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This paper analyzes 18 pieces of music from the Egyptian and Syrian maqam (Arabic melodic modal) tradition, with the following goals: 1) to demonstrate how to parse musical examples using the abstract information available on scale structure; 2) to challenge the conventional understandings of Arabic music theory, and offer new definitions of jins (tetrachord or scale type) and maqam (scale); and 3) to provide hypotheses as to the shape of the overall maqam system and suggestions for potentially fruitful avenues of research.

The pioneer composers of contemporary classical music in the Republic of Turkey (aka Contemporary Turkish Music) created their first musical compositions by incorporating some of the components of traditional Turkish music — scale, rhythm, motif, and style — and abstracted forms thereof. The Ballade, a one-part orchestral piece dating back to 1947, composed by one of the first-generation composers, Necil Kazım Akses, is an example of this approach to composition. Both the concert program notes and various concert criticisms give an idea about the structures of traditional Turkish music in the Ballade. However, the Ballade, as an example of programmatic music, requires a more detailed analysis, especially in terms of motif and rhythm. In this study, which aims to establish the connection between the composition at hand and primarily traditional Turkish music, I examine the composition in terms of rhythm, motif, scale, and style, and the findings are correlated with the original structures of traditional Turkish music. The findings showed that Akses used rhythmic (usûl) abstractions in his work more than the modal (maqam) structures. When examining the modal structure of the work, I also detected that the composer preferred to abstract the motifs exhibited by the maqams, instead of abstracting the maqam structures directly. The study especially reveals Akses’s creative approach to motivic abstraction, with the explanation of how the basic motif of Ballade was created.

“When I was a kid, the elders in the village could tell the makam of a piece just by listening.” While interviewing performers, enthusiasts, and experts in traditional Turkish taksims (improvisations), variations of this comment were made many times. Some of the respondents claimed to be able to identify the makam of a taksim, but others believed that this ability might now be a lost art. This paper documents a series of experiments (based on caricaturized or skeletonized taksim-like creations) designed to determine if it is possible to identify the makam from purely acoustical features, and, when possible, to determine the relative importance of the various audible features that may be used to establish the makam. Two basic classes of features are investigated: perde (the set of pitches used in the performance) and seyir (which relates to temporal motion within the piece, for instance, repetitive or common motives or melodic contour). The experiments provide evidence that both kinds of features contribute to the ability to recognize makams. Experiments that randomize the order of events show that pitch cues (perde) are often adequate to allow accurate identification of the makam. In experiments where both pitch and temporal cues are present but conflict (for example, a piece in which the perde is chosen from one makam and the seyir from another), experts often favor the temporal information.

Nations in the Arab world are largely unitary states, yet Iraq has embarked on a seemingly ambitious agenda of decentralization and devolution mixed with federalism. While local elections have been dehyedat least until 2012, and indeed may never take place, Iraq's constitutional commitment to decentralize and subsequent statutory enactments appear to be turning provincial governments into significant actors in Iraqi governance. Progress has taken place at a slower, more deliberate pace than both proponents and opponents feared in 2002–6. This article discusses the current state of implementation of this process as a cornerstone of Iraqi democratic devebpment, from the perspective of a former U.S. Department of State senior governance specialist who served on an embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team in 2009–10. These reconstruction teams were dismantled in the year leading up to September 6, 2011, as the American relationship with Iraq was \"normalized,\" though they likely will continue in Afghanistan into 2013.

This article examines the social dynamics at sacred \"womb tombs\" in an effort to discern this architectural form's impact on contemporary religious experience, politics, and landscapes. With this objective in mind, Christian veneration at Jerusalem's Tomb of Mary is compared with Muslim worship at Maqam Abu alHijja in the Galilee. Drawing on our ethnographic findings, we posit that the ancient structure of these shrines mimics the poetry of the human body as well as death and regeneration. While pilgrims to these womb tombs seek preternatural intervention for infertility, sickness, pain, and other misfortunes, the venues concomitantly serve as an outlet for voicing indigenous claims to the land and help minorities bolster their sense of belonging. In the process, we have taken stock of a wide range of ethnographic findings: the sites' architectural representation of the human body, the manner in which the tombs are venerated and experienced by local Christians and Muslims, and the politicization of fertility and well-being rituals by minorities within the context of sociopolitical struggles over, above all, territorial rights.

