Muwashshah مؤشح literally means" girdled"in Classical Arabic; plural مؤشحات or tawashih (تواشيح) is the name for both an Arabic lyrical form and a temporal musical order.
Muwashshah is an Arabic lyrical order in strophic form developed in Muslim Spain in the 11th and 12th centuries. From 12th century moving, its use developed to North Africa & the Muslim Middle East.
The Muwashshah is told by the European folk song or some kind of European Love oral poetry or song, written in Classical Arabic, and its subjects are those of Classical Arabic poetry- love, wine, court numbers. And it sprucely differ in form, still, from classical poetry, in which each verse is divided into 2 metric halves and a single song recurs at the end of each verse. This tradition can take two forms the wasla of Aleppo and the Abdalusi nubah of the western part of the Arab World. The مؤشح is generally divided into 5 stanzas and each numbering 4, 5, or 6 lines. A master song appears at the morning of the lyric and at the end of the strophes. It's generally written in conversational Arabic or in the Spanish Mozarabic shoptalk; it's generally rendered in the voice of a girl and expresses her craving for her absent nut.
Musically, the ensemble consists of Oud (lute), Kamanja ( shaft swindle), Qanun (box zither), Darabukkah ( tableware barrel) and Daf (tambourine) the players of these instruments constantly double as a chorus.
MuqaddambinMa'afir of al-Andalus was known for the innovator of Muwashshah. Another muses like lbn Zaidun, Ibn Abd al-Rabbihi, the pen of Iqd al-Farid, Ibn Bajjah, Abu Bakr ibada, Lisan al-Din Ibn al-Khateen and so on.
Illustration of Muwashshah
أيها الساقي إليك المشتكي
لد دعوناك وان لم تسمع
ونقيم همت في غرته
وشربت الراح من راحته
كلما استيقظ من سكرته