The lute was introduced to Europe from the Arab world. While lutes were first played in Spain in the 9th century, their popularity grew from the 13th century through to the Renaissance. Changes in the design of the lute and the greater prevalence of violins led to the eclipse and near-extinction of the lute in nineteenth-century Europe.

A common form of drum across the Arab and Ottoman world was the tall tarijat, or goblet drum. It was played held horizontally under the arm in combination with stringed instruments. Its body could be made of wood, earthenware or terracotta, but in Fez in Morocco, glazed ceramic was used. Variants of this drum, called darabukka, were produced in Syria.

The buzuq is a variant of the tanbur, a long-neck string instrument that is differentiated from the ‘ud or lute by its relatively small sound-box and neck of extended length. Its strings are plucked with a plectrum. The mother-of-pearl inlay here exhibits the hybridity of ornament in the Ottoman realm in the late 19th century.

Constructed like a large tambourine, the daff provides percussion in combination with stringed and wind instruments. As the miniature An Entertainment Scene illustrates, daff players also accompanied dancers without other instrumentalists. The daff is a social, rather than martial instrument, and its lineage dates to before the time of the Prophet Muhammad.

This lute has a bent neck, a form that was in use at least as early as the 16th century in both Europe and the Islamic world. With its deep body, its sound was more sonorous than a lute with longer neck and smaller body. It would have been accompanied by percussion in the form of a drum, or daff, and possibly a flute.

The mijwiz is a form of double-reed pipe or clarinet, one of a variety of pipes played by blowing through one end of the pipe rather than a hole in its side, like a flute. The pipes are held together by waxed string. In the 18th-century Ottoman world, multiple reed pipes were played in combination with zurna and daff as the miniature An Entertainment Scene illustrates.

The qanun was a very popular instrument in the Middle East and North Africa from at least the 18th century. Thanks to its range of octaves, it is highly versatile and is played alone or in combination with other instruments such as the flute and kamanche (kemençe).

The parmak (little) cura is a small specimen in a large family of related string instruments. Because of its size its sound has a higher pitch than the larger tanbur. It was used in many regions of the Ottoman world for playing both classical and folk music.

The legged violin is one of the types of bowed fiddles played in the Ottoman world. Its materials, the gourd, with a stretched-skin surface to form the sound-box, may indicate that it derives from folk instruments, but the metal leg and fine wooden neck relate more closely to urban products.

Although this drum, called a musahirati drum, has been used in Jordan for the past century or more to wake people for dawn prayers during the month of Ramadan, its shape is identical to that of the hawking drum. Hunters would attach the instrument to their saddles and beat it to call falcons back to them when they were hunting.

The organ designed by Cesare Trionfo, an Italian immigrant to Tunisia, combines the function of a European organ with decoration inspired by the Islamic architecture of North Africa and Spain. The cusped arches, panels of geometric patterns and crenellations derive from palaces and fortresses of the Marinid and Nasrid periods.

This cümbüş is an instrument that developed in the early 20th century and is a variant on the tanbur-type of string instrument. Unlike the tanbur its neck is bent and the sound-box is round. Its stretched skin surface is set into a metal frame. The Latin lettering on the frame indicates that it was made after the Ottoman script reform of 1928.

The rebab or rababa is a string instrument associated with the Bedouin of Arabia and the Near East. This example consists of a wooden body with a skin belly and wooden neck with one long peg. It has only one string, though other versions have two or three strings. Using a bow, it would have been played in the outdoor encampments of nomads.

The mijwiz is a form of double-reed pipe or clarinet, one of a variety of pipes played by blowing through one end of the pipe rather than a hole in its side, like a flute. The pipes are held together by waxed string. In the 18th-century Ottoman world, multiple reed pipes were played in combination with zurna and daff as the miniature An Entertainment Scene illustrates.