Among Zoroastrian burial items, there is a camel-shaped zoomorphic OSTADON lying there. It was found…
The conquest of Central Asia (Mawarannahr) by the Arabs, its incorporation into the caliphate and the assertion of Islam as the unified religion here by the start of the 9th century, became a turning point in the development of culture in general, and artistic and musical culture in particular.
From this moment on and for more than a thousand years, the musical culture of Central Asia developed in the context of Islamic civilization. The focal point of the musical process in the initial period of conquest (8th – 9th centuries) was the transformation and adaptation of old Central Asian musical canons to new Islamic aesthetics. This covered various aspects of the musical culture, including instruments and instrumental performances, the art of singing, military music, the style of court music, and many other aspects.
The Persian system of seven canonical modalities existing in the court culture of Maverannahr, Khorasan and Iran prior to the arrival of the Arabs, or the haft parda (“seven modalities”), gradually expanded to twelve in the 11th–12th centuries. It took on the central position in the secular art of music making at the courts of rulers and noble houses of the caliphate‘s cities.
The universal treatise on music by the “Khorasan ustad (master)” Muhammad Nishapuri, dated late 12th – first half of the 13th century and preserved in the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences, tells us about the high art connected to the system of pardas (later – shadd, daur, maqams), and how it combined the old and new rules.
The treatise explains the system of 12 pardas and the shu‘ba modalities derived from it, its internal connections, time and physical (physiognomical) rules of performance within the new (Islamic) conditions of art and aesthetics. According to the brief history of pardas, the legendary Persian musician Barbad created the first seven of them.
You can learn more about the topic in the book-album "The Musical Legacy of Uzbekistan in Collections of the Russian Federation" (Volume VI) from the series "Cultural legacy of Uzbekistan in the world collections".
The general sponsor of the project is the oilfield services company Eriell-Group.
