Kitāb al-adwār fī ʿilm al-mūsīqī كتاب الادوار في علم الموسيقي al-Urmawī, ʿAbd al-Muʾmin ibn Yūsuf أرموي، عبد المؤمن بن يوسف

Content

The Book of Cycles (كتاب أدوار), a succinct but extremely influential treatise on musical theory by Ṣafī al-Dīn ‘Abd al-Mu’min ibn Yūsuf ibn Fākhir al-Urmawī (صفي الدين عبد المؤمن بن يوسف بن فاخر الأرموي, d. 1294). The title page gives the author's name as Ṣafī al-Dīn ‘Abd al-Mu’min (صفي الدين عبد المؤمن).

The title derives from the use of circular diagrams as graphic representations of the interrelationships of notes within a mode in Section Six, and of rhythmic cycles in Section Thirteen (see Diagrams and Tables below for details).

The copy was finished during daylight hours on Thursday, 20 Ramaḍān 792/1 September 1390 by al-Ḥasan ibn Yūsuf ʿUthmān al-Rūmī (الحسن ابن يوسف عثمان الرومي), who completed his copy at Cairo in the Shrine of Shaykhūn (مقام شيخون, see colophon Section at the end of a manuscript text. , f. 39v, transcribed below). Annotations to some of the tables indicate that the scribe (or later annotator) was familiar with a copy belonging to al-Urmawī 's pupil al-Suhrawardī (see ff. 22r and 23v; compare Bodleian MS Marsh 521 dated 734/1334 and collated with a copy written by al-Suhrawardī).

Contents:

• Title, introduction and contents (ff. 1r-3r);
• Section One: Definition of the Notes and Explanation of High and Low Pitch (الفصل الأول في تعريف النغم وبيان الحدة والثقل, ff. 3r-3v);
• Section Two: The Division of the Frets (الفصل الثاني في تقسيم الدساتين, ff. 3v-5r);
• Section Three: The Ratios of Intervals (الفصل الثالث في نسب الأبعاد, ff. 5r-8r);
• Section Four: The Causes of Dissonance (الفصل الرابع في الأسباب الموجبة للتنافر, ff. 8r-8v);
• Section Five: On Consonant Harmony الفصل الخامس في التأليف الملائم), ff. 8v-11r)
• Section Six: The Modes and Their Relationships (الفصل السادس في الأدوار ونسبها, ff.11r-18r);
• Section Seven: On Two Stringed Instruments (الفصل السابع في حكم الوترين, ff. 18r-18v);
• Section Eight: Tuning the Strings of the Lute, and Deriving Scales from It (الفصل الثامن في تسوية أوتار العود واستخراج الأدوار منه, ff. 18v-19v);
• Section Nine: The Names of the Common Modes (الفصل التاسع في أسماء الأدوار المشهور, ff. 19v-21r);
• Section Ten: Tone Sharing of the Modes (الفصل العاشر في تشارك نغم الأدوار, ff. 21r-23r);
• Section Eleven: Transposed Cycles (الفصل الحادي عشر في أدوار الطبقات , ff. 23r-30r);
• Section Twelve: Unusual Tuning [Scordatura] (الفصل الثاني عشر في الاصطحاب الغير المعهود, ff. 30r-31r);
• Section Thirteen: Rhythmic Cycles (الفصل الثالث عشر في أدوار الإيقاع, ff. 31r-37v);
• Section Fourteen: Influence of the Modes (الفصل الرابع عشر في تأثير النغم, ff. 37v-38r);
• Section Fifteen: Musical Practice (الفصل الخامس عشر في مباشرة العمل, ff. 38r-39v);
• Various poems organised by musical modes (ff. 40r-55v).

Diagrams and Tables:

• Diagram showing intervals within an octave (f. 6r);
• Diagram showing intervals within two octaves (f. 6v);
• Circular diagrams showing the number of consonant intervals within modes (ff. 12r, 12v (two), 13r (two), 14r (mutilated);
• Table of the eighty-four possible tetrachord and pentachord species combinations (ff. 14r-17r);
• Linear representation of the notes in five tetrachords (أبحر, f.17v);
• Diagram of the stringing of a lute (عود, f.19r);
• Table of secondary modes (اوازات, f.21r);
• Diagram concentric circles depicting the progression of notes of each of the twelve main modes (f. 21v); and tabulation of fingering (f. 22r);
• Transposition table for the six secondary modes (اوازات, f. 23v);
• Transposition tables for the twelve main modes (f. 24r-29v);
• Circular diagrams of rhythmic cycles (ff. 33v, 35r, 36r, 36v, 37r (two), 37v (three);
• Sample notation (ff. 38v-39v).

