(b Isfahan, 897; d Baghdad, 967). Arab man of letters, historian and poet. He lived in Baghdad and in Aleppo. As a writer on music he belongs to the school of Ishāq al-mawsilī (see Mawsilī, al-, (2)), whose Kitāb al-aghānī al-kabīr (‘Great book of songs’) was the main source for al-Isfahānī’s principal work of the same name, which is said to have taken him 50 years to write. This comprehensive book covers Arab cultural history from pre-Islamic times to the early Abbasids, with emphasis on poetry and music. Its latest published edition comprises 24 volumes. Its arrangement follows that of Al-mi’at al-sawt al-mukhtāra (‘The 100 selected songs’) compiled by Ishāq's father, Ibrāhīm al-Mawsilī (see Mawsilī, al-, (1)) and others, which was accessible to al-Isfahānī in the edition of ‘Alī ibn Yahyā al-Munajjim (d 888), a pupil of Ishāq al-Mawsilī. The texts of the songs are accompanied by notes on the compositions and their melodic (nagham) and metrical modes (īqā‘). Each of the main song texts is followed by the biography of a poet or musician often with an historical excursus; almost 100 musicians and singers from the late 6th century to the 9th are treated in this way (Shiloah, 1979). The detailed biographical data of Ibrāhīm and Ishāq al-Mawsilī alone convey a lively and convincing picture of the status of court musicians in Baghdad between c775 and 850. Soon after its completion the book was so renowned that Caliph al-Hakam II (961–76) of Córdoba sent al-Isfahānī 1000 gold dinars with a request for a copy. It is still the vital source for descriptions of early Arab musical history. His other books on music and musicians are lost. A monograph on slave musicians (Kitāb al-ghilmān al-mughannīn) was still known in Aleppo in the 13th century. Quotations from a book on female slave singers (Kitāb al-imā’) have survived in the section on musicians (volume x) of the encyclopedic Masālik al-absār by Ibn Fadl Allāh al-‘Umarī (d 1349). Abū l-Faraj himself quotes, in the Kitāb al-aghānī (viii, pp.374f), a treatise he wrote to explain the ‘basic rules of notes’ (Risāla fī ‘ilal al-nagham) as understood by Ishāq al-Mawsilī and his school.
Kitāb al-aghānī al-kabīr [Great book of songs]; pubd (Cairo, 1868–9, suppl., Leiden, 1888, 2/1905–6, 3/1927–74); part Fr. trans. in Quatremère and Caussin de Perceval
EI2 (M. Nallino)
E.M. Quatremère: ‘Mémoire sur l’ouvrage intitulé Kitab al-agâni, c’est-à-dire “Recueil de chansons”’, Nouveau journal asiatique, 2nd ser., xvi (1835), 385–419, 497–545; Journal asiatique, 3rd ser., vi (1838), 465–526
A.P. Caussin de Perceval: ‘Notices anecdotiques sur les principaux musiciens arabes des trois premiers siècles de l’islamisme’, Journal asiatique, 7th ser., ii (1873), 397–592
H.G. Farmer: ‘The Song Captions in the Kitāb al-aghānī al-kabīr’, Transactions of the Glasgow University Oriental Society, xv (1955), 1–10
M. Stigelbauer: Die Sängerinnen am Abbasidenhof um die Zeit des Kalifen al-Mutawakkil (Vienna, 1975)
Gh.‘A. Khashaba: Kitāb al-mūjaz fī sharh mustalahāt al-Aghānī [Compendium of the musical terms in the Kitāb al-aghānī] (Cairo, 1979)
A. Shiloah: The Theory of Music in Arabic Writings (c.900–1900): Descriptive Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Libraries of Europe and the USA (Munich, 1979), 234–37
Sh. Jabrī: Abū’ l-Faraj al-Isfahānī (Cairo, 4/1980)
G.D. Sawa: ‘Musical Humour in the Kitāb al-Aghānī’, Logos Islamikos: Studia Islamica in honorem G.M. Wickens (Toronto, 1984), 35–50
G.D. Sawa: ‘The Status and Roles of the Secular Musicians in the Kitāb al-Aghānī (Book of Songs) of Abū al-Faraj al-Isbahānī (d. 356 A.H./967 A.D.)’, AsM, xvii (1985), 69–82
Kh. al-‘Atiyya, comp.: al-Qiyān: Abū’ l-Faraj al-Isfahānī (London, 1989)
G.D. Sawa: Music Performance Practice in the Early ‘Abbāsid Era 132–320 AH/750–932 AD (Toronto, 1989)
H. Kilpatrick: ‘Context and the Enhancement of the Meaning of ahbār in the Kitāb al-aġānī’, Arabica, xxxviii (1991), 351–68
ECKHARD NEUBAUER