60th Issue: Ziryab

A friend on Twitter suggested this topic to me, and then I saw that Puppet History covered it, but not everyone here follows that and also I don't watch that anyway so I'm talking about it too.

Ziryab was an Arab musician who lived in Iraq, North Africa, and Andalusia in the 8^th and 9^th centuries. He also knew about astronomy, geography, meteorology, botany, cooking, fashion, and makeup. Ziryab is actually his nickname, and it means blackbird. His real name was Abu l-Hasan Ali Ibn Nafi.

 

 

Ziryab mostly lived and worked in Al-Andalus, the word for Muslim Spain. He was dark-skinned, but his ethnicity is not certain. He might have been Persian, Arab, Kurdish, African, or some combination of those. He was probably born in Baghdad, a center of music during the Islamic Golden Age. He travelled to Syria and then Tunisia, playing music at the prince’s courts. He moved to Cordoba where he was given a monthly salary and was known as the court’s ultimate tastemaker in fashion, food, and music. He was the person who everyone looked to for the most elegant and noble manners. He became a good friend of the prince and with his help, started a school of music that influenced the whole region’s culture for years to come.

Ziryab played the oud, and dyed the strings different colors to represent the four humors. The fifth string that he added was to represent the soul. He was the founder of what is now considered Andalusian music in North Africa. As most fancy men of his time were, he was knowledgeable in many areas of study besides music, though that was what he was most known for. Ziryab’s school was co-ed, with male and female students, and Ziryab was a strict teacher.  “If a student didn't have a large vocal capacity, for instance, he would put pieces of wood in their jaw to force them to hold their mouth open. Or he would tie a sash tightly around the waist to make them breathe in a particular way, and he would test incoming students by having them sing as loudly and as long a note as they possibly could to see whether they had lung capacity.”

Ziryab’s fashion choices influenced everyone around him. He changed clothes based on the weather and season, changing into a different outfit for the morning, afternoon, and evening. He even invented a new type of deodorant and encouraged bathing twice a day. He came up with an early form of toothpaste, and was big on personal hygiene. Before Ziryab, the Cordoban fashion was for men and women both to have long hair parted in the middle, but Ziryab cut bangs into his hair leaving his neck and ears free – basically, a mullet. He also popularized shaving, and introduced fragrant oils instead of just rosewater to wash hair with.

Ziryab was big into cuisine too. He decided that meals should be served in three courses – soup, main course, and dessert. He also introduced tablecloths and using crystal to drink out of instead of metal.

 

 

Ziryab married, and had ten children. Five of them became musicians in their own right and kept their father’s school going after his death. His students and other courtiers spread his trends and inventions all across North Africa and Europe.