Dāwūd Ḥusnī (1870-1937) was an Egyptian composer and musician born in Cairo to a Karaite Jewish family in Old Cairo. He showed an interest and talent for music while in elementary school and studied ʿūd , the pedagogical instrument of choice, on which he would learn the Arab system of maqāmāt , or melodic modes. He also learned established Turco-Egyptian musical forms such as the bashraf and dawr , and the system of rhythmic modes or īqāʿāt . He learned well the compositions of ʿAbduh al-Ḥamūlī (d. 1901) and Muḥammad ʿUthmān (