Ziryab

Abu l-Hasan 'Ali Ibn Nafi, better known as Ziryab, Zeryab, or Zaryab ( 789– 857) (أبو الحسن علي ابن نافع, زریاب) (زَریاب Zaryāb), was a singer, oud and lute player, composer, poet, and teacher who lived and worked in Iraq, Northern Africa and Andalusia during the medieval Islamic period. He was also a polymath, with knowledge in astronomy, geography, meteorology, botanics, cosmetics, culinary art and fashion. His nickname "Ziryab", comes from the Persian word for jay-bird زرياب, pronounced "Zaryāb". He was also known as Mirlo ('blackbird') in Spanish. He was active at the Umayyad court of Córdoba in Islamic Iberia. He first achieved fame at the Abbasid court in Baghdad, his birthplace, as a performer and student of the great Persian musician and composer Ibrahim al-Mawsili. Ziryab was a gifted pupil of Ibrahim al-Mawsili in Baghdad, where Ziryab got his beginner lessons. However, he left Baghdad during the reign of the Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun and moved to Córdoba, where he was accepted as a court musician in the court of Abd ar-Rahman II of the Umayyad Dynasty. Ziryab's career flourished in Al-Andalus. According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, he was born around 175 AH/790 into a family of mawali of the caliph al-Mahdi. His ethnic origin is disputed, different sources list him as either Persian, Kurdish, or African. According to Ibn Hayyan, ‘Ali Ibn Nafi’ was called Blackbird because of his extremely dark complexion, the clarity of his voice and “the sweetness of his character.” As the Islamic armies conquered more and more territories, their musical culture spread with them, as far as western China in the east and Iberia in the west. After their 8th century conquest of nearly all of Hispania, which they renamed Al-Andalus, the Muslims were a small minority for quite some time, greatly outnumbered by the majority Christians and a smaller community of Jews, who had their own styles of music. With their arrival, the Muslims and Arabs introduced new styles of music, and the main cities of Iberia soon became well-known centers for music within the Islamic world.