University of Texas Press

The Symbolism of the 'Ūd

Author(s): Theodore Grame
Source: Asian Music, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1972), pp. 25-34
Published by: University of Texas Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/834102
Accessed: 24/02/2009 11:32

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=texas.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the
scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that
promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

University of Texas Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Asian Music.

http://www.jstor.org
 THE SYMBOLISM OF THE 'UD

by
Theodore Grame

The 'ud (Arabic: wood) is the instrument par excellence of Arab classical music;
for a thousand years poets have chanted its praises throughout the length and
breadth of Islam. In both name and substance al-'uid has migrated far and wide,
to Europe, Africa, and Western Asia; its pear-shaped back is a familiar object
if only because painters took delight in delineating it in oriental miniatures and
European paintings. The pear-shaped lute belongs to an extremely widespread
family that includes among many other representatives the Chinese p'ip'a and
the biwa of Japan. Morphologically, the p'ip'a is very like the 'fid: Both
instruments possess rounded back, lateral pegs, a swept-back peg box, and
wooden bellies. An origin in the area of Persia1 has been postulated for the
instrument, but the earliest clear delineation of a pear-shaped lute is found in the
Gandhara frescoes of India (c. 100 A. D. )2, though this instrument possesses what
Sachs calls a "barb"---actually a sort of waist. This aspect, in the opinion of
the present writer, likens the instrument more to the Persian tar than to the 'utd.

We have pointed out above that the 'utd and its relatives have wooden bellies
as a distinguishing characteristic; it is possible in this way to rather clearly
distinguish the members of this family from the equally common skin-bellied
lutes. It is probable that the name, al-'td, refers to the wooden belly specifically
since "it was when the wooden-bellied lute was adopted that the instrument was
named the 'td. "3 While it is a musicological commonplace that the name means
specifically "wood, "4 it is only fair to indicate that there are scholars who dissent
from the commonly held view. Sachs, for instance, holds that the term refers,
not to wood, but to "flexible stick. "5 Thus, he would connect the instrument to
the Sumerian lute, with its sometimes curved handle, and, ultimately to the
musical bow. Whatever may have been Sach's reason for this assertion, the
lexicographical evidence does not seem to support such an interpretation of the
Arabic word, except, perhaps, in the sense that a flexible rod may well be made
of wood. Another opinion at variance with the usual one is given by d'Erlanger
(who must be taken very seriously as an authority); h4e believes that the word 'id
used in its musical sense had the meaning of chelys (Greek: tortoise).6 He
admits that the primary significance of 'ud is "wood, " but says that the two early
Arabic lexicons, the Qamus and Jawheri, give the sense of "tortoise. " This is
extremely interesting, for not only venerable Greek tradition (Apollo, according
to legend, fashioned the first lyre from a tortoise shell and its sinews) but actual
manufacture of lutes utilizes the tortoise shell. Whatever the legendary and
lexicographical significance of the word may be, there is no doubt, we shall see,
that the principal significance of 'lud, as the word applies to a musical instrument,
is "wood. " On the simplest level, the instrument that is known by this name
always possesses a wooden belly, but beyond this, a substantial body of legendary-
poetic tradition stresses the primacy of the tree as the true progenitor of the 'ud,
as we shall see presently.

