Turkish Makam and Arabic Maqam: One Family, Two Systems

Turkish makam and Arabic maqam descend from the same medieval tradition, share many of the same mode names, and sound related to an untrained ear. Yet they are distinct systems with different theoretical languages, different tuning frameworks, and different assumptions about how melody works. This article maps where they overlap, where they diverge, and why the differences matter.

For the Turkish-Persian comparison, see Makam and Dastgah: Shared Roots, Divergent Paths.

Shared roots

Established Both systems descend from the modal theory codified by medieval Islamic scholars — al-Farabi (d. 950), Ibn Sina (d. 1037), and especially Safi al-Din al-Urmawi (d. 1294), whose Kitab al-Adwar described modes and interval cycles that are ancestral to both traditions. The word "maqam" (Arabic) / "makam" (Turkish) — literally "place" or "station" — comes from this shared heritage.

Established The Ottoman Empire was the crucible in which these traditions interacted most intensely. Ottoman court music drew on Arab, Persian, and Byzantine sources. Feldman documents how the Ottoman musical establishment included musicians from across this cultural range, performing a shared repertoire that later diverged as distinct national traditions crystallized in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Attested The divergence accelerated after World War I, when the Ottoman Empire dissolved and successor states built independent cultural institutions. Turkey's conservatory system formalized makam theory through the Arel-Ezgi-Uzdilek (AEU) framework in the 1930s. Arab countries held the 1932 Cairo Congress of Arab Music — convened by King Fuad I, with participants including Bela Bartok and Curt Sachs — which proposed standardizing Arabic tuning to 24 equal quarter-tone steps per octave. These were parallel modernization efforts that pushed the two traditions further apart theoretically, even as practiced music retained more common ground.

Terminology: the same words, different meanings

The two traditions share vocabulary rooted in Arabic and Persian, but the terms often carry different technical meanings.

Practice These are not just translation differences. A Turkish musician's "cesni" and an Arab musician's "jins" are structurally similar concepts — small pitch collections that combine to form modes — but they are classified differently, have different inventories, and play different roles in how musicians think about composition and improvisation.

Tuning: commas vs. quarter tones

This is the most immediately audible difference, and also the most commonly misunderstood.

Turkish: 53 Holdrian commas

Established Modern Turkish theory (the AEU system) divides the octave into 53 equal parts called Holdrian commas. A whole tone equals 9 commas, a semitone roughly 4-5 commas. This 53-tone grid allows precise specification of intervals — a neutral second is 7 commas, distinct from a minor second (4 commas) or a major second (9 commas). In practice, only about 24 of the 53 possible pitches are used.

Arabic: 24 quarter tones

Established The dominant modern Arabic notation system divides the octave into 24 equal quarter-tone steps — essentially adding a half-flat and half-sharp to the Western 12-tone system. This 24-TET model was promoted at the 1932 Cairo Congress of Arab Music.

Attested However, as both Touma and Farraj and Shumays emphasize, the 24-quarter-tone model is primarily a notational convenience, not a description of actual intonation. Touma describes it as a "conceptual map" for discussing intervals, not a grid performers follow precisely. Practiced intonation varies by region, style, and melodic context.

What this means in practice

Practice Turkish theory claims more precision: 53 divisions yield ~23-cent resolution versus the 50-cent quarter-tone grid. But neither system perfectly captures how musicians actually play. Turkish performers deviate from AEU intervals in practice (a point Signell documents), and Arabic performers treat quarter-tone notation as approximate.

Building blocks: cesni vs. jins

Both traditions construct modes from smaller pitch collections — tetrachords (four notes spanning a perfect fourth) and pentachords (five notes spanning a perfect fifth). The principle is the same; the implementation differs.

Turkish cesni

Established Turkish theory defines six basic tetrachords (Cargah, Buselik, Kurdi, Ussak, Hicaz, Rast) and corresponding pentachords, each specified as a precise sequence of Holdrian comma values. A makam is assembled by stacking a lower cesni and an upper cesni, joined at a common pitch. The construction is explicit and formulaic: Makam Nihavend = Buselik pentachord + Kurdi tetrachord.

