Depending on where in the world you’re from, or when you existed, you may or may not have heard of Ziryab – the legendary musician and taste maker. The original pop star or influencer if you like. For those who don’t know, Ziryab was the most famous musician at the court of Cordoba in the 9th century. The list of achievements accredited to him are impressive – he set up one of the first conservatoires, wrote the rule book for Arab-Andalusian Music that exists to this day, added the 5th set of strings to the Oud and apparently knew ten thousand songs by memory. And that’s just Music. He also introduced toothpaste and chess to Europe, influenced hairstyles and the fashion of dressing seasonally to Cordoba, brought new table manners and cuisines to the region, popularised shaving and even set up a beauty salon/cosmetology school for women (conveniently just outside the Emir’s palace). Oh, and did I mention that he also played his Oud with an Eagle’s talon, not just an inflexible piece of wood like his contemporaries. What a guy. ‘Ziryab’ was in fact his nickname, meaning ‘Black Bird’, probably due to his beautiful singing voice. “There never was, either before or after him, a man of his profession who was more generally loved and admired.” (al-Maqqari, 17th century historian).
THE LEGEND OF ZIRYAB
However, it was far from a certainty that things would turn out this way. Before he arrived at the court in Cordoba, he’d had an interesting journey both geographically and personally. He was originally from Baghdad – at the time the biggest city in the world and the undisputed centre of culture, science and art. Its ruler Hamn al-Rashid (c.763 – 809) was a great lover of the arts and had many musicians perform at his court. It was here that Ziryab jump started his career.
In those days Ziryab was a servant to, and student of, the famous court musician Ishaq al-Mawsili. He was obviously an excellent student of Music and was perhaps getting noticed for his talents. The legend goes that one day, whilst he was accompanying his master to the Emir’s court, the Emir himself asked to hear the young student play. Ziryab apparently replied, “I can sing what the other singers know but most of my repertoire is suitable only to be performed for a caliph like your majesty…If your majesty permits, I’ll sing for you what human ears have never heard before.” Wow. A star was born. The Emir’s mind was suitably blown and he instructed al-Mawsili to double down on the training of this exceptional talent. Al-Mawsili was suitably furious. Being upstaged by his servant, who had somehow been learning advanced songs without him knowing was too much of an insult. He told Ziryab in no uncertain terms to leave Baghdad immediately. And just like that Ziryab was out on his own.
There then follows a bit of a mysterious gap between Ziryab being banished from Baghdad and arriving in Cordoba. A gap of 13 years roughly and it wasn’t just that he walked barefoot all the way across North Africa fighting lions along the way. (Although that would have been cool and no doubt a legend of Ziryab’s stature could have done that if he wanted to.) No, the medieval Islamic world was well enough established and connected that the journey could have been done in a few months if required. According to the oral histories of muwashshah musicians in Aleppo he spent time there. Other sources place him in the court of the particularly brutal and sadistic Emir, Ziyadat Allah, in what is now Tunisia. Ziryab eventually insulted Ziydadt by singing a song that may or may not have inferred that the noble Emir in fact had slave blood in him. Ziryab was promptly given 2 days to leave the kingdom or be executed.
Luckily he somehow managed to make the connection with Cordoba and was offered a position at the court of al-Hakam I. In another near plot ending twist Ziryab arrived at Cordoba in 822AD. The year al-Hakam died. Fortunately, al-Hakam’s son and successor, al-Rahman II honoured the contract and the rest, as they say, is history. Al-Rahman and Ziryab remained close friends and associates until 852AD when al-Rahman died. (Ziryab died a few short years later.)
So, that more or less wraps up part one. After many years of struggle and uncertainty our hero is finally in a place and position for his star to shine and for him to go on to become one of the most influential musicians ever. But what kind of conditions enabled this to happen? What was life in Cordoba like at this time?…
MEDIEVAL SPAIN AND THE MUSLIM WORLD
…pretty wild really. Not wild like the frontier where Islamic war lords fought off the barbaric northerners. Wild like, extravagant. Luxurious. Hedonistic even. Ziryab couldn’t have arrived at a better time it seems. Under Hakam I music had definitely been an important part of court life but had mainly remained private. Under Rahman II music came out into public life. He and his brother were great lovers and patrons of the arts and held public performances at their palaces. Ziryab was the best paid (by some margin) of the court musicians and was rubbing shoulders with the high and mighty. To society in Cordoba, he was probably seen as the model ‘zarif’, man of culture and taste, bringing exotic ideas and Music from the East and North Africa.