25
 We have implied that there is a rather large number of legendary or fanciful
notions regarding the origin of the lute, and each of them seems to somehow help
to round out something of the total picture that in sum gives us the Semitic view of
the instrument. According to Villoteau, 7 a number of Arab and Persian authors
attributed the invention of the lute to such Greeks as Pythagoras, or Plato. Those
who were in the Platonic camp describe him as a brilliant performer who was able,
by playing appropriate music, to affect his auditors so strongly that he could first
calm them, then put them to sleep, and finally to awaken them. They tell us
further that Aristotle, who attempted to emulate Plato in this respect, was able to
send his listeners to sleep, but unable to awaken them! For this reason, according
to the tale, he became the disciple of Plato. Sautin, on the other hand, quotes
Abd al-Qadir as saying that the 'uid was invented by Lamech -- son of Cain, that
the drum was invented by Sala -- daughter of Lamech, that the tunbir was
invented by the people of Lot, and that the qanun, rather than the lute, was invented
8 There is much that is of interest in these statements.
by Plato. In the first
place, these derivations are symbolic of the dual heritage of Islamic music and
culture, which drew its strength both from the Greeks and the Semites. It is
appropriate, too, that the accursed children of Cain and Lot should be described
in Arabic sources as the inventors of musical instruments. (The Hebrews them-
selves said that Jubal, another of the sons of Lamech, was "the father of all such
as handle the harp [kinnor, actually a lyre] and the organ ['ugab]"). 9 In other
words, music, no matter what heights it may reach in the playing of a David,
descends from, and is the prerogative of, the sin-ridden children of Cain and Lot.
Anyone who has worked in North Africa can testify that even at the present time
music remains a low-caste occupation that is closely identified in the eyes of
respectable Muslims with depravity and sexual excess. 10 Moreover, like many
other attitudes of Islam, this point of view is paralleled in popular attitudes towards
the Griots of West Africa. 11 Further, a well-educated Tunisian once told the
present writer that all musicians in his native land were prostitutes. We shall
refer later to other aspects of this problem.

There is one final bit of information to be wrung out of Abd al-Qadir's story:
the invention of the lute was attributed to a son of Cain, and the drum to a grand-
daughter. In this case too modern practice conforms to tradition, for the drum,
in North Africa as in many other places, is a woman's instrument, while the lute
is a man's. Indeed, in Mauritania, women are specifically excluded from playing
the indigenous lute, the tidinitl2

The ninth-century savant Ibn Salama presents a story about the origin of the
'ud in his Kitab al-Malahf (Book of Musical Instruments) 3 that with its anthropo-
morphic point of view is typical of a good deal of Arabic writing about musical
instruments; its relative inaccessibility makes it worthwhile to include it in its
entirety.

Hisham ibn al-Kalbi [d. c. 819] mentioned that the the first
who made the lute and played on it was a man of the sons
of Qabil [Abel; the account is contrary to the one in Genesis]
some say Qabfn, the son of Adam, called Lamk [Lamech].
He had a long life, and as he had no children he married

26
 fifty wives and took two hundred concubines. Then two
girls, one of whom was called Sila' and the other Yamk,
were born to him. Afterwards a boy was born to him
ten years before he died, and he was extremely pleased.
But the boy died when he was five years old, and [Lamk]
grieved sorely for him. So he took him and hung him
on a tree and said: "His form will not depart from my
eyes until he falls in pieces, or I die. Then his flesh
began to fall from his bones till [only] the thigh remained,
with the leg, foot, and toes. So he took a piece of wood,
split it, made it thin, and began to arrange one piece
on another. Then he made a chest to represent the
thigh, a neck to represent the leg, a peg-box (ibzrm)
the same size as the foot, and pegs (malawf) like the
toes; and to it strings like sinews. Then he began to
play on it and weep and lament, until he became blind:
and he was the first who sang a lament. What was
made was called an 'ud (lute) because it was made
from a piece of wood ('ud).

To this account we might add a later, but related one, from the fifteenth
century Kitab Kashf al-Humum (The Book of Important Discoveries).14

The first who made the ten-stringed lute was al-

Farabr [not the famous philosopher of the same name]
and the reason was this. A man died in the city in
which he was living, and as he was one of the leading
men... al-Farabf went to the funeral ..... While in
the cemetery he passed a tomb which was uncovered
where he saw a corpse... showing the legs and the
veins. He counted the veins in the legs and found
ten. It was this which prompted him to make a lute
of ten strings.

The interpretation of these two tales is difficult, and some would say that it
was not worthwhile. We must remember, however, that this legendary material
is as much a part of the history of, and the attitude towards, the instrument as
its corporeal nature is; these stories, which must have been well known, were
part and parcel of the Arab attitude towards the instrument. Moreover, the
question of the anthropomorphism and zo8morphism is of first importance to the
student of organology, and indeed it may well have revolutionary implications
regarding the very nature of musical instruments; it would, however, be out of
place to consider the matter further in the present work except insofar as it
relates to the examples already quoted (and those to be considered presently). In
the two tales that we have here re-told, the lute is first made, not because it is
expected to sound only--or even primarily--but as a kind of composite aural-
visual representation--a sounding, and hence superior statue, if you will, that
in a way resurrects the dead. In other words, the instrument is not to be thought

27
of only as a technological device for the production of sound, but rather as an
organically unified corporeal object that exists, like the creatures after which it
is patterned, visually, tactually, and aurally.