Begins (f. 1v, lines 3-5):

الحمد لله رب العالمين وصلواته على سيدنا محمد

وآله أجمعين أما بعد فقد امرني من يجب علي

امتثال اوامره والتيمن بالسعي في مرامي خواطره

Ends (f. 55v, lines 12-13):

وفيه ايضاً

فيكم تعلّق خاطري وبكم تشرّف ناظري يا نازلين طو يلعاً يا ساكنين محاجر

Colophon Section at the end of a manuscript text. (f. 39v, line 14 and continuing in tail and edge margin):

ونختم الكتاب بحمد الله تعالى ...

وحده والصلوة على من لا نبي بعده ونستغفر الله تعالى عما يؤدي إلى الضلالة

فُرغ نهار الخميس العشرين من رمضان سنة اثنين وتسعين وسبعمائة

في القاهرة المحروسة بمقام شيخون بحمد الله

على يد العبد الجاني المعترف بالذنب والتقصير الحسن ابن يوسف عثمان الرومي الحنفي عفا الله عنه

Extent and format

Codex A collection of pages, usually gathered into quires, and bound between covers. ; i+55+ii

Physical characteristics

Material: Different types of Eastern laid paper

Dimensions: Folios trimmed to 174 x 126 mm leaf [120 x 85 mm written]

Foliation: Eastern Arabic foliation in black ink, British Museum foliation in pencil

Ruling: Misṭarah ; 13 lines per page; vertical spacing 10 lines per 10 cm

Script: Fully vocalised naskh; the scribe was al-Ḥasan ibn Yūsuf ʿUthmān al-Rūmī

Ink: Black ink, with headings in red and gold and overlinings and diagrams in red

Decoration: None

Binding: Red leather binding with central pointed oval medallion on each board.

Condition: Rebound with guarded pages. Some water stains, ink stains and repaired holes in folios.

Marginalia: Notes and comments throughout in different hands; trimmed folios preserve some marginalia as folded fore-edge tabs. Magic square (f. 34r); diagram (f. 34v); a talismanic inscription and a number of poetic inscriptions on title page (f. 1r).

Seals:

Black stamped square seal, barely legible (f. 2r);

Black oval seal (ff. 10r and f. 28r, 43v, 53v);

British Museum stamps ff. 1r, 12r, 19r, 25r, 30r, 35r, 41r, 47r, 52r, 55v.

Written in

Arabic in Arabic script

Type

Manuscript

Access & Reference

Original held at

British Library: Oriental Manuscripts

Access conditions

Unrestricted

Archive reference

Or 136

History of this record

Date(s)

792 (AH, Hijri qamari)

Context of creation

Cairo, Shrine of Shaykhūn (مقام شيخون)

Provenance

Mīr ʿAlī Hassanī al-Bukhārī (مير علي حسني البخاري): his seal, without date (ff. 10r and f. 28r, 43v, 53v)

Immediate source of acquisition

Purchased from the widow of Colonel George William Hamilton (1807-68), Commissioner in Delhi (1823-67), April 1868.

Related material

Finding aids

Cureton, William and Charles Rieu, Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum orientalium qui in Museo Britannico asservantur. Pars secunda, codices arabicos amplectens (London: The British Museum, 1846-71), Item 1660, pp. 746

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. G. Henle Verlag, Munich, (1979), p.309-310.

Select Bibliography

Editions:

Urmawī, ʻAbd al-Muʼmin ibn Yūsuf, Kitāb al-Adwār fī maʻrifat 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 -Adwār fī al-mūsīqá , ed. by Ghaṭṭāṣ ʿAbd al-Malik Khashabah and Maḥmūd Aḥmad al-Ḥifnī (al-Qāhirah: al-Hayʾah al-Miṣrīyah al-ʿĀmmah lil-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-D īn on Proportions in Musical Composition al-Risāla al-Sharafīya fī 'l-nisab al-taʾlīfīyah , ed. by Fuat Sezgin (Frankfurt: Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, 1984).

Studies:

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, p.48-49.

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.

Subjects

Music theory--Early works to 1800

People & organisations

‘Abd al-Mu’min ibn Yūsuf Urmawī

Share this record

• Share on twitter
• Share on facebook

Cite this record in your research

Kitāb al-adwār fī ʿilm al-mūsīqī كتاب الادوار في علم الموسيقي al-Urmawī, ʿAbd al-Muʾmin ibn Yūsuf أرموي، عبد المؤمن بن يوسف, British Library: Oriental Manuscripts, Or 136, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100085098732.0x000001> [accessed 23 April 2024]

Link to this record

https://www.qdl.qa/en/archive/81055/vdc_100085098732.0x000001

IIIF details

This record has a IIIF manifest available as follows. If you have a compatible viewer you can drag the icon to load it.https://www.qdl.qa/en/iiif/81055/vdc_100085098732.0x000001/manifestOpen in Universal viewerOpen in Mirador viewerMore options for embedding images

Copyright: How to use this content