Arabic jins (ajnas)

Established Arabic theory uses a similar building-block approach, but the inventory and classification differ. Farraj and Shumays describe ajnas as scale fragments of 3, 4, or 5 notes, each carrying distinctive melodic behavior — a jins is not just an interval set but "a very recognizable melody" conveying "a distinctive mood," as Touma puts it. The main ajnas include Rast, Bayati, Hijaz, Kurd, Nahawand, Ajam, Sikah, Saba, and Nikriz.

Attested A key structural difference: in Arabic theory, each jins has a ghammaz — the second most important note, which typically serves as the modulation point where one jins meets the next. This concept has a rough equivalent in the Turkish guclu but plays a more systematic role in Arabic modal theory, where the relationship between ajnas is central to defining how a maqam works.

Melodic path: seyir vs. sayr

Established Both traditions recognize that a mode is defined by melodic behavior, not just a scale. Turkish theory calls this seyir and classifies it into three types: ascending (cikici), descending (inici), or ascending-descending (inici-cikici). Each makam's seyir is codified as a property of that makam.

Established Arabic theory uses the cognate term sayr to describe the melodic course through a maqam. Touma describes this as a passage through "sections played on one tone or within one tonal area," typically beginning in the lower register, rising to a climax, and descending to resolve. But Arabic sayr is less rigidly typologized than Turkish seyir — it is described in practice-based terms rather than assigned to fixed categories.

Attested A related difference: Turkish theory assigns specific structural pitches to each makam (karar, guclu, yeden), creating a fixed pitch hierarchy. Arabic theory also identifies a tonic (qarar) and dominant/ghammaz, but emphasizes the idea of a nucleus — a core of roughly three notes that distinguishes maqamat sharing the same pitch collection. This is how, for example, Bayati and Ushshaq Turki (which share a tone row) are differentiated in Arabic theory.

Common modes, different treatment

Several modes appear in both traditions by name. In each case, the name connection reflects shared heritage, but the specifics differ.

Attested These are not equivalences. Turkish Rast and Arabic Rast are notated in what looks like the same scale, but the neutral third in Arabic Rast sits at a distinctly different pitch than the near-major third in Turkish Rast. A performer trained in one tradition playing a piece from the other will sound subtly but perceptibly wrong if they do not adjust their intonation.

Regional variation within Arabic maqam

Established "Arabic maqam" is itself not a single unified system. Touma and Marcus both document significant regional variation:

• Egyptian — the dominant modern tradition, shaped by the Cairo Congress and the 20th-century recording industry. Tends toward the 24-quarter-tone framework.
• Levantine (Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinian) — retains a rich taqsim tradition with intonation that departs from strict quarter-tone theory.
• Iraqi — recognized by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage (2008), with its own performance structure (the fasl), its own ensemble (Al Chalghi al Baghdadi), and significant Ottoman and Persian influence.
• Maghrebi (North African) — Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia have their own modal vocabulary, shaped by Andalusi music that diverged from eastern Arab practice centuries ago.

Attested The Turkish makam system, by contrast, is relatively more centralized — one national conservatory tradition, one dominant theoretical framework (AEU). This does not mean Turkish practice is uniform (regional folk traditions vary considerably), but the theory is more standardized than its Arabic counterpart.

Why treating them as "the same system" misleads

Practice The shared vocabulary and shared heritage create a strong temptation to treat Turkish makam and Arabic maqam as the same thing with different accents. This temptation should be resisted, for several reasons:

1. Tuning is genuinely different. The neutral intervals in Arabic Rast are not the same pitches as in Turkish Rast. Playing one tradition's intonation in the other's context is audible and jarring.

2. Theoretical frameworks serve different purposes. Turkish AEU theory aims to specify intervals precisely and exhaustively. Arabic quarter-tone theory aims to provide a workable notation system while acknowledging that real intonation lives in oral tradition. These are different relationships between theory and practice.

3. Melodic grammar differs. The seyir of a Turkish makam and the sayr of the corresponding Arabic maqam may prescribe different melodic paths, different phrase structures, different points of emphasis — even when the nominal scale is similar.

4. Repertoire is distinct. A Turkish fasil and an Arabic wasla are different musical forms with different internal structures, even when both are built on a mode that shares a name.

Practice The goal — here and across this site — is to understand each tradition on its own terms while recognizing the family connections. They are siblings, not twins: shaped by the same ancestry, diverged by centuries of distinct cultural development. Learning one tradition genuinely helps with learning the other, but only if you respect the differences rather than flattening them.