ARABIC MUSIC AND THE OUD

Many books have been written on the subject of Arabic music, most of themby Western authors who presented the subject from a Western perspective withno knowledge of Arabic music other than from theories reported by authorsrelying mainly on other Western and often inaccurate sources.Ahmed Mukhtar's book is most important because, precisely, it narrates hisaccount of Arabic music, and especially oud music, from the perspective of anaccomplished oudist and composer who has received his knowledge principallyfrom oral transmission which sometimes conflicted with historiography.However, oral transmission is a fundamental epistemological tool of Arabicculture of which the West is suspicious. I have often heard stories about earlyArabic music by musicians from Damascus, to Baghdad, to Fez which I oftendisdained as tales but then, decades later, I found out that they were supportedby manuscripts. In a land which commits its Holy Book to the memory of theHafiz, is it not reasonable to assume that the history of music, too would havebeen committed to orality? Western musicology should revise their views aboutthe transmission of Arabic theory and rely on probability rather than onsubjectivity. Was it not Farmer who said that the Arabs had a lute twice the sizeof the normal type? I never heard such a story from the mouths of any Arabmusicians...