Region encompassing south-eastern Iraq, Kuwait, the Hasa province of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the southern coast of Iran. Since prehistoric times, the Arabian (or Persian) Gulf has been an important link on the trade routes between East Africa, the Mediterranean, India and East Asia. The population is predominantly Arab, except in Iran. Until the 20th century, Gulf Arabs were nomads, pearl-divers and – to some extent – fishermen, shipbuilders and merchants. Since World War II, wealth from the region's abundant oil resources has attracted many foreigners to the area, mostly from other Arab countries.
Since ancient times, many non-Arab minority groups have settled in the region. Some have roots in East Africa and eastern parts of Central Africa; they are often (but not always) descendants of freed slaves. A fairly large Persian group lives in Qatar and Bahrain, and many Baluchis may be found in the United Arab Emirates, where UAE citizens represent less than 20% of the population. In the Emirates and Bahrain, Indians and Pakistanis are doctors, tailors and bankers. This demographic diversity is reflected in the variety of the music in the Gulf area.
Classical Arab music is a rarity, mostly performed by Egyptians, who probably brought the short-necked lute (‘ūd) to the Gulf in the 19th century. Classical ‘ūd music is performed by musicians from Bahrain and – to a lesser degree – Abu Dhabi. The lute is also played by singers of the traditional urban genre known as sawt, which is popular throughout the Arabian coast of the Gulf. Other classical musical instruments, such as the nay (flute) and qānūn (zither), have no traditional connections with the area.
Chorus singing plays a predominant role among musical genres in the Gulf area. The war dances called ‘arda (Bahrain) or ‘ayyāla (UAE) are accompanied by a double chorus. Like most dances of Bedouin origin that have become popular among the sedentary population, they are associated with festive occasions. The dances are accompanied by a percussion ensemble consisting of one or two double-headed barrel-shaped drums (tabl), which are carried on the shoulder and struck on one side with a stick, and on the other with the hand; several frame drums (tār), some with small bells or iron rings inside the frame (fig.1); and one pair of small cymbals (tūs). Funūn al-tār (‘the arts of the frame drum’) or simply fann (‘art’) is the generic term for those genres in Kuwait and southern Iraq. The vocal parts of the soloist and chorus are performed in a responsorial manner. Group hand-clapping (safqa) is interspersed periodically in a style characteristic of the whole Arab Gulf area: regularly spaced clap beats of two performer groups interlock in a loud and rapid sequence of sounds.
A great variety of Bedouin song genres is found in the desert areas of the United Arab Emirates (radha, sāmirī, mader, maqāl, mangūs, ghazal etc.) and of Kuwait (gisīd, shirīya, mashūh, freisnī etc.). These may be performed by two or more alternating male soloists or a single singer. Many sung texts follow the verse structure of the classical ode (qasīda). The solo poet-singer (shā‘ir) provides his own accompaniment on a rabāb (spike fiddle with one or two strings). This type of performer is very common in the whole of eastern Arabia. A popular song style performed at wedding festivities by a double chorus without instrumental accompaniment is called razfa. Shepherds in the desert sometimes play a small double clarinet, widely known in the Arab world, called zummāra or jiftī (a Turkish-derived word).
A variant of the Bedouin rabāb spike fiddle has a colourful oil canister as its soundbox. It is played in Gypsy (kawlīyya) ensembles which focus on a female singer and dancer. Together with a group of drummers, these ensembles roamed throughout Kuwait, southern Iraq and the north-western region of the Iranian Gulf coast until the late 1970s.
The most refined music-making of the area, that of the pearl-divers, is no longer performed in its original context. With growing competition from the East Asian pearl industry and the increasing importance of Gulf oil production, pearl-diving lost its economic basis. By 1950 the fleet of fishing boats at Bahrain – one of the traditional centres of pearl-diving – had dwindled from several hundred to a few dozen.
The pearl-divers were mostly of African or Indo-Iranian descent. They used to practise diving all over the Arab part of the Gulf, and to a minor extent on the Iranian coast. When leaving for the oyster-banks, where they stayed for a couple of months, they took one or two professional singers. For every stage of the work (such as rowing, setting sails etc.), there were corresponding work-songs (fijrī). Some of these were sung by the soloist (nahhām), while the chorus of divers and sailors produced a vocal drone in a very low register – two octaves below the fundamental singing tone of the nahhām. Other songs were performed only at night, accompanied by percussion instruments (fig.2): one or two tabl drums; four or five small double-headed cylindrical drums (mirwas, pl. marāwīs); three large open clay pots (jahla, pl. jahlāt), and cymbals (tus). The rhythms of the fijrī work-songs are cyclical and of remarkable length: in some subgenres (e.g. bahrī and ‘adsānī) each cycle covers 32 beats. Nowadays the musical legacy of the old pearl-diving business is kept alive by singers and instrumentalists performing ashore in a special type of communal house (dār), where they gather regularly and also perform other kinds of music.