This paper introduces a methodology to calculate confidence bounds for a normal and Weibull distribution using Monte Carlo pivotal statistics. As an example, a ready-to-use lookup table to calculate one-sided lower confidence bounds is established and demonstrated for normal and Weibull distributions. The concept of one-sided lower tolerance limits for a normal distribution was first introduced by G. J. Lieberman in 1958 (later modified by Link in 1985 and Wei in 2012), and has been widely used in the automotive industry because of the easy-to-use lookup tables. Monte Carlo simulation methods presented here are more accurate as they eliminate assumptions and approximations inherent in existing approaches by using random experiments. This developed methodology can be used to generate confidence bounds for any parametric distribution. The ready-to-use table for the one-sided lower tolerance limits for a Weibull distribution is presented. The Weibull distribution is widely adopted in the automotive industry because of its wide range of engineering applications. The Weibull model covers many other parametric distributions (either exactly or approximately) like lognormal and exponential. Typically, the fatigue life of a product follows a Weibull distribution. Estimation of the confidence bounds for a Weibull distribution with limited experimental data is critical in making design and material selection decisions for any product to ensure it complies with durability targets.

This article documents that government T‐bills provided a higher yield to maturity than an equally risky illiquid asset (bank deposits) in Israel. The difference between the return on the liquid asset relative to the illiquid asset is higher in periods of greater uncertainty. This cannot be attributed to taxes, risk, or transaction costs. We suggest that the observed puzzle is due to the positive correlation between liquidity and the flow of market information. We use the term “ostrich effect” to describe investor behavior, since ostriches are believed to treat apparently risky situations by pretending they do not exist.

The copy of al-Ḥarīrīʾs Maqāmāt in the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, arabe 5847, was made by Yaḥyā b. Maḥmūd b. Yaḥyā b. Abiʾl-ḥasan b. Kūrrīhā al-Wāsiṭī, who tell us in its colophon that he was responsible for both the calligraphy and the illustrations, and gives us the date, AH 6 Ramadan 634/May 3, 1236 CE. This is a well known manuscript, having been recognized as one of the masterpieces of Arab painting and Islamic art for more than a century. The al-Wāsiṭī Maqāmāt features three unprecedented pictorial features: first, at least sixteen double-page paintings, each of which represents a single episode in the text; second, one full-page painting with no text; and third, two paintings spread across two open pages with no text. This paper analyzes al-Wāsiṭīʾs use oftext and image and shows that, based on previously unnoticed lacunae, the original manuscript could have had up to ten more paintings in addition to its current number of ninety-nine.

The affinity between theScroll of Lovein the Maḥbarot by Immanuel of Rome (1265–1335?) and theVita Nuovaby Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) has long been discussed by Hebrew scholars in terms of influence and imitation. What the present study suggests is that theScroll of Loveis, in fact, a parody of Dante's sublime youthful work, and that the elements traditionally read as pseudo-autobiography are instead literary elements contributing to the parody. To strengthen her thesis the author draws attention to theRota Veneris, a thirteenth-century work parodying the literary traditions ofamor carnalisandamor spiritualis, and also notes a curious parallel with Boccaccio'sFilostratoand the changing ways scholars have read that work over the centuries.

The corpus of Islamic literature in Bengali testifies to the articulation of a regional Islam among newly Islamized communities. One of the most consistent concerns of this genre is the explication of Islamized forms of Tantric yoga, the practices of which appear integral to Sufism as it was developed in Bengal.