Talk:Arabic maqam

Internal contradiction: Nikriz vs. Nawa Athar in Maqam Families

The article currently contradicts itself on the relationship between Nikriz and Nawa Athar.

In the Ajnas section, the table of basic ajnas lists Nikriz as one of the 9 basic ajnas (with its own cell, notation, and description as a pentachord starting on C). However, in the Maqam Families bulleted list immediately below, Nawa Athar appears as the family head, with Nikriz listed as a branch member under it.

So within the same article, Nikriz is presented as a foundational jins in one place and demoted to a subordinate branch maqam in another. These two sections need to agree with each other.

For reference, MaqamWorld (maqamworld.com) — authored by Johnny Farraj, co-author of *Inside Arabic Music* (Oxford University Press, 2019), which is already cited in this article's Sources — treats Nikriz as the family head, with Nawa Athar and Athar Kurd as branch maqamat within the Nikriz family. The Nawa Athar page on that site explicitly states it is "a member of the Maqam Nikriz Family" and identifies Jins Nikriz as its root jins.

I'm not an expert on Arabic music theory, so I'm flagging rather than editing directly. But the fix seems straightforward: update the families list so that Nikriz is the family head (consistent with the ajnas table already in the article) and move Nawa Athar underneath it as a branch maqam.

Note: AI tools were used to assist in drafting this comment and verifying sources.

M. Durell (talk) 21:19, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

Contradiction

1/4/2021: "It is "a technique of improvisation" that defines the pitches, patterns, and development of a piece of music and which is "unique to Arabian art music"." This claim is highly unwarranted as evidence by many similarities and overlaps among Asian and middle eastern musics:

This statement is the exact characteristic of improvisation in many other neighboring cultures including Persian dastgah, Turkish makam, Uyghurs muqam, etc. Additionally, most of Arabic maqam names are shared names in these maqam based musical cultures such as ajam, sikah, rast, nava. Moreover, the etymology of many of Arabic maqam names are purely Persian such as Yakah (يكاه) meaning first mode, Sikah (سيكاه) meaning third mode, Jiharkah (جهاركاه) meaning fourth mode, Shawq Afza (شوق افزا or شوق أفزا) meaning exhilarating, Nahfat (نهفت) meaning hidden, Farahfaza (فرحفزا) meaning effervescent, Nahawand (نهاوند) the capital of Hamadan Province in Iran, Mahur (ماهور) meaning mound, Nairuz (نيروز) the persian new year, Rast (راست) means candid, Suznak (سوزناك) meaning plaintive, Shahnaz (شهناز) meaning royal coquetry, Suzidil (سوزدل) mean heart pain, Nawa meaning melody, etc. Also, similar to the Arabic maqam system, persian radif/dastgah system and Uyghur muqam system consists of exactly 12 modes. These undeniable similarities undermines the validity of the claim in the article that the stated features of Arabic muqam are "unique to Arabian art music".

please refer to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muqam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_makam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dastgah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radif_(music)

"In this area we can distinguish three main musical cultures which all belong to the modal family, namely the Turkish, the Greek, the Persian and the Arabic." - that's four.

--Apeloverage (talk) 17:24, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I reworded the reference to the Greek modal system in the sentence to fix the problem.
The Greek system is related, but it isn't a direct part of the maqam family, so I corrected
the sentence to better reflect what would make sense here.
   --Apiquinamir (talk) 17:25, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

In the section "Maqam Families" the 5th and last one in the box on the left "Saba" start with a D and ends with a D-flat. Is that correct? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Robby13851 (talk • contribs) 05:57, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Spelling

• Is راحة الارواح the correct spelling for Rahat El Arwah? Or is it راحة الأرواح? Why is it romanized "Rahat" if there's no "T" at the end of the first Arabic word? Badagnani (talk) 04:26, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

• Is Nawa Athar نوى أثر or نوى اثر? Badagnani (talk) 04:27, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

• Is Shahnaz شهناز or شاهناز? Badagnani (talk) 04:47, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

• Should there be a space between the two Arabic words in شد عربان? Badagnani (talk) 04:49, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

• Is Shawq Afza شوق افزا or شوق أفزا? Badagnani (talk) 05:03, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

• Is Nahawand Murassah نهاوند مرصّع or نهاوند مرصع? Badagnani (talk) 05:06, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Romanization

What is the proper romanization of نوروز? Badagnani (talk) 04:29, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

To evaluate for addition

<span=2 style="font-size: 18pt">

1. راست: راست مرصع – رهاوی - سازکار - سوزدلارا - دلنشین - حیان
2. بیات: شوری – مصری – ابراهیمی – محیر - طاهر - عربان
3. سیکاه: مایة
4. حجاز : شاهناز - سوزدل - حجاز زمزمه
5. عجم: عجم عشیران – جهارکاه مصری – عجم هندی - طرز جدید - عجم کبیر - شوق دل - شوق آور
6. نهاوند: عشاق – نهاوند کبیر - سلطانی یکاه
7. نواأثر: بسندیدة
8. کورد: لامی - طرز نوین - محیرکرد
9. صبا : صبا مراکب – کوجک - بزرک

Badagnani (talk) 05:08, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Nawa

Is there a maqam called "nawa"? Badagnani (talk) 05:26, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

yes... there is.It is a persian maqam which is new!(1970)--94.74.150.2 (talk) 00:11, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Sayr

The sayr (counterpart of the Turkish seyir) should be mentioned. Badagnani (talk) 08:11, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Title

The article is entitled "Arabian maqam", but throughout its text, "Arabic maqam" is written instead. Which should it be? --DeMonsoon (talk) 09:28, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Another contradiction

2021 11 27: I feel the following paragraphs of "Emotional content" contradict each other:

Paragraphs 1–2

It is sometimes said that each maqam evokes a specific emotion or set of emotions determined by the tone row and the nucleus, with different maqams sharing the same tone row but differing in nucleus and thus emotion. Maqam Rast is said to evoke pride, power, soundness of mind, and masculinity. Maqam Bayati: vitality, joy, and femininity. Sikah: love. Saba: sadness and pain. Hijaz: distant desert.

In an experiment where maqam Saba was played to an equal number of Arabs and non-Arabs who were asked to record their emotions in concentric circles with the weakest emotions in the outer circles, Arab subjects reported experiencing Saba as "sad", "tragic", and "lamenting", while only 48 percent of the non-Arabs described it thus with 28 percent of non-Arabs describing feelings such as "seriousness", "longing", and tension", and 6 percent experienced feelings such as "happy", "active", and "very lively" and 10 percent identified no feelings.

Paragraph 4

Generally speaking, each maqam is said to evoke a different emotion in the listener. At a more basic level, each jins is claimed to convey a different mood or color. For this reason maqams of the same family are said to share a common mood since they start with the same jins. There is no consensus on exactly what the mood of each maqam or jins is. Some references describe maqam moods using very vague and subjective terminology (e.g. maqams evoking 'love', 'femininity', 'pride' or 'distant desert'). However, there has not been any serious research using scientific methodology on a diverse sample of listeners (whether Arab or non-Arab) proving that they feel the same emotion when hearing the same maqam.

References

melodic melodic

In traditional Arabic music, maqam (Arabic: مقام, romanized: maqām, literally "ascent"; pl. مقامات maqāmāt) is the system of melodic modes, which is mainly melodic.

Melodic modes that are mainly melodic? O...kay. Any objection to this?:

... is the system of melodic modes.

(transferring the adjectival link to its first use)

The word maqam in Arabic means place, location or position.

So not "ascent"? —Tamfang (talk) 04:32, 7 August 2025 (UTC)