Al-Jadīd

Al-jadid, 'the new', is the term used in Arabic music scholarship for the current of Arab art and popular music that, from the early twentieth century, deliberately opened the classical tarab tradition to outside influence. Against al-turath, the inherited repertoire, jadid composers such as *Sayyid Darwish* and *Mohamed Abdel Wahab* admitted Western harmony, orchestral instruments, film and radio formats and shortened song forms while retaining the maqam melodic system and Arabic poetic texts. The current produced the recorded and cinematic song culture of Cairo and Beirut, embodied by singers including *Umm Kulthum*, *Farid al-Atrash*, *Abdel Halim Hafez* and *Fairuz*.