This is an interactive reference for Arabic rhythms — the cyclic patterns known as iqa'at that hold together Egyptian, Levantine and Turkish music. Every rhythm on the site can be played as a loop at any tempo, read as written dum/tak notation, and counted step by step, so you can hear a pattern and see exactly what your hands should be doing at the same time. Start with Maqsum, the most common 4/4 cycle, or browse the full library by time signature, difficulty and region to find the iqa' behind the song you are learning.
One of the most common Arabic rhythms. Foundational for belly dance, sha'abi and countless pop songs.
Maqsum dum tak pattern: D T – T D – T –
Heavier cousin of Maqsum. The two dums land back-to-back at the top, giving it a rooted, folk feel.
Baladi dum tak pattern: D D – T D – T –
The two dums in the middle are the signature. Strong, martial feeling — often played with tahtib stick dance.
Saidi dum tak pattern: D T – D D – T –
A hypnotic 2/4 used in zikr ceremonies. Simple on paper, trance-inducing at tempo.
Ayyub dum tak pattern: D – D T
A fast, rolling 2/4 built on a dotted feel. Very common for entrances and up-tempo dance sections.
Malfuf dum tak pattern: D – – T – – T –
A straight alternating dum-tak, borrowed from the foxtrot. Driving and easy to lock in.
Fox dum tak pattern: D T D T
An iqa' (plural iqa'at) is a cyclic rhythmic mode in Arabic music: a fixed sequence of strokes and rests that repeats for the length of a section or an entire song. Each cycle is built from two core voices. The dum is the low, kick-like tone played at the centre of the drum head; the tak is the bright, cutting stroke played at the edge. A lighter variant of the tak, often written ka, is used for the weaker half of a fast "taka" figure.
What distinguishes one iqa' from another is not speed but the placement of the dums inside the cycle, and the rests that surround them. Maqsum and Baladi share the same four-beat frame and the same second half, yet Baladi's two consecutive dums at the top make it feel heavier; Saidi moves that dum pair to the middle of the bar and becomes processional. Rests matter just as much as strokes, because they are where players place rolls, ornaments and fills without disturbing the skeleton that listeners recognise.
Iqa'at are played on the darbuka (also called doumbek or Arabic tabla), the riq, the tabla baladi and the frame drum, and they are frequently doubled by the bass line in modern arrangements. Cycle lengths range from short two-beat patterns such as Ayyub and Malfuf, through the four-beat family that dominates popular music, to long eight-beat cycles such as Masmudi Kabir and Wahda Kabira used in classical tarab. Written notation on this site shows the reference skeleton of each rhythm; recordings will usually be ornamented versions of it, and regional readings vary.