Safiyyüddîn Abdülmümin el-Urmevî'nin er-Risâletü'ş-Şerefiyye'sinde Mûsikî Matematiği

Abstract

"Mathematical Bases of the Music in al-Risâla al-Sharafiyya" Safî al-Dîn's life, his works were discussed and his well-known book al-Risâla al-Sharafiyya which was written about theory of music were described in brief. Al-Risâla al-Sharafiyya explains seventeen-note octave gamut. Safî al-Dîn refers to ancient Greek philosophers and later authors as al-Kindus, al-Farabius, and Avicenna. Al-Risâla al-Sharafiyya divided into five discourses (subdivided into chapters) including acoustic-the theory of sound-intervalic ratios, establishment of intervals and their proportions, and names, consonances-disconances, addition and subtraction of intervals and constituting the genres, disposition of the genres within the range of one and two octaves, accord systems of string instruments and ud, classifications of the modes, modulation, composition and rhytmic analysis. Mathematic subjects are in the second, third and fourth discource. While Sharafiyya was studied under these subtitles I have indicated the points from the works of al-Kindus, al-Farabius and Avicenna that were benefited by Safî al-Dîn. Beside, I have tried to follow the traces of Sharafiyya by showing references to it in some works written in later centuries, in order to emphasize the impact of the book on the successor studies, innovations brought by it and the differences from the previous works.