To these anthropomorphic discussions we might add an example representative

of another sort of common literary treatment of the instrument; in this genre,
which was much in favor with poets, it is common to dwell on the implications
that can be drawn from the origin of the instrument as part of a tree. In the
Thousand and One Nights the poet sings:15

A tree while ere I was, the bulbul's home,

To whom for love I bowed my grass-green head;
They moaned on me, and I their moaning learnt
And in that moan my secret all men read:
The woodman felled me without offense,
And slender lute of me (as view me) made;
But, when the fingers smite my strings, they tell
How man despite my patience did me dead. 15a

Here, then, much is made of the transmission of music from the "moaning"
of the bulbul to the tree, which then, slain by men, was able for ever to render
the songs that it had learned from the birds. (In this connection it is not without
interest to note that in a way this happens actually as well as figuratively, for
the plectrum of the 'ud is made, in fact, from the plume or claw of a bird.) Thus
the bird in one sense does sing on the strings of the lute in reality as well as in
fancy. Such beliefs, we might add, are by no means confined to the Arab world.
Armstrong16 quotes a medieval Irish poem about the famous harp of O'Brien in
which the instrument is referred to as follows:

Bring unto me the harp of my king

Until upon it I forget my grief
A man's grief is soon banished
By the notes of the sweet-sounding tree
He to whom this music-tree belonged
He was a noble youth of sweet performance
Many an inspired song he sweetly sang
To that elegant, sweet voiced instrument.

Again, in the great Finnish epic the Kalevala, the hero Wainamoinen, having
lost his kantele made of fish-bone, wanders disconsolately through a forest. He
hears the wailing of a birch-tree and says:

I will turn thy grief to joyance

Make thee laugh and sing with gladness
Then the ancient Wainamoinen
Made the harp [kantele] from sacred birch-wood.17

Later in the poem, Wainamoinen constructs tuning-pegs for the instrument from
the gold and silver tones of the cuckoo; he fashions the strings from a maidents
tresses.

28
 Other instances of this way of thinking about instruments might easily be added;
but as a generalization we might say that most exemplify one or more of the themes
that we have given here: the instrument is made from the body of the beloved,
from the corpse of a (totem) animal, or from a tree. We are not attempting to
imply that there is a direct, casual relationship between the Celtic and Finno-
Ugric worlds and the Semitic one--though we are not attempting to deny it either;
the parallels, however, are too strong to ignore.

Still another type of writing abounds in Islam about musical instruments; in

the copious theoretical writings on music of such great Arabic-speaking philoso-
phers as al Farabf, al-Kindr, and Avicenna(Ibn-Sina) there are many references
to the lute that might be referred to as scientific, or scholarly. In these, instru-
ments are treated mainly as aids that help to clarify the acoustical and physical
nature of sound. For al-Farabl the lute is useful chiefly as a kind of laboratory
instrument comparable to the monochord of medieval Europe. Farabf devotes
many pages of his important Kitabu-l-Musiqi al-Kabir (The Great Book on Music)18
to a discussion of the nature of pitch-relationships, referring often to the tuning
and string division of the 'uid in order to demonstrate his points. Moreover,
there was a feeling among these medieval savants that instrumental music was
somehow inferior to song, a point of view that is familiar to students of European
music. Farabb, for instance, believed that "notes engendered on all instruments
are of a quality inferior to those of the voice. "20 Indeed, al-Farabl goes so far as
to say that musical ability is of two kinds: the first is the perfect execution of
"perfect" intervals by the voice, and the other consists of the playing of musical
instruments. As far as the function of instrumental music is concerned, it
furnishes preludes, responses, and interludes; further--and more practically--
it permits the singer to rest. This attitude towards the relationship between the
instrumental and vocal components of a performance exists amongst the Berbers
of Sidi Ifni, indeed, it is of extremely wide occurrence generally. It seems odd
that Farab? should express these views concerning the inferiority of instrumental
music, for unlike most other philosophers who wrote about music, he was apparently
a player of legendary skill. For example, there is an oft-quoted story concerning
an incognito visit to the Caliph Sayf al-Dulat; while there, he was asked to play.
When he did so, he at first made the audience burst into uncontrollable laughter;
then he played another piece that made it weep; finally he put them all to sleep. 21
This story, undoubtedly apocryphal, is reminiscent of those that were told about
his illustrious predecessors Plato and Aristotle; beyond this, however, it fur-
nished a hint of the Arab attitude towards music itself. According to this, various
modes had--and in the Maghrib, at least, still have--appropriate times of day
for performance. Further, it is allied to the all pervasive doctrine of the ethos,
which was dear to the hearts of these medieval writers on music.

