ABSTRACT

274The dominant province of the southwest, the Asīr, which is roughly the size of Austria (or Maine, USA), has less than two million inhabitants scattered through its six governorates. Nevertheless, in a historical context, the current population is rather large. In 1936 Philby was surprised by the modesty of the capital: “Abha! A great name in Arabian history, but little more than a village after all” (1952, 140). Within the official province boundaries, those of the highlands and valleys, from Abhā and Khamis Mushayt up through Nimās, can be grouped together musically, and those on the northeast edge of the province, coming out of the mountains in the governorate of Bīsha (بيشه) have a different, more Najdi-related style. Directly north in the small remote Bāḥa Province that separates Makkah from the south, the music shares some characteristics with the Hijazi town of Ṭa’if as well as with the Asīr, but still, to a great extent, Bāḥa is unique (Fig. 16.1).