Ghazāl - Rāg Vasant Mukhārī / Maqām Ḥijāz

Saltanah is a collaborative studio album by Indian mohan veena exponent Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and Palestinian-American violinist and oud player Simon Shaheen. The album released on December 7, 2006, under the label Water Lily Acoustics in CD format. The recording explores intersections between North Indian classical music and Arabic maqamat, blending improvisational traditions from both systems.

The second track, titled Ghazāl - Rāg Vasant Mukhārī / Maqām Ḥijāz, spans 16 minutes and 6 seconds. The composition merges Rāg Vasant Mukhārī, a morning raga associated with the Indian classical repertoire, with Maqām Ḥijāz, a foundational mode in Arabic music. Bhatt performs on the mohan veena, a modified slide guitar, while Shaheen contributes on violin and oud. The track exemplifies the album’s cross-cultural fusion, with extended alap-style developments followed by rhythmic cycles that incorporate elements of both Hindustani and Arabic taqsim traditions.

The album’s production emphasizes acoustic clarity, capturing the instrumental timbre and microtonal nuances central to both musical traditions. Water Lily Acoustics, known for high-fidelity recordings of world music, engineered the sessions to preserve dynamic range and spatial depth. Additional details about the recording location, session musicians, or lyrical content (if any) remain undocumented in available sources.

Saltanah received attention for its experimental approach to modal harmony and rhythmic dialogue, though specific reception data or chart performance is not publicly archived. The collaboration marked one of several projects where Bhatt and Shaheen explored shared technical and expressive vocabularies between their respective traditions.