Writing for the ‘Abbasid Caliph al-Musta‛sim (r. 1242–1258), Safi al-Din Urmawi (d. 1294) initially produced the most widely cited Arabic texts that described a fundamental premise for pitch structures concordant with a basic model of the twelve-maqam system. His description came in the context of extrapolations on ideas about music found in the Greek-based tradition of Islamic philosophy that had previously developed within the Caliphate.
While Safi al-Din’s ideas would be remembered and quoted for centuries after his death, a man named Muhammad bin Muhammad bin Muhammad Nishaburi who served in the Turkic Ghaznavid court of Bahram Shah (r. 1118–1152) had written about a similar if simpler conception of twelve pitch modalities somewhat earlier. Nishaburi did not appear to know about the Graeco-Arabic writing tradition farther west, yet his structural conception of twelve primary pitch modalities mirrored Safi al-Din’s discussions of twelve pitch modalities in significant ways.
Persian writings about music did eventually take on the influence of the Graeco-Arabic writing tradition, and many Persian writings that describe the twelve-maqam system in more consistent detail beginning in the fourteenth century reflect the influence of the broader philosophical discussions that had grown out of the prior Graeco-Arabic discourses on music. Some Persian writings comment directly on the writings of Safi al-Din, including writings about music from the mystical philosopher Qutb al-Din Shirazi (d. 1311), and the prolific court musician ‘abd al-Qader al-Maraghi (d. 1434).
Safi al-Din, Qutb al-Din, and Maraghi form the core of what Henry George Farmer called “the Systematic School” because of their ability to synthetize many of the priorities of earlier Graeco-Ara-bic writings in relation to practice. Yet all three also described some version of the twelve-maqam system, with Shirazi and Maraghi discussing it both as Safi al-Din described it and as an aspect of musical practice in their different lifetimes and locations.
The relevance of themes derived directly from earlier Graeco-Arabic writings continued in the sixteenth century, as information from this earlier tradition transferred directly into subsequent Persian writings. Maraghi’s Persian writings were some of the most directly cited authorities on music in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and writings like his kept the Graeco-Arabic framing of the twelve-maqam system represented by Safi al-Din. The longer that Persian remained the lingua franca, however, the more direct knowledge of the Graeco-Arabic tradition waned.
By the seventeenth century, writings about the twelvemaqam system focused more completely on the twelve-maqam system, and had fewer philosophical trappings of earlier musical discourses. Basic themes initiated in Graeco-Arabic writing centuries earlier remained part of the musical discourse, but direct knowledge of the origins of these discourses dissipated.
The Twelve-Maqam System