Sawt, the major genre of traditional urban music in the Gulf, is performed in communal houses belonging to a group of musicians, or at informal parties in private houses. The traditional performance of a sawt requires a singer, who accompanies his own voice on the ‘ūd, and four marāwīs players. Concerts may include cycles of several sawts (Arabic, pl. aswāt), which are differentiated according to their use of rhythmic patterns. Sawt is probably Yemeni in origin. ‘Abdallah Muhammad al-Faraj (1836–1903) is considered to have been the first outstanding performer who successfully promoted this new genre. Singers such as Muhammad Fāris and Dahī bin Walīd, who made the first commercial recordings around 1930, are considered as outstanding.
The dance-song basta is of Iraqi derivation (pesta in Iraq). The basta ends a sawt cycle, but it is heard in other contexts as well. The traditional basta performance requires a singer playing the ‘ūd and two drummers with a single-headed vase-shaped drum (darbukka) and frame drum with cymbals (duff). Sawt and basta may also sometimes be played with tabl and tār drums.
In the Gulf, Baluchi people are considered good shawm (surnāy) players. As in many other Islamic-influenced areas, the surnāy is mainly used at festive occasions, particularly weddings. It is accompanied by two double-headed drums (tabl).
For the minority groups in the Arabian Gulf region, music is important in preserving social cohesion and group identity. But some of this music has had a wider social impact, particularly some African-derived genres. The leiwah is a cycle of short strophic dance-songs, a genre originating from Kenya and Tanzania. It is performed in the African quarters of large Gulf towns such as Basra (Iraq) and Manama (Bahrain) and may also feature as an entertainment at important Arab wedding festivities. The ensemble consists of shawm (surnāy or mizmār), four or five percussion instruments and a chorus of dancer-singers. In the Basra area, the shawm used in the leiwah ensembles has a quadruple reed made of two folded strips of date palm.
Other genres of African-derived music are self-contained within the black community. Nūbān, for example, is played on the bowl lyre tunbūra (tambūra), a large six-string instrument originally from Sudan and Somalia, accompanied by four or five flat cylindrical drums and/or kettledrums beaten with the hand and a stick. Percussion effects are achieved on the manjur, a belt with rattling goat-hooves strung around the player's hips. The tunbūra player also sings; his solos alternate with choral sections sung by the other members of the ensemble. Tunbūra music is a rare case of anhemitonic-pentatonic music from this area. A healing ceremony that uses tunbūra playing is derived from the East African zār cult, in which sickness is considered as a sign of spirit possession. As a ‘spirited’ object, the lyre functions as a tool for communication with the spirit world.
The jirba (bagpipe) is a common instrument in Bahrain and on the Kuwaiti island of Faylaka. It has no drone-pipe, and its chanter is a double clarinet of the jiftī type. It is generally accompanied by four or five cylindrical drums, whose rhythms are often very subtle and complicated. It is particularly popular with the Iranian minorities and is sometimes called the ‘Persian bagpipe’.
See also Arab music.
P.R. Olsen: ‘Enregistrements faits à Kuwait et à Bahrain’, Ethnomusicologie III: Wégimont V 1960, 137–70
P.R. Olsen: ‘La musique africaine dans le Golfe persique’, JIFMC, xix (1967), 28–36
J. Kuckertz and M.T. Massoudieh: Musik in Būšehr, Süd-Iran (Munich, 1976)
H.H. Touma: ‘The Fidjri, a Major Vocal Form of the Bahrain Pearl-Divers’, World of Music, xix/3–4 (1977), 121–33
U. Wegner: ‘Afrikanische Musikinstrumente in Südirak’, Baessler-Archiv: Beiträge zur Völkerkunde, xxx (1982), 395–442
T. Kerbage: The Rhythms of Pearl Diver Music in Qatar (Doha, ?1983)
H.S.Z. al-Rifa'i: ‘Structural Thematic and Aesthetic Characteristics of the Kuwaiti Chanties’, International Journal of Islamic and Arabic Studies, ii/2 (1985), 83–102
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Fidjeri: Songs of the Bahrain Pearl Divers, coll. H.H. Touma, Philips 6586 017 (1976); reissued as Auvidis D 8046 (1992)
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Laiwa Music of the Gulf, Arab Gulf States Folklore Centre, iii (1989) [incl. commentary by W.A. al-Khan]
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POUL ROVSING OLSEN/ULRICH WEGNER