Investigating the story and origins of the instrument ‘Oud’ inevitably makes us read the history, a history that, on one side, goes back to the year 750 AD, to the pole of philosophy and civilization of that time, namely Baghdad in the reign of the Abbasid Caliphs and, on the other side, dates back to 1514 AD and to the triumph of the Ottoman army over Safavid troops in the Battle of Chaldiran. On both times, due to the migration of Iranian bards and musicians to Arab and Turkish geographical regions, a cultural and artistic dialogue was held among the three lands. Meanwhile, our perception of the history of this artistic dialogue in these three regions, whose roots still reside in the music and architecture under the title of “Art of the Islamic World”, establishes a particular position for Oud.
Oud, for having an identical structure in the current Iran, Turkey and Arab world spreading to the northern Africa and also for providing the auditory contexts of these cultures within its structure, inexorably makes its players to more dwell on learning and practicing on the playing techniques of other cultures that consciously improves their knowledge and understanding of the technical features of the instrument based on an intercultural approach (not only a mono-cultural one). In view of that, they can build a bridge to connect the three homelands of Oud- that is Iran, Turkey and the Arab world through their compositions.

Consequently, in the piece “Illustration by Two Ouds”, I have best strived to build such a bridge among these three homelands by employing a part of the intercultural classical and modern techniques.