Oud

The oud is very similar to other types of lute, and to Western lutes which developed out of the Medieval Islamic oud.^[5] Similar instruments have been used in the Middle East, predating Islam in Persia. Later, after the Muslim conquest of Persia, other regions and countries developed their own versions of oud, for example in Arabia, Turkey, and other Middle Eastern and Balkan regions. There may even be prehistoric antecedents of the lute.^[6] The oud, as a fundamental difference with the western lute, has no frets and a smaller neck. It is the direct successor of the Persian barbat lute.^[7] The oldest surviving oud is thought to be in Brussels, at the Museum of Musical Instruments.^[8]


An early description of the "modern" oud was given by 11th-century musician, singer and author Al-Hasan Ibn al-Haytham (c. 965–1040) in his compendium on music Ḥāwī al-Funūn wa Salwat al-Maḥzūn. The first known complete description of the ‛ūd and its construction is found in the epistle Risāla fī-l-Luḥūn wa-n-Nagham by 9th-century philosopher of the Arabs Yaʻqūb ibn Isḥāq al-Kindī.^[9] Kindī's description stands thus:


In Pre-Islamic Persia, Arabia and Mesopotamia, the stringed instruments had only three strings, with a small musical box and a long neck without any tuning pegs. But during the Islamic era the musical box was enlarged, a fourth string was added, and the base for the tuning pegs (Bunjuk) or pegbox was added. In the first centuries of (pre-Islamic) Arabian civilisation, the stringed instruments had four courses (one string per course—double-strings came later), tuned in successive fourths. Curt Sachs said they were called (from lowest to highest pitch) bamm, maṭlaṭ, maṭnā and zīr.^[11] "As early as the ninth century" a fifth string ḥād ("sharp") was sometimes added "to make the range of two octaves complete".^[11] It was highest in pitch, placed lowest in its positioning in relation to other strings. Modern tuning preserves the ancient succession of fourths, with adjunctions (lowest or highest courses), which may be tuned differently following regional or personal preferences. Sachs gives one tuning for this arrangement of five pairs of strings, d, e, a, d', g'.^[11]


Historical sources indicate that Ziryab (789–857) added a fifth string to his oud.^[12] He was well known for founding a school of music in Andalusia, one of the places where the oud or lute entered Europe. Another mention of the fifth string was made by Al-Hasan Ibn al-Haytham in Ḥāwī al-Funūn wa Salwat al-Maḥzūn.