rebáb

The Maghreb rebab was described by a musicologist as the "predominant" rebab of North Africa, although the instrument was in decline with younger generations when that was published in 1984. The name rebáb (rabáb, rabába, rubáb, Arabic ربابة) refers to a group of significantly different stringed instruments, plucked or bowed lutes in regions under the influence of Islam. In North-West Africa and Al-Andalus in the Iberian Peninsula, a short-necked lute played with a bow was developed. It survives today as part of Andalusi classical music.

• Name — Maghreb rebáb • Names — Maghribi rabāb, Moorish rebab, rebab, rebeb, rbeb, rbab • Classification — bowed string instrument • Hornbostel Sachs — 321.71 • Hornbostel Sachs Desc — Instruments in which sound is produced by one or more vibrating strings, in which the resonator and string bearer are physically united and can not be separated without destroying the instrument, in which the strings run in a plane parallel to the sound table, in which the strings are sounded using a bow • Developed — Developed in Andalusian Spain/North Africa, likely applying a bow to a plucked lute with a skin soundboard, such as a rubab or gambus or an earlier oud or barbat

The Umayyads conquered Hispania in 711 and created Andalusia. During the 8th and 9th centuries, many musicians and artists from across the Islamic world flocked to Iberia. By the 11th century, Muslim sections of Spain, or Al-Andalus, had become a center for the manufacture of instruments. These goods spread gradually to Provence, influencing French troubadours and trouvères and eventually reaching the rest of Europe. While Europe developed the lute, the oud remained a central part of Arab music, and broader Ottoman music as well, undergoing a range of transformations. Beside the introduction of the lute to Spain by the Moors, another important point of transfer of lutes and rebabs from Arabian to European culture was Sicily, where it was brought either by Byzantine or later by Muslim musicians. There were singer-lutenists at the court in Palermo following the Norman conquest of the island from the Muslims, and the lute is depicted extensively in the ceiling paintings in the Palermo's royal Cappella Palatina, dedicated by the Norman King Roger II of Sicily in 1140. Sicilian influence increased as Tuscan poets visited Sicily in the 13th century to partake of the local culture. His Hohenstaufen grandson Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor (1194–1250) continued integrating Muslims into his court, including Moorish musicians. By the 14th century, lutes had disseminated throughout Italy and, probably because of the cultural influence of the Hohenstaufen kings and emperor, based in Palermo, the lute had also made significant inroads into the German-speaking lands. When Muslims were driven out of Spain, they took refuge in countries across the Mediterranean Sea, in Africa. Of those permanently expelled, the majority eventually settled in the Barbary Coast (Maghreb), and others to France, Sicily, Italy and Constantinople. The Maghreb rebab was preserved in the Maghreb, even as Europeans continued to develop their fiddles into the rebec and viel (which in turn became the viol and vihuela).