The muwaššaḥ, embodying the Iberian rhyme revolution, was the major Andalusi innovation in Arabic poetry,[1] and it was sung and performed musically.
[3] While the qasida and the maqama were adapted from the Mashriq, strophic poetry is the only form of Andalusi literature known to have its origins in the Iberian Peninsula.
[4] The earliest known source on the muwashshah is Ibn Bassam’s 'Dhakhīra fī mahāsin ahl al-Jazīra [ar]'.
He ascribes the invention of the muwashshah to the 10th century blind poet Muhammad Mahmud al-Qabri or ibn ‘Abd Rabbih.
[5]: 563 Ibn Sanāʾ al-Mulk (d. 1211), author of Dār aṭ-ṭirāz fī ʿamal al-muwashshaḥāt (دار الطراز في عمل الموشحات), wrote the most detailed surviving musical description of the muwashshaḥ.
[6][7] He wrote that some of the muwashshaḥāt had lyrics that fit their melodies (sometimes through melisma), while others had improvised nonsense syllables to fill out the melodic line—a practice that survives to the present with relevant sections labeled as shughl (شُغل 'work') in songbooks.
[8][9] Some relate it to the word for a type of double-banded ornamental belt, the wišaḥ, which also means a scarf in Arabic.
Typically, Arabic poetry has a single meter and rhyme across the poem and is structured according to couplets, not strophes.
[4]: 167–168 This subject is debated amongst scholars, some of whom argue for the use of a Romance metrical system based on syllable stress.
[4]: 174 Musically, the ensemble consists of oud (lute), kamanja (spike fiddle), qanun (box zither), darabukkah (goblet drum), and daf (tambourine): the players of these instruments often double as a choir.
In Aleppo multiple maqam rows (scales) and up to three awzān (rhythms) are used and modulation to neighboring maqamat was possible during the B section[clarification needed].
Until modernization it was typical to present a complete waslah, or up to eight successive muwaššaḥ including an instrumental introduction (sama'i or bashraf).
Famous Muwashshah songs still played in the Arab World today include Lamma Bada Yatathanna and Jadaka al-Ghaithu.