(b Maragh; d Herat, 1435). Timurid composer, performer and theorist. He first rose to prominence in the service of the Jalā’irid rulers of Iraq and Azerbaijan, al-Husayn (1374–82) and Ahmad (1382–1410). After the conquest of Baghdad by Tīmūr (1393), most of his career was spent in Samarkand and, especially, Herat, at the courts of Tīmūr and of his successors al-Khalīl (1404–9) and Shāh Rukh (1409–47).
‘Abd al-Qādir was one of the most important and influential theorists of the Systematist school. His most substantial surviving works are the Jāmi‘ al-alhān (‘Compendium of melodies’), largely completed in 1405 and revised in 1413, and the slighter Maqāsid al-alhān (‘Purports of melodies’), which covers essentially the same ground and probably dates from 1418. Written in Persian, which was by then the language of culture, these works proved particularly influential among later 15th-century theorists; but although both thoughtful and highly competent, on the theoretical side they may be regarded as, essentially, restatements and amplifications of the theory elaborated by Safī al-Dīn, the first Systematist theorist, and further developed by Qutb al-Dīn. ‘Abd al-Qādir also wrote a commentary on the Kitāb al-adwār (‘Book of cycles’), by Safi al-Dīn.
The information ‘Abd al-Qādir provides about certain aspects of musical practice is both ample and in some respects novel. He follows the example of Qutb al-Dīn in giving an extensive list of the rhythmic cycles and melodic modes used in his day, indicating a new group of 24 modes in addition to the traditional 12 shudūd and six āwāzāt listed by Safi al-Dīn. He also adds material on ‘ūd tunings and playing techniques, and his coverage of forms and instruments is particularly illuminating, especially in view of the sketchy treatment of them in most earlier works. He lists and partly describes a wide variety of chordophones and aerophones, includes regional forms and exotica, and provides an extensive catalogue of song-types. The latter begins with an analysis of internal structure, accompanied by brief outline specimen notations for the various subsections; it includes an account of the prestigious nawba, a cyclical form of four songs to which he attempted, unsuccessfully, to add a fifth, intended to incorporate features from the preceding four.
‘Abd al-Qādir also became well known as a performer and, especially, composer. He created a number of new rhythmic cycles, and as a young man he made his mark by achieving, for a wager, the unprecedented feat of composing a complete nawba for each day of the month of Ramadan. It is also claimed that, having been sentenced to death by Tīmūr, he owed his life to the impact of his cantillation of the Qur’an. The latter story may be apocryphal, but it is clear that he soon became a figure of legend to whom later compositions were attributed. He is the most prominent of the composers cited in 15th- and 16th-century Middle Eastern song text collections, and he has traditionally been considered the founding father of the Ottoman art music tradition, a number of pieces ascribed to (but certainly not by) him still forming part of the 20th-century Turkish repertory. He is also well known in Uzbekistan and in Central Asia and the Caucasus generally.
Jāmi‘ al-alhān [Compendium of melodies] (MS, GB-Ob Marsh 282; Nūr-i ‘Osmānīya Bibliotek, Istanbul, 3644); ed. T. Bīnish (Tehran, 1987)
Maqāsid al-alhān [Purports of melodies] (MS, GB-Ob Ouseley 264, 385); ed. T. Bīnish (Tehran, 1966, 2/1977)
Sharh-i adwār [Commentary on the Kitāb al-adwār] (MS, Tr-Ino 3651); ed. T. Bīnish (Tehran, 1991)
EI1 (H.G. Farmer)
H.G. Farmer: ‘ ‘Abdalqādir ibn Ġaibī on Instruments of Music’, Oriens, xv (1962), 242–8
M. Bardakçı: Maragali Abdülkadir (Istanbul, 1986)
E. Neubauer: ‘Zur Bedeutung der Begriffe Komponist und Komposition in der Musikgeschichte der islamischen Welt’, Zeitschrift für Geschichte der arabisch-islamischen Wissenschaften, xi (1997), 307–63
OWEN WRIGHT