Antarah's Wisdom - Epic Arabian Music

Описание: Music by Farya Faraji, vocals by Ibrahim Charaf, lyrics by Antarah ibn Shaddad.

It was about time I tried my hand at the vast, diverse repertoire of the Arab world, and I wanted to start with no other than Arabia proper. This composition is inspired by the Khaliji (broadly meaning of the Gulf) styles of music—those of the Arabs living on the eastern coast of the Persian gulf, where their music is broadly the same as that of southern Iranians living near the gulf. The Iranian style is called Bandari, a style I’m a little familiar with, but is mostly alien to me as I’m Mazandarani from the North, where our music has more affinities with the music of the Caucasus.

This style called Khaliji by the Arabs is often in triple metre, with a percussive pattern that is highly syncopated as heard here. The primary instrument used is different forms bagpipes, such as the habban in the Arabian peninsula or the ney anban in Iran. I used a mijwiz, which is a bagless, similar reed instrument that produces the same general sound as them. I also used an oud, the main instrument used across the Arabian peninsula.

The poem is written by Antarah ibn Shaddad himself. Antarah was a pre-Islamic era Arabian man of partial Ethiopian descent on his mother’s side, for which he was called the Crow after his dark complexion. Hailing from the central region of Najd, and initially a slave, he was freed after defending his master from an attack, and would go on to become a swashbuckling, knight like figure, riding his horse across the dunes of Arabia before the ascent of Islam a few decades after his death.

He was also a renowned poet, and his poetry survives to this day as one of the most well known examples of Arabic poetry from before the consolidation of Islam.

Lyrics in Arabic:
حَكِّم سُيوفَكَ في رِقابِ العُذَّلِ
وَإِذا نَزَلتَ بِدارِ ذُلٍّ فَاِرحَلِ
وَإِذا بُليتَ بِظالِمٍ كُن ظالِم
وَإِذا لَقيتَ ذَوي الجَهالَةِ فَاِجهَلي

English translation:
Let your sword rule over your ennemies’ necks,
And if you enter a disgraced land, leave it,
And if you meet tyrants, be a tyrant to them,
And if you meet insolents, be insolent to them