{{Short description|Aspect of Arabic music}} 400px|thumb|''Wazn wahdah sayirah'', a relatively short measure of four beats

'''Rhythms in Arabic music''' are rich and very diverse, as they cover a huge region and peoples from Northern Africa to Western Asia. Rhymes are mainly analysed by means of rhythmic units called {{tlit|ar|awzan}} and {{tlit|ar|iqa'at}}.

==Wazn and Iqa'==

A rhythmic pattern or cycle in Arabic music is called a "wazn" ({{langx|ar|وزن}}; plural {{lang|ar|أوزان}} / {{tlit|ar|awzān}}), literally a "measure".<ref>Touma 1996, 49.</ref>

A ''wazn'' is only used in musical genres with a fixed rhythmic-temporal organization including recurring measures, motifs, and meter or pulse.<ref>Touma 1996, 47.</ref> It consists of two or more regularly recurring time segments, each time segment consisting of at least two beats ({{tlit|ar|naqarāt}}, plural of {{tlit|ar|naqrah}}). There are approximately one hundred different cycles used in the repertoire of Arabic music, many of them shared with other regional music, also found in some South European styles like Spanish music. They are recorded and remembered through onomatopoetic syllables and the written symbols O and I.<ref>Touma 1996, 48.</ref> ''Wazn'' may be as large as 176 units of time.<ref>Touma 1996, 48.</ref>

''Iqa<nowiki>'</nowiki>'' ({{langx|ar|إيقاع}} / {{tlit|ar|īqā‘}}; plural {{lang|ar|إيقاعات}} / {{tlit|ar|īqā‘āt}}) are rhythmic modes or patterns in Arabic music.<ref>Waugh, ''Memory, Music, and Religion: Morocco's Mystical Chanters'', 201.</ref>{{Full citation needed|date=March 2019}} There are reputed to be over 100 {{tlit|ar|iqa'at}},<ref>Randel, Apel, ''The New Harvard Dictionary of Music''</ref>{{Full citation needed|date=March 2019}} but many of them have fallen out of fashion and are rarely if ever used in performance. The greatest variety of ''iqa<nowiki>'</nowiki>at'' (ranging from two to 48 beats) are used in the ''muwashshah''.

==See also== *Dumbek rhythms *Usul *Sa'idi

==References== {{Reflist|2}}

===Cited sources=== *Habib Hassan Touma (1996). ''The Music of the Arabs'', trans. Laurie Schwartz. Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press. {{ISBN|0-931340-88-8}}.

==External links== *[http://www.maqamworld.com/rhythms.html Arabic Rhythms page] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141022044503/http://maqamworld.com/rhythms.html |date=2014-10-22 }} from Maqam World

{{rhythm and meter}}

Category:Arabic music Category:Middle Eastern music Category:Music of North Africa Category:Arabic music theory