Dammam (drum)

Doubtful cylinder drums, worn by standing musicians on a belt around their hips and played with both hands, are illustrated as first known in the Middle East in the Neo- Assyrian period (first half of the 1st millennium BC).

kūsāt ), gongs (tusūt), bells (dschalādschil) and various wind instruments belonged to the medieval military bands, which were up to 40 strong and were used to represent the ruler.

In addition to the dammām, drums used regionally in folk music include the large double-headed cylinder dohol (dhol in India) and small kettledrums played singly or in pairs.

In the narrower sense, dammām, specified as ad-dammām al-mudala, denotes a large frame drum with a body height of only nine to twelve centimeters and a five, seven or octagonal shape.

This drum hangs horizontally from a strap around the neck in front of the player's stomach, who hits it on top with a stick in his right hand.

[6] A similarly flat but smaller double-headed drum is the mirwas (plural: marāwīs) played in the Arabic countries on the Persian Gulf to accompany songs – including in the urban singing style sawt.

[7] The dammām is primarily associated with the Ashura rites, in which groups of Shia men lament the martyrdom of Imam Husayn by carrying long knives on their heads or carrying a bundle of knife blades (zanjir) on their heads, accompanied by beating of drums, to inflict bloody cuts on the back.

In the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad , one of the largest religious centers of Shiite Islam, believers from large parts of Iran come together on Ashura, the tenth day of the month of Muharram, and form a crowd that moves around the Imam Reza shrine, accompanied by acoustics of drums, paired cymbals and trumpets.

In Bushehr on the Persian Gulf, it is part of the tradition of the ritual that takes place on the 9th of Muharram that a procession marches from all parts of the city, accompanied by a group of instruments with eight cylinder drums, eight paired cymbals and, instead of the trumpet, a traditional conical long trumpet buq (cf.

[9] In passion plays ( taschābah ) in the first ten days of the month of Muharram, the historical events leading up to the death of Husayn are enacted with performers in costumes and horses in front of backdrops.

[11] Some cultural forms of African immigrants and former slaves, especially dance and musical styles, have survived in southern Iraq and Iran in the Persian Gulf.

In Basra, Iraq this includes the possession ceremony an-nūbān with relatively benign spirits, for which African drums and the tanbūra, also from Africa, are used.

The damaging spirit, understood as a kind of wind, must at the zar-Healing ritual to be identified with his personality and country of origin.