Maqams

The name maqam appeared for the first time in the treatises written in the 14th century by Al-Sheikh Al-Safadi and Abdulqadir Al-Maraghi, and it has since that time already been utilized as a technical term in Arabic music.

The maqam is a modal structure that characterizes the art of music of countries in North Africa , the Near East and Central Asia . In this region we can differentiate three main musical cultures which almost all belong to the maqam modal family, namely the Persian, the Arabic, and also the Turkish, along with the tightly related Greek .

Most of the passages within the prayer book, like the Amidah and the Psalms, are usually chanted in a recitative rather than either read in normal speech or sung to a rhythmical tune. The recitatives follow a system of musical modes , somewhat just like the maqamat of Arabic music. For instance, Ashkenazi cantorial practice differentiates a number of steiger (scales) called after the prayers by which they are employed, like as the Adonoi moloch steiger and also the Ahavoh rabboh steiger . Mizrahi communities including the Syrian Jews use the full maqam system.