The Academy of Maqâm takes its name from the venerable tradition of classical or court music that spans the core Muslim world from Casablanca, Morocco, to Kashgar in western China. The founding vision of the Academy belongs to Abduvali Abdurashidov, a Tajik musician and scholar who has brought new vitality to the performance of maqâm through a critical and historical study of its music and poetry. Established with support from the Aga Khan Music Initiative and located in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, Abdurashidov’s academy models itself on an older ideal of Islamic learning in which the study of music is inseparable from the study of poetry, prosody, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics.