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145music of Ancient Greece itself is considered by many to be a part of theMiddle Eastern family of musical cultures;‣ Also starting from Ancient Greece, Middle Eastern thinkers have longdiscussed the value of different kinds of music. There were suggestionsthat certain scales, modes or musical instruments should be banned (forexample, Plato suggested a ban on the aulos, a double-reed aerophone).This tendency was dramatized after the advance of Islam, and resulted ina general disapproval (and sometimes a strict ban) of non-religiousrelatedmusical activities in some of the Middle Eastern countries. As alive example of such a ban, our friend and colleague from MonashUniversity spent two years in an Iranian jail for performing classicalmusic.Pearl Divers of the Persian GulfArguably the most prominent vocal polyphonic tradition from the Middle Easternregion has been recorded from the pearl divers of the Persian Gulf, around the island ofBahrain. Bahrain has never been an easy place in which to live. Water is so scarce thatthe Arabs used to dive into the gulf and collect fresh water on the bottom of the sea fromunderground springs. Until the 1970s pearl diving in the Persian Gulf, and particularlyaround the Bahrain Islands, was a thriving industry. Pearls from this region wasconsidered to be the best in the world. Most industry was connected to the sea: fishingand collecting pearl. The best time for collecting pearls is from June to October. Smallone-masted boats carried several pearl divers (from 1 to 4). Each dive could be the lastfor each of them, as sharks and poisonous jellyfish were very frequent in the sea. Everydiver would usually make 30-40 dives a day (Rovsing-Olsen, 1978:12, 2002:87).The traditional polyphonic songs of pearl divers are called nahma. The mostsalient feature of nahma songs is the exceptionally low vocal drone – hamhama (twooctaves lower than the main melody). Scholars think that hamhama might be connectedsymbolically to the voice of the whale (Lambert, 2002:651). The leading melody isperformed by a professional singer nahham. Nahma songs were documented in Kuwait,Qatar and Bahrain. These songs are divided into two groups: working songs andentertainment songs. Working songs are rhythmically organized around short cycles(only one of the songs – yamal – is in free time). Entertainment songs (fjiri) areconsidered to be “prestigious forms, and their origins is the subject of rich legends”(Lambert, 2002:651).Nahma is accompanied by clapping and the sounds of percussive instruments. Nodrone in instrumental music has been documented.Much less known is the two-part singing of the Bedouins. The Garland articlementions choral singing during the ritualistic combat dances of Ababda Bedouins (Saleh,2002:624) and Rovsing-Olsen provides an example of Bedouin polyphony (see Rovsing-Olsen, 1978).