At the time Cordoba was the capital of the Umayyad dynasty which controlled most of the Iberian Peninsula – known as al-Andalus. It was on the Western edge of the Islamic world which had rapidly spread from the current day Middle East, across North Africa and into Europe in the preceding centuries. Broadly speaking the medieval mediterranean world had been through a long economic recession (roughly 550 – 750AD) but the tide began to turn in the mid 8th century. By the time of al-Rahman II’s reign Cordoba was relatively a peaceful and well-run city that had established trading networks with far flung places across the Muslim world and beyond.
One of the most precious commodities being traded was people. Frankish and Slavonic slaves were brought from Eastern Europe to Spain and then traded onwards to North Africa and the Middle East. Vikings also brought slaves from Northern Europe for onward sale to the Muslim world. Some of the slaves were drafted into the Andalusi army – an idea taken directly from the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad. This wasn’t the only idea the Umayyads took from their more sophisticated Eastern cousins. The first chancery was established at Cordoba under al-Rahman II – based on the Abbasid model. He also adopted court etiquette designed to make the ruler more remote and imposing and difficult to access.
The slave trade didn’t just bring men for the armies, it brought women to the wealthy households of Al-Andalus. Concubines, servant girls and Qiyan – another institution borrowed directly from Baghdad. One that Ziryab definitely benefited from and had a hand in shaping.
THE WOMEN BEHIND THE MUSIC.
‘Qiyan’ is often translated as ‘slave-girl’ or ‘slave-singer’, but this doesn’t adequately describe them. For one, they weren’t just ‘girls’ i.e. young women. They would often continue to perform into old age – having extended careers so to speak. Sometimes Qiyan would eventually become wives of their masters and mothers to their children. Secondly, they weren’t just singers. They were trained in poetry, musical composition, shadow puppetry, calligraphy and more. They were expected to be able to recite history and make witty, engaging conversation with court guests and even put male audience members in their place with stinging retorts if required. Skilled Qiyan knew exactly what their masters desired to hear at just the right moment. Obviously, these were highly valued and sought after people. Some historical records warn of the dangers that could arise. Becoming infatuated with a Qiyan (or multiple) could lead to the abandonment of all else but pleasure, resulting in heartache, pain and eventual ruin.
Al-Rahman II was said to desire women as much as he did Music. (This guy fathered 86 children!) His favourite Qiyan, who had their own palace just next to his, were known as the ‘Medinese’. There were 3 of them and their (stage) names were– Fadl, Alam and Qalam. They had been bought from Medina, which at the time, was known as the best Qiyan training school in the Muslim world. The fact that we know their names tells us that they clearly had much more status than just slaves or concubines.
One of the things that made them so valuable, especially in the early days of the Umayyad Caliphate, was their knowledge. Trained in Baghdad and Medina, they were schooled in the repertoire of the Middle East. The audience in Cordoba was hungry for the ‘authentic’ style and the Qiyan being brought in would have been key importers of it. Early on, all of the Qiyan in Al-Andalus would have been trained in the East. Later, as Cordoba established itself as a cultural centre with its own conservatoire and musical style, training of Qiyan took place at home. Which brings us back to Ziryab.
It was Ziryab that established Cordoba’s conservatoire, and it was he that directly trained many musicians, including Qiyan, during his lifetime. He was said to have 30+ Qiyan staying at his palace. He didn’t own all of them himself but did house them while training them for others. He may have even given them as gifts in order to win favour with wealthy patrons in the court.
There is an interesting story about Ziryab and his favourite slave girls. ‘Jins’ (spirits) would sometimes visit Ziryab in the middle of the night and teach him songs. He would hastily wake his 2 favourite Qiyan and teach them the songs he’d just been given because, in the morning, he would have no recollection of the music. And so, these women became his ‘registers’, the keepers of his music. At this point you might be thinking what I’m thinking. One, Mrs. Ziryab must have been very understanding to put up with these midnight visits to the female slave quarters. Two, was it in fact the slave girls who were teaching Ziryab, not the other way round? It’s just a thought.
