Author
Ṣafī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Muʾmin ibn Yūsuf al-Urmawī
Publication Date
3 Ramaḍān 1073 (AH, Hijri qamari)
Type
Book
Language
Arabic
Digital
Yes
Manuscript
Yes
Pages Count
1
Library
Qatar Digital Library
Library Asset ID
Or 2361, ff 18r-32r
Record ID
vdc_100131607039.0x000008
Library Location
British Library: Oriental Manuscripts
Date
3 Ramaḍān 1073 (AH, Hijri qamari)
Notes
A copy of
Kitāb al-adwār fī ʿilm al-mūsīqī
(The Book of Roles in the Science of Music), a seminal work on musical theory in fifteen chapters by Ṣafī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Muʾmin ibn Yūsuf al-Urmawī (Safi al-Din Abd al-Mu’min ibn Yusuf al-Armawī, d. 1294). The text includes a number of tables and diagrams in the form of circles, some incomplete in the present copy.
The copy was completed in Lahore on 3 Ramaḍān 1073/11 April 1663 and collated with three other manuscripts on 28 Ramaḍān 1074/24 April 1664 (see
colophon
Section at the end of a manuscript text.
, f. 32r, transcribed below).
Contents:
Introduction (f. 18v);
Section One: Definition of the Notes and Explanation of High and Low Pitch (Chapter One: Definition of the Note and Explanation of High and Low Pitch, f. 18v);
Section Two: The Division of the Frets (ff. 18v-19r);
Section Three: Interval Ratios (Chapter Three on Dimensional Ratios, f. 19r-20r);
Section Four: The Necessitating Causes of Dissonance (f. 20r-20v);
Section Five: On Consonant Harmony, f. 20v-21r);
Section Six: The Modes and Their Relationships (Chapter Six on roles and their ratios, ff. 21r-25r);
Section Seven: The Arrangement of Two Strings (Chapter Seven on the Rule of Two Strings, f. 25r);
Section Eight: Discussion of the ‘Ūd, Tuning its Strings, and Deriving Scales from Them
Section Nine: The Names of the Scales (ff. 25v-26v);
Section Ten: Tone Sharing of the Scales, ff. 26v-27r;
Section Eleven: Transposed Cycles (Chapter Eleven, ff. 27r-28v);
Section Twelve: Scordatura (Chapter XII, f. 29r);
Section Thirteen: Rhythm, ff. 29r-31v;
Section Fourteen: Influence of the Modes (f. 31v);
Section Fifteen: Musical Practice (Chapter Fifteen, f. 31v).
Diagrams and Tables:
Diagram showing intervals within an octave and diagram showing intervals within two octaves (f. 19v);
Circular diagrams showing the number of consonant intervals within modes (ff. 21v, 22r [two] 22v [two], 23r);
Table of the eighty-four possible tetrachord and pentachord species combinations (ff. 23r-24v);
Diagram of the stringing of a lute (lute, f. 25v);
Table of the twelve conventional modes (the roles according to their convention; f. 26r);
Table of the six secondary modes known as
awāzāt
(Awazat; f. 26v);
Diagram (unfinished) describing the progression of notes within the modes (f. 26v);
Tabulation of fingering (f. 27r);
Transposition tables (incomplete; ff. 27v-28v);
Circular diagrams of rhythmic cycles (ff. 30r-31v).
Begins (f. 18v, lines 1-3)
Praise be to God, Lord of the two worlds, and may His blessings be upon the Seal of the Prophets, Muhammad and all his family. He has commanded me who is obligatory
By obeying his commands and striving to follow the paths of the goals of his thoughts, I will create for him a summary of knowledge.
Melody, its aspect ratios, roles, roles and types of rhythm...
Ends (f. 32r, lines 24-25):
Let this amount be sufficient in this art, and God knows best what is right and to Him is the return and return. May God’s blessings and peace be upon our master Muhammad.
And to all his good and pure family, and may peace be upon him abundantly...
Colophon
Section at the end of a manuscript text.
(f. 32r, lines 25-34):
...The drafting of this honorable message called roles has come to an end
In music, the third of Ramadan in the year one thousand and seventy-third
From the migration in the town of Lahore, he protected it from the scourges of time
By writing to Qubad bin
Abdul Jalil Al-Muhattam Badiantkhan
Done
It was met with three solid copies and an explanation
Carrier of the text in the year 1074
On the 28th of Ramadan
Erişim Koşulları
Unrestricted
Bulma Yardımcıları
Farmer, Henry George,
The Sources of Arabian Music. An Annotated Bibliography of Arabic Manuscripts which Deal with the Theory, Practice, and History of Arabian Music
(Leiden: Brill, 1965), no. 252, pp. 48-49
Rieu, Charles,
Supplement to the Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the British Museum
(London: The British Museum, 1894), Item 823, III, pp. 558-59
Shiloah, Amnon,
The Theory of Music in Arabic Writings (c. 900-1900): Descriptive Catalogue of Manuscripts in Libraries of Europe and the U.S.A.
(Munich: G. Henle Verlag, 1979), item 222, pp. 308-11
Seçilmiş kaynakça
Editions:
Urmawī, ʻAbd al-Muʼmin ibn Yūsuf,
Kitāb al-Adwār fī ma
ʻ
rifat al-nagham wa-al-adwār
, ed. by Ḥusayn ʻAlī Maḥfūẓ (Baghdād: Mudīrīyat al-Funūn wa-al-Thaqāfah al-Shaʻbīyah bi-Wizārat al-Irshād, 1961)
Urmawī, ʿAbd al-Muʼmin ibn Yūsuf,
Kitāb al-Adwār
, ed. by Hāshim Muḥammad al-Rajab ([Baghdad]: al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʿIrāqīyah, Wizārat al-Thaqāfah wa-al-Iʿlām, Dār al-Rashīd, 1980)
Urmawī, ʿAbd al-Muʾmin ibn Yūsuf,
al-Adwā
r fī al-mūsīqá
, ed. by Ghaṭṭāṣ ʿAbd al-Malik Khashabah and Maḥmūd Aḥmad al-Ḥifnī (al-Qāhirah: al-Hayʾah al-Miṣrīyah al-ʿĀmmah li-l-Kitāb, 1986)
Facsimile edition:
Urmawī, ʿAbd al-Muʾmin ibn Yūsuf,
Book on the Cyclic Forms of Musical Modes Kitāb al-adwār, and Treatise Dedicated to Sharaf al-Dīn on Proportions in Musical Composition al-Risālah al-Sharafīyah fī'l-nisab al-taʾlīfī
yah
, ed. by Fuat Sezgin (Frankfurt: Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, 1984)
Study:
Wright, Owen, 'A Preliminary Version of the
Kitāb al-Adwār
',
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
58.3 (1995) pp. 455-78
