Lute (from the Arab word "al-'ud") players are among the most common themes of early Abbasid art, as in this Iraqi lusterware bowl of the tenth century.

Another major contribution was made by the philosopher al-Kindi (died about 873), who in his treatises discussed the phenomenon of sound, intervals, and compositions. Al-Kindi presented an elaboration on the diatonic 'ud-fretting known at his time and proposed adding a fifth string to the four-stringed 'ud in order to expand the theoretical pitch range into two octaves. Al-Kindi is also known for the cosmological links he made between the four strings of the 'ud and the seasons, the elements, the humors, and various celestial entities. Comparable emphasis on cosmology and numerology was presented by the Ikhwan as-Safa', "Brethren of sincerity," in their tenth century epistle on music.
One of the most prolific contributors was Abu Nasr al-Farabi (died 950), whose Kitab al-Musiqa al-Kabir, The Grand Treatise on Music, is an encompassing work. It discusses such major topics as the science of sound, intervals, tetrachords, octave species, musical instruments, compositions, and the influence of music. Al-Farabi provided a lute fretting that combined the basic diatonic arrangement of Pythagorean intervals with additional frets suited for playing two newly introduced neutral, or microtonal, intervals. Al-Farabi also described two types of tunbur, or long-necked fretted lute, each with a different system of frets: an old Arabian type whose frets produced quarter-tone intervals, and another type attributed to Khorasan with intervals based on the limma and comma subdivisions of the Pythagorean whole-tone. Discussions on the phenomenon of sound, the dissonants and the consonants, lute fretting, and references to melodic modes by specific names are also found in the writings of the famous philosopher and physician Ibn Sina, or Avicenna, (died 1037.) Another influential theorist who contributed to the knowledge and systematization of the melodic modes was Safi ad-Din al-Urmawi (died 1291) In two authoritative treatises, Safi ad-Din discussed various aspects of musical knowledge including rhythm and meter. He also expounded on the subject of melodic modes, describing the intervals of each mode in accordance with a detailed theoretical scale similar to the one found in the Khorasani tanbur described by al-Farabi. Accordingly, each Pythagorean whole step in the seven-tone scale was divided into two limmas (90-cent intervals) and a small remainder or comma (a 24-cent interval). Thus, it was possible to accommodate the neutral intervals found in certain modes. Safi ad-Din's contribution to modal theory had a profound influence upon later scholars and particularly upon the musical systems of contemporary Iran and Turkey. Although there is no evidence that musical notation was employed in actual performance, al-Kindi and Safi an-Din left us fragments of songs recorded in a system of notation based on alphabetical symbols.

Contact with the Medieval West
The third major process affecting Arab music was the contact between the Islamic Near East and Europe at the time of the Crusades in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries and during the Islamic occupation of Spain (713-1492.) This contact had a widespread impact on both Islamic and European traditions. The westward movement of scientific scholarship into the Muslim universities of Spain is known to have influenced the Christian West and to have promoted the translation of Arabic works, including commentaries on Greek sources, into Latin. Although it is difficult to assess precisely the nature and extent of the Near Eastern musical impact upon medieval Europe, such scholars as Julian Ribera, Alois R. Nykl, and Henry George Farmer have argued that substantial influence existed in areas ranging from rhythm and song forms to music theory, nomenclature, and musical instruments.

Ivory plaque of the Fatimid period in Egypt.

Influence in the case of instruments is indicated by name derivations: for example, the lute from al-'ud; the nakers, or kettledrums, from naqqarat; the rebec from rabab; and the anafil, or natural trumpet, from al-nafir. Added evidence comes from manuscript illustrations of instruments that have obvious Near Eastern origins. One such document is the thirteenth-century collection of songs entitled Cantigas de Santa Maria, prepared for the Spanish King Alfonso X, who was known as el Sabio (the wise). This work was decorated with miniature illustrations in color, showing musicians, including Moors, performing on a wide variety of instruments such as the lute, the psaltery, and the double-reed shawm.
The contributions of Moorish Spain to Arab music were profound and far-reaching. The Easterners' adaptation to a new physical environment and the introduction of Eastern science and literature into settings of wealth and splendor, as represented in the courts of Seville, Granada, and Cordoba, were inspirational to the new artistic life of al-Andalus. Zaryab (died about 850) was a freed slave who moved from Baghdad to Cordoba, where he became a highly respected singer, 'ud player, and music teacher. Zaryab is credited with compiling a repertoire of twenty-four nawbat, (singular nawbah or nubah), each of which was a composite of vocal and instrumental pieces in a certain melodic mode. The nawbat were reportedly associated with the different hours of the day. The nawbah tradition was largely transported to North Africa by the Muslims who were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in the late fifteenth century. Moorish Spain also witnessed the development of a literary-musical form that utilized romantic subject matter and featured strophic texts with refrains, in contrast to the classical Arabic qasidah, which followed a continuous flow of lines or of couplets using a single poetical meter and a single rhyme ending. The muwashshah form, which was utilized by major poets, also emerged as a musical form and survived as such in North African cities and in the Levant, an area covering what is known historically as greater Syria and Palestine. In this area, the muwashshah genre became popular in Aleppo, Syria.

