The Transmission and Impact of the Hadhrami and Persian ... - Rihlah

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conquests carried this lute eastwards from Persia as far as Celebes, [Sulawesi] and southwards to Madagascar. In all these countries it has been called by a name probably of Turkish origin, variously spelled as gambus, kabosa or qupuz (1940: 251-252). Sachs claims that the word “gambus” derived from the Arabic name qobus, lute-type instruments that are still used in Turkey, Hungary, Russia, Romania and some other places in Europe. He mentions that in Borneo this instrument is called gambus and in Zanzibar it is gabbus. He attributes that the instrument arrived in the Malay Archipelago as early as the seventh century. Sachs based his theories on the sickle-shaped peg-box, tracing these types of instruments to a kind of rebab still used in Borneo and Zanzibar (Panum: 1971). 8 Sir Richard Winstedt (1960) in Kamus Bahasa Melayu (Malay Dictionary), R.J. Wilkinson (1955) in A Malay-English Dictionary, and also in another standard edition of Kamus Dewan (Malay Dictionary, 1998) all mentioned that the word gambus may be an Arabic loan word in the Malay language. 9 M.A.J. Beg (1982) did not mention the word gambus in his book on Malay neologism from Turkish-Persian words but referred to the word barbat, a type of Persian origin pear-shaped lute. 10 8 The etymological links to the terms “gambus” and “viola da gamba” have been puzzling to ethnomusicologists. The Grove Dictionary for Music and Musicians (vol: 19: 1980: 814) says that the derivative of the word gambus is “obscure” and suggests it may have come from an Italian word to describe early European bowed-lute. However, I would argue that the Malay, Arabic and Turkish link seems equally possible. 9 These Malay dictionaries (Kamus Bahasa Melayu and Kamus Dewan) describe the word gambus although not quite accurately as 6 stringed lute of Arabian origin. With hindsight, the word gambus has no roots in Bahasa Melayu. This has been confirmed by the members of the Malay Language Unit at Nanyang Technological University/National Institute of Education, Singapore (personal communication: 1997). 10 Professor Henry Farmer states that Persian lexiconographers derived the word from bar (“breast”) and bat (“duck”), because its shape was like the breast of a duck. He also mentioned that 11 th century Arab scholar Majd al-Din Isn al Athir (d.1210) said it was “because the player upon it places it against his breast” (1931a:95). Dr. Jean Lambert commented that there is no historical or iconographical evidence to show how the barbat looks and historical treatises on the barbat are not explicit enough to draw conclusions about how it may have appeared (In a letter to me commenting on my research: December: 1999). I will argue that the depiction shown in Plate (iii [a] Sassanian lute player) provides convincing evidence of the Persian lute barbat. The author is grateful to the British Museum for the use of this picture. 4
Plate (iii) [a] Sassanian Lute (barbat?) A.D. 224 Plate (iii) [b] Greco-Gandhara lute A.D. 100 The Malays may have adopted the generic term gambus to refer to the Persian barbat, the Arabian qanbus (qabus) and ūd, found in alam melayu. 11 The word gambus may originally have referred to a Persian lute with a pear-shaped body, skin belly and a “C” shaped peg-box as shown in Fig.1 “C” Shaped Pegbox. 12 Fig. 1 “C” Shaped Pegbox The Early Migration of the Hadhrami and Persian Lute-Type Instruments 11 This point about the probable Arabic word “gambus” being borrowed by the Malays to describe the Persian lute was unanimously the opinion expressed by Malay Language specialists at Nanyang Technological University/National Institute of Education in Singapore (personal communication: April 1997). 12 While visiting the British Museum, I came across a silver plate [see Plate (ii[a]) showing a banqueting scene from the 3rd –7th century Sassanian Period (Persia [Iran]). This is the only evidence of the “barbat” in visual form that I have seen (16th May 2001). The design on the plate depicted a musician playing a lute-type instrument that looked similar to the gambus Melayu. This could also be the lute-type instrument that Farmer, During (1984) and Zonis (1973) were referring to as the barbat from Persia. Similar lute instruments to those of the Sassanid period were also found during the Greco-Gandhara [see Plate (ii[b]) period (c.100 A.D.) This picture of the Gandhara lute was taken from Sachs (1940: plate IX (B):160) and Marcuse (1975: 410). These pictorial facts on the barbat are some of the conclusive evidence, which match the documentary descriptions. 5
Page 1 and 2: The Transmission and Impact of the
Page 3: called qabus, turbi, or tarab in Ye
Page 7 and 8: The arrival of the gambus-type inst
Page 9 and 10: Alatas supports the hypothesis that
Page 11 and 12: One cannot doubt the possibility of
Page 13 and 14: Even today music plays a significan
Page 15 and 16: The evidence of Hadhrami cultural l
Page 17 and 18: As both the gambus Melayu and gambu
Page 19 and 20: of “Parsi” (Persian) influence
Page 21 and 22: Coope, A.E. (1991). Malay-English/E
Page 23: Aldo, Ricci. (2002). The Travels of

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