Avicenna, in his Kitabu-l-Shifa' (Book of Mathematics)22 devotes most of the

space that he allots to musical instruments to a discussion of problems of tuning
and the physics of sound. He does inform us, however, that the 'ud is the best
known of musical instruments and the one most in public favor. 23 Moreover, he
amplifies the information concerning the number of strings on the lute that we
gained from one of the above-mentioned anthropomorphic legends: he tells us
that the lute sometimes has five courses, but more often four.24 The instrument,

29
he says, was generally tuned in fourths, whether it had four or five pairs of
strings. 25

It is possible in this early literature to find rather specific information regarding

the desired physical qualities of the lute, though often this is combined by the
authors into a general treatment of numerology and the doctrine of the ethos. We
are provided with detailed instructions regarding the proper method of constituting
lute strings, for example, in the Fourteenth-century Persian source, the Kanz al-
Tuhaf. This manuscript says that the strings, if made of silk, should be "white,
smooth, of equal gauge and well finished. These are boiled in water and ashes,
and are then washed two or three times in pure water and dried in the shade. "26
After this is done, a paste is to be made of the essence of saffron mixed with gum;
this must be rubbed into the strings with a piece of linen, after which they are
dried and ready for use. Next the source provides a description of the correct
manner of producing strings of various gauges, and here we enter into the realm
of numerology and the doctrine of ethos, which esoterica was of first importance
to such philosophers as al-Kindi,27 ai-Farabf, and Sa'adyah Goan.28

"The strings are. . twisted into the following gauges. The bamm string is
made of 64 threads, the mathlath of 48, the mathna of 32,the zir string of 24, and
the had string of 16. 29 This series of numbers is chosen, not pragmatically, but
because of its close relationship to the series of mathematical proportion (2 : 4
8 : 16 : 32 : 64). Echoes of this system are still able to be found today. This
choice of numbers was by no means the only possible; the Ikhwan al-Safa', for
instance, tell us that the proper number of strands for the four-stringed lute is
64, 48, 36, and 27. 30 The only number common to the two system, then, is 64.
The Ikhwan explain that reason for their selection of proportions in the following
manner: the primary element fire is a third greater in essence than air; air is
a third greater than water; water is a third greater than earth. 31 Thus, each of
the strings of the instrument is linked with one of the elements.32

Farmer33 has assembled from various sources a table that shows the ways
in which these phenomena and substances relate to each other and to the four
strings of the lute. The lowest string, bamm (A), is equated with old age, with
water, with winter, and with night; the upper one, zir (C) is coupled with courage,
fire, attractiveness, pride, and so on. The lower tones, then, symbolize resig-
nation and quiescence, while the upper ones characterize activity and movement.
Similar doctrines were widely propounded in the ancient world and in medieval
Europe.

The famous musician Ziryab, who played on occasion at the brilliant court of
Harin al-Rashrd, where his teacher performed, worked mainly in Andalusia, and
while there he is said to have added a fifth course to the lute. 34 (We have already
seen that another Andalusian, Avicenna, mentions the existence of a fifth string
on the 'ud. ) Ziryab must have been a remarkable musician, for his emoluments
are said to have amounted to 40, 000 pieces of gold each year. His inventiveness
extended beyond the mere addition of a fifth string to his instrument, for his lute
was much lighter35 than the usual one, and his strings, according to Ribera, 36
were constituted differently from those of other players, in that the lowest and

30
third ones were made of lion-gut. The fourth string was black, the symbol of
melancholy; the thirdcwhite,for phlegm, the second,red,for blood; and the highest,
yellow, for bile. He added a second red string in the middle, and it symbolized
the soul.37

The Ikhwan al-Safa' attempted to delineate the relationship between the strings
of the lute and medical practices. The mathlath string, for example, gave "perfect
health to those who are tormented with maladies that are ordinary to youth.",,
The instrument, then, is integrated into nearly every aspect of Arab life. 39.

