Religious Qudud … The Fourth Tale

King of Al-Qudud Al-Halabiya, the late Sabah Fakhri said about religious Qudud, “It is a topic that touches the heart and its melodies refine and promote the taste… Researching its content requires great effort due to the difficulty of investigating its texts and the accuracy of transcribing its melodies…. Syrian heritage is proud of this artistic model in which religious Qudud alongside the muwashah, the mawwal, and the improvised poem,” occupy a leading position.”

Religious Qudud began when Aleppo’s musical heritage passed orally from generation to generation, even with the emergence of specialized books, because they believed that singing is a listening art that can only be taken from the mouth of the teacher..

The worship books and the Sufi Halaqat in Aleppo played an important role in the spread of religious Qudud, where chanting troupes arose. One of the most famous places in Aleppo was also the house of Sheik Omar Al-Batsh, 1885-1950, the composer of the most famous muwashah. He was one of the singers of Al-Zawiya Al-Hilaliya. His house was like a class, as his students were divided into groups, each group had its own time, where they learned the muwashah, the religious recitation, the Qad or the Dour.

Famous singers, composers and dancers of Al-Samah gathered in one group at Sheik Al-Batsh house, namely, Sabri Mudallal, Abdul Qader Hajjar, Bahjat Hassan, and Hajj Sobhi Al-Hariri, who was the head of more than one worship circle in Aleppo, the most important of which was Al-Zawiya Al-Hilaliya, where he provided song-lovers with the sciences of Maqamat and rhythm.

To know more about the Religious Qudud, the musician Muhammad Qadri Dalal explained in his book “The Religious Qudud,” which is a historical and musical research on al-Qudud al-Halabiya. He said that al-Qudud is a melody sung in two lyrics, one of which is zajal in the spoken language, and its subject is love, and the second is eloquent poetry with a religious theme.

Regarding the first form, Qadri Dalal explained that the people of Aleppo, because of their great love for music and singing, were not convinced by the zajal texts or eloquent poetic texts, so they worked to imitate them with other texts, but rather they exceeded it to instrumental melodies. Therefore, if they admire one of these melodies, they create a poetic text that mimics the melody and rhythmic scale of that author and they sing it without caring for solfege. This type of singing needs a well-versed poet or a scholar of music and rhythm to emulate the melody in poetic linguistic terms.

Simplicity is the most important characteristic of the religious or love Al-Qudud Al-Halabiya, as they are originally popular songs with simple and easy melodies that suit all occasions and celebrations. Qadri Dalal showed the link between religious and non-religious qud, where there is an interrelationship relationship between the two types, as we can have a non-religious popular text that is formulated based on a religious one and vice versa.

One of the most famous poets of Syrian religious Qudud is Sheikh Abdel Ghani Al-Nabulsi Al-Damashqi, who died 1720, He is a brilliant composer who addressed all forms of religious chanting. Among them were also Sheikh Omar Al-Yafi, Yusef Al-Qarqali, Sheikh Amin Al-Jundi, Sheikh Abu Al-Huda Al-Sayadi, Muhammad Al-Nashar, Aisha Al-Ba’ouniyah of Damascus, Umm Muhammad of Al-Tal.

In his book “Religious Qudud,” Dalal documented about 129 religious and non-religious songs and presented their texts and some of their biography, showing the relationship between them and how contemporary singers formulated their songs and tunes according to this or that type, explaining the melodies and Maqamat of these Qudud and their rhythms.

Among the religious Qudud are “Abu al-Zahra Nabia” of the Rast  Maqam , “Make Your Whole Time Joy” of the Jahar Kah Maqam ,”Love in True Faith” of the Ouj Iraq Maqam, “the universe has lit up from you” of the Ajam Maqam, and “You are the copy of the universes” of the  Hazam  Maqam.

Amal Farhat