By George Dimitri Sawa

George Dimitri Sawa’s Arabic Musical and Socio-Cultural Glossary of Kitāb al-Aghānī is the first comprehensive lexicographical study of Umayyad and early Abbāsid-era music theory and practices. It defines melodic and rhythmic modes, musical forms, instruments, technical terms and metaphors used in evaluating compositions and performances, and the emotional effects of ṭarab. It explains the processes of composition and learning, performance practice, musical change and aesthetics, and addresses the behavior of court musicians to help understand societal views of music. Medieval dictionaries, reference works on Arabic literature, theoretical treatises as well as full quotations from the Aghānī are used. This glossary will be of interest to scholars and students of the music and socio-cultural history of the early Islamic era.

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Translated and Edited By George Dimitri Sawa

The Book of Songs of al-Isfahani (CE 897-971) is the most extensive collection of anecdotes from pre-Islamic Mecca, Medina, Damascus and Baghdad to the beginning of the tenth century. Entertaining and informative, these gems have remained largely inaccessible to Western readers. This translation presents a collection of love stories and poems, biting satires, daring erotic encounters, descriptions of feminine beauty, bathroom humor and hilariously detailed descriptions of genitalia, sex toys and sex positions, along with stories praising and criticizing both homosexuality and heterosexuality -- topics that set the tone for the Arabian Nights centuries later

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It is an annotated English translation of, and commentaries on, Arabic writings on rhythms from the early Islamic era to the middle of the tenth century. These writings, which reflect rhythmic practices in Mecca, Medina, and the Umayyad and Abbasid courts, exist in many forms: fragments from the eighth and ninth centuries quoted in later sources; anecdotes or speeches about rhythms in works of belles-lettres and music literature; chapters on rhythms in music theory treatises; and treatises specifically devoted to the study of rhythmic theories. The medieval authors are: Ishaq al-Mawsili; al-Isfahani; Mansur ibn Talha; Ibn Khurdadhba; al-Bataliawsi; al-Kindi’s Epistle on the Knowledge Concerning the Composition of Melodies, Epistle on Informative Sections on Music, Book of Stringed Instruments’ al-Farabi’s Grand Book of Music, Book of Rhythms, Book for the Basic Comprehension of Rhythms. Because the study of Arabic rhythms is indebted to ancient Greek treatises, the works of Aristotle and Aristoxenus will also be used. The book also has a Greek-Arabic-English glossaries.

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A historical study in ethnomusicology based on primary sources, it deals with the musicological and anthropological aspects of the music performed by court musicians in the palaces of Baghdad around the time of Harun al-Rashid and his successors. The primary sources are al-Farabi’s Grand Book of Music, Book of Rhythms, and Book for the Basic Comprehension of Rhythms; al-Isfahani’s Book of Songs. The musicological aspects include rhythms in their basic and ornamented forms, and melodic modes and melodic ornaments, nature of preludes, interludes, postludes, instruments and instrumental accompaniments. The anthropological aspects include performance events, context, textual, musical and extra-musical criteria for performance excellence, and effect of tarab on people.

To purchase, email: debra.lacoste@gmail.com