Tenth Century Abbasid Coin

Falling water activates the drummers on the water clock described and illustrated in The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices by al-Jazari.

The fourth major process influencing Arab music was the hegemony of the Ottoman Turks over Syria, Palestine, Iraq, the coasts of Arabia, and much of North Africa (1517-1917.) During this four-centuries span, the center of power in the Sunni Muslim world shifted to the Ottoman court in Turkey, while Iran was gradually emerging as a separate political, cultural, and religious entity, eventually instituting Shiism as the state religion, Musically, the Ottoman period was characterized by gradual assimilation and exchange. Arab music interacted with Turkish music, which had already absorbed musical elements from Central Asia, Anotolia, Persia, and medieval Islamic Syria and Iraq. This interaction was most obvious in larger cities, particularly Aleppo, Damascus, and Cairo. In the rural communities - for example, among the Syrian Bedouins and North African Berbers - musical traditions apparently maintained a fair degree of continuity and stability.
During this period in Arab history, certain aspects of musical life may have resulted from broader cultural and political contacts. In the Ottoman world, musicians, like members of other professions, belonged to specialized professional guilds (tawa'if). In Egypt, such musicians included the alatiyyah, literally, "male instrumentalists", and the 'awalim, literally "learned females." According to M. Villoteau, whose extensive description of Egyptian music is part of the accounts prepared by the Napoleonic mission to Egypt, the former groups entertained male audiences, while the latter specialized in performing for female audiences. Instruments associated with professional musicians of the cities, included the 'ud, the qanun (zither) and the nay (flute) and were commonly used in Turkey and in the Arab world.

The sama'i (or Turkish saz semai) and the bashraf (or pesrev), both instrumental genres used in Turkish court and religious Sufi music, were introduced into the Arab world before the late nineteenth century. Instrumental and possibly vocal and dance forms were transmitted partly through the Mevlevis, a mystical order established in Konya, Turkey, in the thirteenth century. Known for cultivating music and including famous composers and theorists, this order spread into parts of Syria, Iraq, and North Africa. Military bands, similar to the type connected with the Janissary army, existed in various political centers of the Ottoman world. (An example found in Cairo was described by Villoteau.) With respect to theory and nomenclature, Arab and Turkish musical systems overlapped considerably. Melodic and metric modes in Turkey and in the Arab world, particularly Syria, have exhibited and still exhibit strong similarities.

Contact with the Modern West
The fifth and most recent process is the contact between Arab music and the modern West following the Napoleonic conquest of Egypt (1798-1801) and the subsequent cultural and political interaction during the nineteenth centuries. One of the earliest manifestations of Westernization in the Arab world was Muhammad 'Ali's importation of the European military-band concept into Egypt in the early nineteenth century and the establishment of military schools in which Western instruments and musical notation were employed.
Later in the century, on the occasion of the opening of the Suez Canal, Khedive Isma'il (reigned 1863-1876) built the Cairo Opera House, which became an historical landmark and a symbol of Westernization in the Near Eastern Muslim world. The Opera House was inaugurated with the performance of Rigoletto by Verdi, in November 1869, followed by Aida in December, 1871. Isma'il, who sought to Europeanize Egypt, patronized and promoted the fame and social status of Egyptian artists, such as the female singer Almaz (1860-1896) and the male singer 'Abduh al-Hamuli (1843-1901).
Westernization was further promoted by nineteenth-century American and European Protestant missionaries in the Levant. The Protestant hymnal introduced was based on contra facta, or the setting of newly written religious poems to various well-known tunes, mostly European. These tunes appeared in standard Western musical notation.
The twentieth century is marked by an increase in the role of Western theory, notation, instruments, and overall musical attitudes. In his Kitab al-Musiqa al-Sharqi, written around 1904, the Egyptian theorist and composer Kamil al-Khula'i mentioned that the piano, the accordion, and the mouth organ were becoming common household instruments in Egypt. The twentieth century also marked the continuation and growth of a medium that had begun in the nineteenth century and flourished in Egypt: the musical theater. Dramas mainly by European authors were Arabized and presented as combinations of acting, singing, and sometimes dancing. Among the theatrical artists were the Syrian-born Abu Khalil al-Qabbani (1841-1902), who also performed at the Columbian World Fair in Chicago in 1893, and the Egyptian Shaykh Salamah Hijazi (1852-1917), a Sufi-trained singer and stage actor whose theatrical songs were heard on early recordings throughout the entire Arab world.
Between World War I and the late 1920s, Cairo witnessed the rise of a new theatrical form, a type of musical play that typically combined comedy and vaudeville and was comparable to the European operetta. Among the prime contributors to this form was the celebrated composer Shaykh Sayyid Darwish (died 1923), who is now considered the father of modern Egyptian music. By the early 1930s, the impact of Westernization on Egyptian music was considerable, as testified to in the reports issued by the Congress of Arab Music held in Cairo in 1932.
With the emergence of independent Arab states following European domination, many Arab governments accepted Western music as a fine art and as a component in formal music education. In many Arab capitals today, traditional Arab music and Western music are taught in government institutions organized in the Western conservatory tradition.