Safi al-Din al-Urmawi

Safi al-Din al-Urmawi al-Baghdadi or Safi al-Din Abd al-Mu'min ibn Yusuf ibn al-Fakhir al-Urmawi al-Baghdadi (born c. 1216 AD in Urmia, died in 1294 AD in Baghdad) was an Iranian musician and writer on the theory of music.

Background and life Safi al-Din Abd al-Muʾmin ibn Yusof ibn Fakhir al-Ormawi al-Baghdadi (Sufi al-Dīn in some Ottoman sources), renowned musician and writer on the theory of music, was born c. 613 AH (1216 AD), probably in Urmiya (Iran). He died in Baghdad on 28 Ṣafar 693 AH (28 January 1294 AD), at the age of about 80. According to the Encyclopedia of Islam "The sources are silent about the ethnic origin of his family. He may have been of Persian descent, as Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi calls him afdal-i Īrān (A sage of Iran)". Based on its terminology, Al-Urmawi's 'international' modal system was intended to represent the predominant Arab and Persian local traditions.

In his youth, he went to Baghdad and was educated in the Arabic language, literature, history and penmanship. He made a name for himself as an excellent calligrapher and was appointed copyist at the new library built by the Abbasid caliph al-Mustaṣim.

He had also studied Shafii law

Al-Urmawi's most important work are two books in Arabic Language on music theory, the Kitab al-Adwār and Risālah al-Sharafiyyah fi 'l-nisab al-taʾlifiyyah. The first book was written while he still worked in the library of al-Mustasim. The Abbasid caliph was well known for his addiction to music. The second book was dedicated to Sharaf al-Din Harun Juvayni who ordered him to compile it.

Drawing of a lute by Safi al-Din from a 1333 copy of his book, Kitab al-Adwār. The oldest copy dates to 1296.

The Kitab al-Adwār is the first extant work on scientific music theory after the writings on music of Avicenna.

By its conciseness it became the most popular and influential book on music for centuries. No other Arabic (Persian or Ottoman Turkish) music treatise was so often copied, commented upon and translated into Oriental (and Western) languages. Commentaries on these theoretical works were written as early as the 1370s.

Musical modes of Urmawi The list of the modes and āwaz (singing) modes are taken from (E. Neubaer, "Music in the Islamic Environment" in Clifford Edmund Bosworth, M.S.Asimov, "History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Volume 4, Part 2", ilal Banarsidass Publ., 2003 - 745 pages. pg 597.). The majority of the modes have Iranian/Persian names and the rest have Arabic names (some with Persian suffix 'i').

Parde 'Ushshāq (Arabic name) nawā (Iranian name) busalik (also called AbuSalik) rāst (Iranian name) 'irāq (Arabic name) isfahān (Iranian name) zirāfkand (Iranian name) buzurk (buzurg) (Iranian name) zankulā (zangulā) (Iranian name) rāhawi (rāhavi) (Iranian name) husayni (Arabic name with Iranian suffix i) hejazi (Arabic name with Iranian suffix i)

Āwāz mode kardāniye (gardāniye) (Iranian name) kawāsht (gawāsht) (Iranian name) nawruz (Iranian name) māya (Iranian name) shahnāz (Iranian name) salmak (Iranian name)