Numerous old sources treat of the ideal proportions of the 'ud; it is rare indeed
that actual measurements are given, but rather, the relationships of various
parts to one another are explained. A common--though by no means invariable--
formula is as follows. 40

length of body = half again as much as width

depth = half of width
length of neck = one quarter of the length of body.

As far as the actual size of the instrument is concerned, it is difficult to come

to any one definitive conclusion, simply because so many sizes of lute existed.
As a general rule, however, we might assign to the sound-chamber of the typical
lute a width of about 15 inches and a length of about 20. An 'ud of approximately
this size is delineated in a Thirteenth-century miniature from Spain or Morocco;41
it shows Bayad playing the instrument to his lady-love. If the hand of the player
is about four inches in width the lute must more or less conform to the dimensions
that we have given above. We are not confined to iconographical evidence in our
investigations, however, for the Kanz al-Fuhaf confirms that the width was about
what we have suggested, and that the depth was half of this.

Much larger lutes existed as well, however. In a miniature painted in the

sixteenth century by the Persian miniaturist Mir Sayyid Ali;there is a delineation
of a seated 'ud-player whose instrument is so large that he can barely reach
his arm around the body in order to pluck the strings. 43 It must have been a lute
of this size that a "very erudite oriental" described to Villoteau in the following
words: The "true [veritable] 'ud was of a dimension much greater than the instru-
ment that bears the name today; but, as its size [volume] rendered it extremely
cumbersome, they have substituted for it the one that we know, and have dis-
tinguished it by the name 'ud kuitra, which signifies small guitar-lute.. "44 A
lute of this size is described-in a fourteenth century source, the Hawr al-funin
wa salwat al-mahzin, by Ibn al-Tahhan al-Musfqi, according to whom the instru-
ment is about three feet in width. 45

Authors differ markedly in their opinions as to the most satisfactory materials

for construction of the 'fid: Ibn al-Tahhan prefers larch-wood. 46 Other writers
prefer beech, elm, or walnut, but all agree that the wood should be light, thin,
and well-seasoned. Moreover, it is essential that the wood be of even thickness
both on the belly and the back.

31
 As to whether the medieval tud was fretted, there has been much controversy.
Most scholars, who have relied on iconographical evidence, have concluded that
the lute was not fretted, for there is no known delineation of a fretted 'ud, though
many illustrations are extant. Farmer, however, adamantly maintained that the
instrument was fretted. 47 He relied for this conclusion on the frequent use in
the sources of the Persian word dasatin (hands; frets); further, it seems unrea-
sonable to suppose that the lute when used for acoustical experiments would have
been unfretted. Whatever may be the truth of his thesis--and it is possible to
suppose that the 'ud, like the viola da gamba, was played both with and without
frets--the evidence is quite incontrovertible that the present-day traditional 'ud
is not fretted. Perhaps, as we have suggested, frets were used for investigations
into the physics of sound, but were abandoned when virtuoso musicians performed.

NOTES

1. C. Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments, New York: Norton 1940.

2. This waisted, or "barbed" lute may actually form a separate variety. Another
example would be the sarod. Cf. Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments,
161.

3. H. Farmer, "The Music of Islam, " in The New Oxford History of Music I,
Ancient and Oriental Music, London: Oxford University Press, 1957, 446.

4. The word 'ud, coming from the verb Jg , "to turn back, to come back,"
means "wood, stick, branch, rod, " and so forth. Cf. Hans Wehr, A
Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic (ed by M. Cowan), Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1961, entry: gIS (p. 6. 53).

5. C. Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments, 253.

6. In his La Musique arabe I, 323. Farmer ("The Structure of the Arabian and
Persian Lute in the Middle Ages, " in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,
Jan., 1939) denies that either lexicon contains such a statement. Cf. p. 42.

