Abu Al-Hasan ‘Ali ibn Nafi’ was a musician and singer with a musical voice from Abbasid, Mesopotamia (He was a contemporary of the Caliph Al Mahdi). Ziryab made great and prominent contributions to the Arab and Eastern music. He was nicknamed as Ziryab due to his melodious voice and dark skin; an Arabic name given to a black bird with a tuneful sound known as the Blackbird. Ziryab was born in 789 A.D (173 H.G) in Mosul and grew up in Baghdad where he secretly became a pupil of Ishaq al-Mawsili to master the art of singing.
