175/791)...

175/791),[^10] although a somewhat similar three-quarter tone had existed in the pre-Islamic measured pandore (tanbur mizani) .[^11] Another wayward interval was the Persian minor third (303 cents) which was sharper than the Pythagorean interval (298 cents),[^12] and it was these alien intervals which both al-Isfahani and ibn ‘Abdi Rabbihi blames for the decadence of the pure Arabian music in the third/ninth century. There are many earlier theorists of music, notably Yunus al-Kativ (d. c.

148/765) who wrote a “Book of Melody” (Kitab al-Naghm) . That was also the title of the book by al-Khalil (d. 175/791), who also compiled a “Book on Rhythm” (Kitab al-Iqa‘) . He was the “father of prosody”[^13] A more important treatise appears to have been the “Book of Melody and Rhythm” by Ishaq al-Mausili (d.

236/850), and that was accomplished, says al-Isfahani, without the author’s knowing an iota of the work of Eucklid.[^14] None of these works has come down to us, but we know precisely what al-Mausili’s theoretical principles were from the Risalah of his disciple ibn al-Munajjim (d. 300/912). In the mid-third/ninth century a new world dawned for those interested in that group of the sciences known as the quadrivium, i.e. the ‘ulum riyadiyyah , which included the theory of music.

At “House of Learning” (Bait al-Kikmar) in Baghdad were scholars who had translated the great Greek writers on Music into Arabic, including Aristotle, Aristoxenus, Nicomachus, Euclid, Ptolmy, and probably Aristides Quintillanus.[^15] The first to avail himself of the new earning was al-Kindi (d. c. 260/873), and three or four – out of a dozen – of his works on the subject have been preserved.

The entire gamut of the science of music is covered by him in his several extant works, two of which have been translated or extracted.[^16] He not only appreciated music as a science for mathematicians and joy to auditors, but as a prescription for physicians to administer to the afflicted mind and body.

As de Boer says, al-Kindi applied mathematics to medicine in his theory of compound remedies, like the effect of music on geometrical proportions.[^17] Everything within the entire macrocosm was linked together. Each note on a lute was connected with melodic mode (tariqah) , rhythm, and sentiment. These, in turn, were conjoined with the planets, seasons, elements, humours, colours, and perfumes.