And the measurement of the width of the bridge with the remainder behind: six fingers. length will be: thirty-six joint fingers-with good thick fingers-and the total will amount to three ashbār. The first known complete description of the ‛ūd and its construction is found in the epistle Risāla fī-l-Luḥūn wa-n-Nagham by 9th-century philosopher of the Arabs Yaʻqūb ibn Isḥāq al-Kindī. 1040) in his compendium on music Ḥāwī al-Funūn wa Salwat al-Maḥzūn. Īn early description of the "modern" oud was given by 11th-century musician, singer and author Al-Hasan Ibn al-Haytham (c. The oldest surviving oud is thought to be in Brussels, at the Museum of Musical Instruments. It is the direct successor of the Persian Barbat lute. The oud, as a fundamental difference with the western lute, has no frets and a smaller neck. Similar instruments have been used in the Middle East, North Africa (particularly the Maghreb, Egypt and Somalia), and Central Asia for thousands of years, including Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Caucasus, the Levant, anatolian Greeks, Albania and Bulgaria there may even be prehistoric antecedents of the lute.
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The oud is very similar to other types of lute, and to Western lutes.
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The oud ( Arabic: عود, romanized: ʿūd, pronounced Somali: kaban or cuud) is a short-neck lute-type, pear-shaped, fretless stringed instrument (a chordophone in the Hornbostel–Sachs classification of instruments), usually with 11 strings grouped in six courses, but some models have five or seven courses, with 10 or 13 strings respectively. (Composite chordophone sounded with a plectrum)