Chapter 03
Hijaz, the Sacred Cities and the Red Sea
5 min
Hijaz is a corridor of holy cities, mountain towns, ports and neighbourhoods. Mecca's pilgrimage public, Medina's religious institutions, Jeddah's sea and commercial life, Taif's poetry and performance, and Yanbu's maritime repertory cannot be compressed into “western Saudi music.” The region's coherence lies in circulation: people arrive, depart, trade, study, worship, record and return.
Mecca trains an ear for text
Qur'anic recitation is among the most consequential sounds in Mecca and Medina. A reciter works within tajwid, observing pronunciation, vowel length, pauses and relations between words. Breath must serve meaning. Pitch rises and falls, but virtuosity is accountable to devotional purpose and textual clarity.
This sonic discipline can coexist in a musician's life with song, just as poetry and sermon can shape public delivery. The categories remain distinct. A commercial singer may have learned breath control through recitation; that biography does not turn the Qur'an into repertoire. A reader can listen closely to cadence while respecting the terms by which practitioners understand the act.
The same cities gathered visitors from Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Central Asia and the wider Arab world. Pilgrimage created encounters among languages and vocal practices over many centuries. Hijazi cosmopolitanism becomes audible through particular poets, reciters, musicians, neighbourhoods and institutions.
Majas and urban Hijazi song honour the phrase
Majas is a vocal art associated with Hijaz and with the skilled jassis. A singer shapes formal or vernacular poetry through a measured melodic line, close attention to diction and controlled ornament. The voice may stand with limited accompaniment, placing the poem's cadence in full view. In wedding and social contexts, majas can prepare attention for later rhythmic sections.
Jeddah's modern song drew on this textual culture while opening to oud, violin, qanun, percussion and radio orchestration. Fawzi Mahsoun, Omar Kadars, lyricist Thuraya Qabil and other makers helped form a Hijazi urban language whose reach became national and pan-Arab. Their songs do not sound regional only through a named rhythm. Dialect, melodic turn, humour and the balance between restraint and dance all carry place.
The city was also a workplace for musicians arriving from elsewhere and for Saudis travelling out to studios. A Jeddah song might be recorded in Beirut, pressed in Greece and distributed through Kuwait. The result remains connected to Jeddah through its makers and audience, even when no stage of manufacture occurred within the city.
Taif holds majrur and a recording threshold
Majrur is especially associated with Taif. It combines poetic singing, percussion and coordinated rows or groups. Drums establish a patterned field over which the verse can be repeated and answered. Performance has a grounded, communal swing; the relation of voice to drum matters more than a translation that labels it simply folk dance.
Taif also sits at a crucial threshold in modern Saudi recording history. Tariq Abdulhakim developed military ensemble work there and founded the Saudi Army Music School after returning from musical study in Egypt. Talal Maddah encountered established musicians in Taif wedding culture before radio carried his voice widely. This was not a leap from folklore to modernity. It was a conversation among local practice, formal training, military bands, Arab orchestration and broadcast technology.
The city's garden and mountain imagery entered songs including Tariq Abdulhakim's Ya Reem Wadi Thaqif. The melodic line has room to breathe, and the arrangement frames a voice that remains direct. Hear how place is carried through address and contour, not through a scenic sound effect.
Almezmar builds a street from two rows
Hijazi almezmar is a stick song-dance, not the name of a reed instrument in this setting. Two rows face each other, clap and chant while drums establish the background. Pairs enter the central space with sticks, complete a turn and make room for others. Gallantry, love and collective memory can enter the sung texts.
The central pair may attract the eye, yet the rows create the event. Their clapping defines time, their chant gives each entry a verbal frame, and their attention decides when the centre changes hands. A strong performance balances individual agility with social permission.
UNESCO inscribed Almezmar on the Representative List in 2016. The precisely titled film Almezmar, Drumming and Dancing with Sticks, directed by Ahmed Abdullatif and crediting participants Damna Al Zahrani and Nuray Omar Bamanie, lets the listener hear drum, clap and chant as separate layers. The inscription year recognizes the practice; the film itself was made in 2015.
Yanbu makes the simsimiyya travel
Yanbawi repertory is linked to the western coast and sailors. Simsimiyya supplies a bright plucked framework, while percussion and answering voices produce a quick social current. In modern performance, a mawwal may open the melodic space before the principal sung section and a concluding tabhira. The transition from free vocal line to fast pulse is one of the form's pleasures.
Versions associated with Yanbu, Medina, Mecca and Taif differ. The repertory moved with sailors and communities along the Red Sea, where ports connected Arabia to Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea and beyond. Shared instruments and refrains are evidence of relationship. They do not erase local ownership by the people who maintain a specific song.
Sahba, dana, khubaiti and other western forms extend the map. Each needs its own occasion and structure. A heritage programme may place several in a single suite, shortening each for the stage. Ask for the troupe's name and sequence, since a polished medley can otherwise make distinct forms sound like one continuous regional beat.
Jeddah's women built public song from social rooms
Women singers moved between wedding ensembles, home gatherings, radio and records. Toha composed, sang and played oud in folk settings before her records circulated. Ibtisam Lutfi began in Jeddah weddings and entered Saudi radio. Etab's path from Riyadh social performance through collaboration with Talal Maddah eventually opened onto Cairo's stages and screens.
These were professional careers. A wedding singer learned repertory, judged dancers, responded to requests and held an event's emotional pace. A recording artist then faced another discipline: microphone distance, short sides, fixed arrangement and a public credit. The skills overlap without being identical.
Hijaz therefore joins sacred listening, social poetry, street formation, maritime exchange and the modern studio. Its music is neither a decorative coast nor a single cosmopolitan blend. It is a set of named practices whose makers understood exactly which room, row, text and audience they were addressing.
