Books › Studies in oriental musical instruments, 1931 › scan 116
Scan 116
Studies in oriental musical instruments, 1931
18 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1for the omission is that the instrument described is the rubāb, a species of lute, and not the rabāb.1 It was a lute in the fourteenth century, and such it still remains. Indeed, its structure has scarcely altered during the centuries.2
3Concerning the history of the rabāb in Spain Miss Schlesinger says: "The Arab scholar Al-Shaqundi, who flourished in Spain about A.D. 1200, states that the rabāb had been known for centuries in Spain, but was not mentioned on account of its want of artistic merit."3 No source for this statement is given, but again it would seem to have been derived from Engel, or his copyists, who is misquoted.4 All that we possess of the writings of Al-Shaqundi (d. 1231) is contained in the Nafh al-ṭib of Al-Maqqari (d. 1632) and here only the word rabāb is mentioned in a list of musical instruments.5
5Whilst Miss Schlesinger acknowledges the antiquity of both the boat-shaped and the pear-shaped rabāb,6 she says that we have no proof of the antiquity of the flat-chested instrument, known nowadays as the rabāb al-šāʿīr.7 "No evidence," she says, "has yet been brought forward that the rabāb al-šāʿīr was in use among the Arabs who conquered Spain in the eighth century; if the instrument was indeed ever introduced into Spain, it has left no trace."8 one of two readings
6Whilst Miss Schlesinger acknowledges the antiquity of both the boat-shaped and the pear-shaped rabāb,6 she says that we have no proof of the antiquity of the flat-chested instrument, known nowadays as the rabāb al-šāʿir.7 "No evidence," she says, "has yet been brought forward that the rabāb al-šāʿir was in use among the Arabs who conquered Spain in the eighth century; if the instrument was indeed ever introduced into Spain, it has left no trace."8 one of two readings
8The evidence of the frescoes of Qusnir 'Amra (eighth century)
101 Ibid., fol. 202, v. See Frontispiece.
112 Adviello, La Musique chez les Persans en 1885, p. 13 and plate. Uspensky, Klassicheskaya Muzyka Uzbekov ("Sovietsky Uzbekistan", Tashkent, 1927), p. 306. Fitrat, Uzbek qilassiq musiqasi (Tashkent, 1927), p. 42.
123 Ency. Brit., xxii, 948.
134 Descr. Cat. . . . South Kensington Museum, 62. Engel says: "Al-Shaqundi, who lived in Spain about A.D. 1200, mentions the rabāb, which may have been in use for centuries without having been thought worthy of notice, on account of its rudeness." For other misquotations see E. Moron-Allen's Violin-Making (1885), p. 41, and Grove's Dictionary of Music (2nd ed.), v, 280.
145 Al-Maqqari, Moh. Dyn., i, 305-6.
156 Ency. Brit., loc. cit.
167 Precursors of the Violin Family, 306.
178 Ency. Brit., loc. cit.
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