʿsim's juridical administration and, after 656/1258, to head the supervision of the foundations (naẓariyyat al-waqf) in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
until 665/1267, when Nasir al-Din Tusi took over.
al-Urmawi become known as a musician and excellent lute (‘Ud
Oud
The oud is a pear-shaped stringed instrument commonly used in North African and Middle Eastern music. The modern oud and the European lute both descend from a common ancestor via diverging paths...
) player and accepted as a member of the private circle of boon companions, thanks to one of his music students, the caliph's favoured songstress Luḥaẓ. His musical talent made him survive the fall of Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
, by generously accommodating one of Hulaku’s officer. Hulagu the Mongol ruler was impressed by al-Urmawi and doubled his income relative to the Abbassid era.
His musical career, however, seems to have been supported mainly by the Juwayni family, especially by Shams al-Din Muḥammad
Shams ad-Din Juvayni
Shams al-Din Juvayni or Shams al-Din Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Juwayni was a vizier and sahib-divan or Minister of Finance under three Mongol Ilkhans - Hulagu, Abaqa and Tekuder - from 1263 until his execution by Arghun Khan in 1285...
and his son Sharaf Din Harun (put to death in 685/1285). After the demise of his patrons, he fell into oblivion and poverty. He was placed under arrest on account of a debt of 300 dinars. He died in the Shafi'i Madrasat al-Khalil in Baghdad.
Music and Music Theory
As a composer, al-Urmawi cultivated the vocal forms of ṣawt, qawl and nawbaAndalusi nubah
Andalusi nubah is a musical genre found in the North African Maghrib states of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya but, as the name indicates, it has its origins in the Arabo-Andalusian music...
. In the anonymous Persian Kanz al-tuḥaf (8th/14th cent.), he is also credited with the invention of two stringed musical instruments, the nuzha and the mughnī .
Al-Urmawi's most important work are two books in Arabic Language
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
on music theory, the Kitab al-Adwār and Risālah al-Sharafiyyah fi 'l-nisab al-taʾlifiyyah. The first book was written while he still worked in the library of al-Mustasim. The Abbassid caliph was well-known for his addiction to music. The second book was dedicated to Sharaf al-Din Harun Juvayni who ordered him to compile it.
The Kitab al-Adwār is the first extant work on scientific music theory after the writings on music of Avicenna
Avicenna
Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā , commonly known as Ibn Sīnā or by his Latinized name Avicenna, was a Persian polymath, who wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived...
. It contains valuable information on the practice and theory of music in the Perso-ʿIraqi area, such as the factual establishment of the five-stringed lute (still an exception in Avicenna
Avicenna
Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā , commonly known as Ibn Sīnā or by his Latinized name Avicenna, was a Persian polymath, who wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived...
’s time), the final stage in the division of the octave into 17 steps, the complete nomenclature and definition of the scales constituting the system of the twelve Makams (called shudūd) and the six Awāz modes. It also contains precise depictions of contemporary musical metres, and the use of letters and numbers for the notation of melodies. It is the first time that this occurs in history, making it a unique work of greatest value. Al-Urmawi's 'international' modal system was intended to represent the predominant Arab and Persian local musical traditions.
By its conciseness it became the most popular and influential book on music for centuries. No other Arabic (Persian or Ottoman Turkish) music treatise was so often copied, commented upon and translated into Oriental (and Western) languages. The Kitab al-Adwār was conceived as a compendium (mukhtasar) of the standard musical knowledge of its time.
The Kitab al-Adwār was translated several times into Persian language
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
and there also exists an Ottoman Turkish
Ottoman Turkish language
The Ottoman Turkish language or Ottoman language is the variety of the Turkish language that was used for administrative and literary purposes in the Ottoman Empire. It borrows extensively from Arabic and Persian, and was written in a variant of the Perso-Arabic script...
translation.
Al-Urmawi’s second book, Risāla al-Sharafiyya, was written around 665/1267. It is dedicated to his student and later patron, Sharaf al-Din Harun Juvayni (Juvayn is a town in Khorasan
Greater Khorasan
Greater Khorasan or Ancient Khorasan is a historical region of Greater Iran mentioned in sources from Sassanid and Islamic eras which "frequently" had a denotation wider than current three provinces of Khorasan in Iran...
). He was part of the scientific, literary and artistic circle of the Juvayni family. Through these gatherings, al-Urmawi was in contact with the Persian scholar Nasir al-Din Tusi. Nasir al-Din Tusi, who left a short treatise on the proportions of musical intervals perceivable in the pulse may have stimulated al-Urmawī's interest in Greek science and music theory.
These two major books have become the foundation of academic discourse on Arabic music, most notably modern works by Briton Owen Wright.
Commentaries on these theoretical works were written as early as the 1370s.
See also
- musicologie.org Full score (French)
- al-Urmawi's manuscript, Adilnor Collection.
- Persian traditional music
- Arabic music
- DastgahDastgahDastgāh is a musical modal system in traditional Persian art music. Persian art music consists of twelve principal musical modal systems or dastgāhs; in spite of 50 or more extant dastgāhs, theorists generally refer to a set of twelve principal ones...
- Arabic LiteratureArabic literatureArabic literature is the writing produced, both prose and poetry, by writers in the Arabic language. The Arabic word used for literature is adab which is derived from a meaning of etiquette, and implies politeness, culture and enrichment....
- BaghdadBaghdadBaghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
- MugniMugniThe mugni resembles a tar except that the two globes are connected and not separated like the tar's. During Ghuri rulers and Khwarizmi music grew. Two notable theorists of this era were Fakhr al-Din al-Razi and Nasir al-Din al-Tusi. Another Persian theorist was Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi who was...