7. M. Villoteau, Description historique, technique, et litteraire des instruments

de musique des orientaux, in Description de 1'Egypte, Etat Moderne, Tome
premier. Paris: L'imprimerie Imperiale; 1809, 1848.

8. A. Sautin, "La Musique antique dans le Monde Oriental," in Revue Africaine,

1950, 333.

9. Genesis 4:21.

10. C. Coon, Tribes of the Rif, 92. Cf. also T. Grame, "Music in the Jma
al-Fna of Marrakesh, " in The Musical Quarterly LVI, 1970, 77.

32
11. A. Merriam, The Anthropology of Music, Evanston: Northwestern University
Press, 1964, 138-139.

12. G. Balandier and P. Mercier, "Notes sur les theories musicales Naures a
" in Conferencia
porpos de chants enrigestres, internacional des africanistas
ocidentais II. Conferencia Bissau 1947 vol. V. Trabalhos apresentados a 3.

13. al-Mufaddal ibn Salama, Kitab al-Malahr, transl. by J. Robson as Ancient

Arabian Musical Instruments (vol. IV of Collection of Oriental Writers on
Music), Glasgow: Civic Press, 1938.

14. H. Farmer, "The Structure of the Arabian and Persian Lute, " 50.

15. R. Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (Benares ed. ),
The Burton Club, n. d., 281.

15a. A similar theme is applied in Persian poetry to the nay:

Hearken to this Reed forlorn
Breathing, ever since 'twas torn
From its rushy bed, a strain
of impassioned love and pain.
(Translation in R. A. Nicholson, Rumi--Poet and Mystic, London: George
Allen and Unwin, 1950, 31. )

16. Quoted in R. Armstrong, Musical Instruments Part One: The Irish and the
Highland Harp, Edinburgh: Douglas, 1904, 12.

17. Quoted in H. Panum, Stringed Instruments of the Middle Ages, London:

Reeves, n. d.

18. Transl. by R. d'Erlanger in vols. I and II of La Musique arabe.

19. Ibid. I, 165-207, passim.

20. Ibid. I, 22.

21. M. Villoteau, Description historique, 848, n.

22. Transl. by R. d'Erlanger as the second part of vol. II of La Musique arabe.

Cf. esp. pp. 105-245.

23. La Musique arabe II, 234.

24. Ibid., 235 f.

25. Ibid., 236.

26. Quoted in H. Farmer, Studies in Oriental Musical Instruments I, 95.

33
27. H. Farmer, Sa'adyah Gaon on the Influence of Music, London: Probsthain, 12.

28. Ibid., chap. III.

29. H. Farmer, Studies in Oriental Musical Instruments II, 95.

30. Ibid., 92.

31. H. Farmer, Sa'adyah Gaon, 8.

32. Ibid., 4-8.

33. In Ibid., 9, Farmer provides a table that synthesizes the views of various
writers on this subject.

34. Details concerning his history are found in H. Farmer, A History of Arabian
Music to the XIII Century, London: Luzac, 1929, 128-130.

35. J. Ribera, Music in Ancient Spain and Arabia (transl. by E. Hague from La
musica de las cantigas), Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1929, 100.

36. Ibid., 102. In Farmer's version we are told that the second, third and fourth
strings were made of lion-gut. Cf. his History of Arabian Music, 109.

37. Ribera, Music in Ancient Spain and Arabia, 103.

38. J. Laborde, Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne, Paris: Pierres,

1780, vol. I, 194.

39. By this we mean to say that the 'ud plays it part in folklore, in medicine,
in science and mathematics, and of course in music. Phenomena of this
sort derive from--and contribute to--the widespread influence, in Arabic
culture, of the doctrine of the ethos.

40. H. Farmer, "The Structure of the Arabian and Persian Lute, " passim.

41. This miniature is reproduced in R. Ettinghausen, Arab Painting, 129.

42. H. Farmer, "The Structure, " 48.

43. A reproduction of this miniature, which is now at the Fogg Museum, is

printed in E. Graube, The World of Islam, New York: McGraw-Hill, n. d.,
126.

44. M. Villoteau, Description historique, 850.

45. H. Farmer, "The Structure," 47.

46. Ibid., 46.

47. H. Farmer, Studies in Oriental Musical Instruments II, 59-68.

34