There is evidence of one of the Emir’s other male singers, Sulaym, being sent to Qiyan for training in the Baghdad style – so things could work that way round. There is also evidence of Ziryab being somewhat guarded about who he taught – for example when he first arrived at the court he only taught ‘Mansur the Jew’. He wasn’t sharing his knowledge of the Eastern repertoire with anyone and everyone in the uncultured West. As Ziryab’s experience had taught him, life at court depended on the whims of the master, and so he must have been keen to preserve his status as the man with the knowledge. He’d left Baghdad many years before, as a very young man. It’s possible that he hadn’t memorised the entire repertoire and was in need of updates. Who better to provide that than women who had more recently completed their training in the East?
THE LEGACY OF ZIRYAB, QIYAN AND AL-ANDALUS.
Now, before all you Ziryab fans try to cancel me, I’m not saying that he was nothing more than a slave owning, thieving charlatan. Far from it. Ziryab may have been instrumental in bringing ‘authentic’ music to the Umayyads, but he is also celebrated for innovating and creating his own style. He didn’t just teach the Baghdad repertoire – he taught his own songs and ideas. And these outlived him for many generations. His ability to innovate as well as be a master of an existing style is surely key to his success. After his death it was some of the Qiyan he had directly trained that became the transmitters of his style. (For example, Shunayf, who lived a long time after him and who became the go to source for the authentic Ziryab style for many musicians and singers.) He gave Cordoba and al-Andalus its own style and put it on the map. During the reign of al-Rahman II, al-Andalus experienced a golden age of culture and civilization which was the envy of all of Europe and potentially even set the stage for the European renaissance that followed.
All good things come to an end though, and by the early 11th century the reign of the Umayyads was over. Al-Andalus became fragmented and broke up into smaller kingdoms that were gradually absorbed into the Christian dynasties pushing down from the North. We know that as the Castilian kings moved into places like Cordoba that they established Cathedrals inside the existing Mosques and presumably took note of the architecture and other scientific and cultural examples they found there. Is it possible that they also took musical ideas? The conservatoire that Ziryab established continued to innovate and push the boundaries of music long after his death. Some have suggested that it was here that the beginnings of polyphony and counterpoint came about in roughly 1000 AD. It didn’t start in the Western European tradition until c.1200 AD. Again. Just a thought.
It’s easy, coming from the Western perspective, to forget that much of the scientific and mathematical knowledge that emerged from the dark ages potentially came into Europe via the Muslim world on its borders. It was rediscovered rather than invented. The scholars of the Islamic world had taken ancient ideas from contact with the collapsing Roman Empire, who had in turn taken it from the Greeks. Many of the scholars of medieval Europe spent a lot of time and effort translating works from Arabic into European languages. From mathematics to science to astronomy to poetry and literature and so on. One of the main places they came across these works was through contact with al-Andalus.
So, what to make of it all? Ziryab is a romanticised figure that comes down to us through the ages shrouded in mystery. Many of the sources that mention him were written a couple of centuries after his lifetime, so it can be hard to distinguish fact from fantasy. He was undoubtedly a master musician. One who lived an extraordinary life in an extremely vibrant time and place. Did he single handedly influence so much of the cultural life of al-Andalus or has history simplified things and put the achievements of many under the Ziryab umbrella? Impossible to say. We’ll have to content ourselves with listening to music, still being performed today, that has its roots in the time of Islamic Spain.
Sources for this article:
islamicspain.tv – “Cities of Light – the rise and fall of Islamic Spain“
muslimheritage.com/ziryab-the-musician – “Ziryab, the musician,astronomer, fashion designer and gastronome”
researchgate.net – “fixing a misbegotten biography: Ziryab in the Mediterranean World.” (Carl Davilla)
“Moorish Spain” by Richard Fletcher (chap 4)
“The Musical Heritage of Al-Andalus” – Dwight F. Reynolds (2020 Routledge)
“The Qiyan of al-Andalus” – Dwight F. Reynolds
Wikipedia – Ziryab