The oud, a stringed instrument, is believed to date back to around 2350 BC to the Akkadian civilisation located in present-day Iraq. It went on to become a popular musical instrument during the old ...

Iraqi-American instrumentalist Rahim AlHaj was imprisoned and tortured for two years by Saddam Hussein’s forces in the early 1990s, but if you ask him about the most difficult time in his life, he’ll ...

Shahd Hesham, an oud player and teacher, plays the oud at Arabic Oud House in Cairo, Egypt, on Sept. 24, 2022. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa) A young Egyptian lady was playing a piece of music on the oud, an ...

Not only do Ghassan Al-Youssef and Dina Abdel-Hamid play on one oud, they also share a philosophy of life that embraces peace and meditation as tools supporting mental and physical practice It was a ...

BAGHDAD (AP) — In a Baghdad workshop plastered with black-and-white photos from a more peaceful time, Mahmoud Abdulnabi hand-carves a wooden oud, a string instrument with ancient roots that has fallen ...

The oud “is an instrument that has its own sentiments and is capable of translating everything inside you,” said music teacher Maissara Mohammed. While he waits for his lesson at an Egyptian music ...

Over the last decade the oud, the Middle Eastern lute, has become a beguiling and familiar sound on culturally outward-looking jazz recordings. Tunisian player Anouar Brahem has expanded the ...

Damascus, SANA- During its seventeenth session, held in Morocco, the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage inscribed Crafting and Playing the Oud on ...

THE Middle East is shattered. From the civil war in Libya to the killing fields of Iraq and Syria, the region has never been more divided. But amid the chaos, a few symbols still manage to unify ...