Abd al-Qadir Maraghi
Encyclopedia
Abd al-Qadir al-Maraghi b. Ghaybi ( (born middle of 14th – died 1435 AD)), was a Persian
Persian people
The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of...

 musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....

 and artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

. According to the Encyclopedia of Islam, he was the greatest of the Persian writers on music.

Life

Abd al- Qadir b. GHaybi al-Hafiz al-Maraghi was born in Maragha in about the middle of the 14th century. He had become one of the court minstrels of the Jalayirid Sultan al-Husayn around 1379. Under Sultan Ahmad Jalayirid, he was appointed the chief court minstrel. When Timur
Timur
Timur , historically known as Tamerlane in English , was a 14th-century conqueror of West, South and Central Asia, and the founder of the Timurid dynasty in Central Asia, and great-great-grandfather of Babur, the founder of the Mughal Dynasty, which survived as the Mughal Empire in India until...

 captured Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...

 in 1393, he was transported to Samarqand, which was the capital of the Timurid
Timurid Dynasty
The Timurids , self-designated Gurkānī , were a Persianate, Central Asian Sunni Muslim dynasty of Turko-Mongol descent whose empire included the whole of Iran, modern Afghanistan, and modern Uzbekistan, as well as large parts of contemporary Pakistan, North India, Mesopotamia, Anatolia and the...

 dynasty. In 1399, he was in Tabriz
Tabriz
Tabriz is the fourth largest city and one of the historical capitals of Iran and the capital of East Azerbaijan Province. Situated at an altitude of 1,350 meters at the junction of the Quri River and Aji River, it was the second largest city in Iran until the late 1960s, one of its former...

 at the service of Timur’s wayward son Miranshah. Abdl al-Qadir was blamed for the erratic conducts of Miranshah, and Timur acted swiftly in order to capture him. But Abd al-Qadir, was forewarned and escaped to the Jalayrid court of Sultan Ahmad in Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...

. Timur
Timur
Timur , historically known as Tamerlane in English , was a 14th-century conqueror of West, South and Central Asia, and the founder of the Timurid dynasty in Central Asia, and great-great-grandfather of Babur, the founder of the Mughal Dynasty, which survived as the Mughal Empire in India until...

 again recaptured Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...

 in 1401 and took Abd al-Qadir back to Samarqand. Abd al-Qadir became one of the brilliant men at the court of Timur’s son, Shahrukh . In 1421, he also wrote a musical treatise (see below) for the Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 Sultan Murad II. He died in Samarqand in 1435.

Works on music theory

Abd al-Qadir was proficient in music, poetry and painting. This made him to be a highly desired artisan amongst the courts of different dynasties. It was due to his musical talent that he was named by his contemporaries as the Glory of the past age.
.

Abd al-Qadir is known for his four works on music theory. All three surviving works were written in Persian. His most important treatise on music is the Jami al-Alhan (Arabic for Encyclopedia of Music), autographs of which are preserved at the Bodleian Library and the Nuruosmaniye Mosque
Nuruosmaniye Mosque
The Nuruosmaniye Mosque is an Ottoman mosque located in the Çemberlitaş neighbourhood of Fatih district in Istanbul, Turkey. It is considered one of the finest examples of mosques in Ottoman Baroque style. It was built by architects Mustafa Ağa and Simon Kalfa from the order of Sultan Mahmut I and...

 Library in Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

. The first manuscript of this work was written in 1405 for his Nur al-din Abd al-Rahman was revised by the author in 1413. The second manuscript was written in 1415, carries a dedication to Sultan Sharukh of the Timurid dynasty.

The second major work of Abd al-Qadir is the Persian book Maqasid al-Alhan (Arabic for: Purports of Music). It was dedicated to the Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 Sultan Murad II.

A third treatise on music, the Kanz al-Tu.af (Treasury of Music) which contained the author's notated compositions, has not survived.

His last work, the Sharh al-Adwar (Commentary on the [ Kitab al-Adwar] of safi al-din al-urmawi), is to be found in the Nuru Othmaniyya Library.

Linguistic significance

Hamdollah Mustawafi of the 13th century AD mentions the language of Maragheh as "Pahlavi Mughayr" (modified Pahlavi):

Interestingly enough, the 17th century AD Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 Turkish traveler Evliya Chelebi who traveled to Safavid Iran also states:

“The majority of the women in Maragheh converse in Pahlavi”.

According to the Encyclopedia of Islam:"At the present day, the inhabitants speak Adhar Turkish, but in the 14th century they still spoke “arabicized Pahlawi” (Nuzhat al-Qolub: Pahlawi Mu’arrab) which means an Iranian
Iranian languages
The Iranian languages form a subfamily of the Indo-Iranian languages which in turn is a subgroup of Indo-European language family. They have been and are spoken by Iranian peoples....

 dialect of the north western group."

Abd al-Qadir Maraghi not only recorded songs in Persian Language
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

, but also in Arabic, Mongolian, Turkish (Khatai, Chagatay) as well as various regional Iranic dialects (Fahlaviyyat) of Hamadan
Hamadan
-Culture:Hamadan is home to many poets and cultural celebrities. The city is also said to be among the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities.Handicrafts: Hamadan has always been well known for handicrafts like leather, ceramic, and beautiful carpets....

, Mazandaran, Qazvin, Tabriz, and Rayy. Thus his work gives us a better view of the regional dialects
Languages of Iran
Different publications have reported different statistics for the languages of Iran; There have been some limited census taken in Iran in 2001, 1991, 1986 and 1949-1954.The following are the languages with the greatest number of speakers :...

 of Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

.

Four quatrains titled fahlaviyyat from Khwaja Muhammad Kojjani (d. 677/1278-79); born in Kojjan or Korjan, a village near Tabriz, recorded by Abd-al-Qader Maraghi.
A sample of one of the four quatrains from Khwaja Muhammad Kojjani
.

Two qet'as (poems) quoted by Abd-al-Qader Maraghi in the dialect of Tabrz (d. 838/1434-35; II, p. 142).
A sample of one these poems

Current Performances


See also

  • List of Persian poets and authors
  • Persian literature
    Persian literature
    Persian literature spans two-and-a-half millennia, though much of the pre-Islamic material has been lost. Its sources have been within historical Persia including present-day Iran as well as regions of Central Asia where the Persian language has historically been the national language...

  • Dastgah
    Dastgah
    Dastgāh is a musical modal system in traditional Persian art music. Persian art music consists of twelve principal musical modal systems or dastgāhs; in spite of 50 or more extant dastgāhs, theorists generally refer to a set of twelve principal ones...

  • Persian literature
    Persian literature
    Persian literature spans two-and-a-half millennia, though much of the pre-Islamic material has been lost. Its sources have been within historical Persia including present-day Iran as well as regions of Central Asia where the Persian language has historically been the national language...

  • Persian traditional music
  • Persian culture
  • Persian Symphonic Music
    Persian Symphonic Music
    Persian symphonic music generally refers to the pieces by the Persian composers which have been composed for Western ensembles and orchestras, mostly based on the Persian folk and classical melodies...

  • List of Iranian composers
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