(b Mosul, 1854; d Baghdad, 1923). Iraqi vocal performer of religious and secular genres, composer, instrumentalist, poet and Sufi. Born into a poor family, he became blind and lost his sight at an early age. He was brought up in Mosul by a nobleman who gave him the best available education; al-Mawsilī studied Arabic, the Qur'an and music. At the age of 17 he was sent to Baghdad to learn the Iraqi maqām with Shaltagh (d 1871) and al-Karkūklī (b 1831), and his numerous talents soon became apparent. He became a famous reciter of the Qur'an and was designated Sultan Abdul Hamid II's personal reciter and occasional political envoy. Al-Mawsilī recited the Qur'an in the biggest mosques of the Ottoman world and influenced a generation of important reciters in Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. He was famous for his performances of the mawlid nabawī (ritual for the anniversary of the Prophet) in which he sang Iraqi maqāms and religious muwashshahs; in the Arab world he was regarded as the master of muwashshahs. He was successively a member of three Sufi orders in which he sang. He also played the qānūn, the nay and the tabl and accompanied secular singing. Al-Mawsilī taught Abū Khalīl al-Qabbānī of Syria and the Egyptians Kāmil al-Khulā‘ī and Sayyid Darwīsh, and is regarded as the most important representative of Iraqi music of the late Ottoman period.
SCHEHERAZADE QASSIM HASSAN