ABSTRACT
The history of Arab music parallels the process of cultural fusion, assimilation, hybridization, and resistance found in the development of Arabic literature and Arabo-Islamic culture in general. Already in the 8th century, a rich literature about music had begun to emerge in Arabic that eventually included collections of song texts, biographies of singers, composers, and instrumentalists, lexicographical works that contained musical terminology, medical texts on the use of music to treat various ailments, philosophical texts, and other genres of writing. In early Arab culture, singing was considered so primary to the art of music-making that the term ghina’ served as the general term for music; a singer was a mughanni, derived from the same root letters. The rise of a well-defined social class of professional singers is one of most significant features of the history of early Arab music and subsequently had a profound impact on the transmission and development of Arab music in al-Andalus.
