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Scan 111
Studies in oriental musical instruments, 1931
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1third hand) is the Kitāb al-imtā' wa'l-intifā', and the author is not dealing only with contemporary musical instruments.¹
3THE REBEC
5"The Arabs declare," says Miss Schlesinger, "that it was from the Persians they obtained the rabāb, and probably the fiddle-bow at the same time, but this is not stated, yet the Arab name for the bow is derived from the Persian."² This statement is repeated in her article "Rebab" in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, where we are further informed that the word used by the Arabs for "bow" is kamān.³ The authority for these statements is not given in either of these cases, but, again, it would seem that Engel has been the source.⁴
7I am not aware that the Arabs declare that they obtained the rabāb and bow from the Persians. The earliest authority to mention the instrument in connection with Persia is Muhammad ibn Al'īmad al-Khwārizmī (fl. 976–97), who says: "The rabāb is well-known to the people of Persia and Khurāsān."⁵ He was writing in the land of the Sāmānids. His contemporaries Al-Fārābī (d. 950)⁶ and the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā' (tenth century),⁷ also show us that the instrument was "well-known" in Syria and Mesopotamia.
9Legend among Islamic peoples says that the rabāb was played before Solomon, whilst tradition has it that the instrument was known to the Arabs in pre-Islamic times.⁸
11¹ In point of fact, her authority is given as a book entitled, Enumeration of Arab Musical Instruments, xiv, c, which so far as the present writer is aware, has no existence under this title. See my Historical Facts for the Arabian Musical Influence, pp. 336–7.
12² Precursors of the Violin Family, 308.
13³ xxii, 948.
14⁴ Engel, op. cit., 03. Researches into the Early History of the Violin Family, 13.
15⁵ Mafātīh al-'ulām, 237. Cf. Clement Huart's article in Lavignac's Encycl. de la Musique, p. 3071. Ribera, op. cit., 51.
16⁶ Leyden MS., Or. 651, fol. 80.
17⁷ Bombay edit., 1, 02, 97.
18⁸ Evliya Çelebi, Travels, i, ii, 220, 234.
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