Safi al-Din Urmawi

Safi al-Din al-Urmawi (PerB|صفی الدین الاورموی) (born ca. 1216 A.D in Urmia died in 1294 A.D.) 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 tones.

Background and life

Abd al-Muʾmin b. Yusuf b. Fakhir al-Urmawi Baghdadi (Sufi al-Dīn in some Ottoman sources), renowned musician and writer on the theory of music, was born ca. 613/1216, probably in Urmiya. He died in Baghdad on 28 Ṣafar 693/28 January 1294, at the age of ca. 80. According to the Encyclopedia of Islam Neubauer, E. "Safī al- Dīn al- Urmawi." Encyclopaedia of Islam. Edited by: P. Bearman , Th. Bianquis , C.E. Bosworth , E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill, 2007. Brill Online. ] :cquote
The sources are silent about the ethnic origin of his family. He may have been of Persian descent Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi calls him afdal-i Īrān (A sage of Iran).

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 Juvayni 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 passed away in the Shafii Madrasat al-Khalil in Baghdad.

Music and Music Theory

As a composer, al-Urmawi cultivated the vocal forms of "ṣawt, ḳawl and nawba. 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 [(see H.G. Farmer, Studies in oriental musical instruments, First Series, London 1931)] .

Al-Urmawi's most important work are two books in Arabic Language on music theory, the Kitab al-Adwār and Risāla al-Sharafiyya fi 'l-nisab al-taʾlifiyya. The former was written while he still worked in the library of al-Mustasim. The Abbassid caliph was well-known for his addiction to music.

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 ["History of Civilizations of Central Asia", Contributor Clifford Edmund Bosworth, M.S. Asimov,.Motilal Banarsidass Publ, 2002. pg 596] .

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 Din 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 who left a short treatise on the proportions of musical intervals perceivable in the pulse may have 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. ['Abd al-Qādir al-Marāghī and 'Alī b. Muḥammad Binā'ī: Two Fifteenth-Century Examples of Notation Part 2: Commentary, O. Wright,"Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies," University of London, Vol. 58, No. 1. (1995), pp. 17-39. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0041-977X%281995%2958%3A1%3C17%3A%27AAA%27B%3E2.0.CO%3B2-O ] [A Preliminary Version of the "kitāb al-Adwār," O. Wright,"Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies", University of London, Vol. 58, No. 3. (1995), pp. 455-478. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0041-977X%281995%2958%3A3%3C455%3AAPVOT%22%3E2.0.CO%3B2-P ] Commentaries on these theoretical works were written as early as the 1370s. ["Cultural Authority and Authenticity in the Turkish Repertoire," Walter Feldman, "Asian Music", Vol. 22, No. 1. (Autumn, 1990 - Winter, 1991), pp. 73-111. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0044-9202%28199023%2F199124%2922%3A1%3C73%3ACAAAIT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-V]

References

See also

* Persian music
* Arabic music
* Dastgah
* Arabic Literature
* Baghdad