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Syria and Morocco both make claims to the rich musical and poetic traditions known today as Andalusian music and which trace their origins in part to medieval Iberia under Muslim rule (al-Andalus). For Syrian musicians, these musical traditions are at heart Arabian, having made a trans-Mediterranean journey of several centuries, picking up en route influences from diverse sources, and then returning “home” to the Levant after the fall of Granada and the expulsion of Muslims and Jews from Iberia. For Moroccan musicians, the Andalusian musical tradition (al-la) is the result of extensive collaborations among musicians and poets from both sides of the Mediterranean, and with the collapse of al-Andalus these practices took firm root in the North African littoral, where they are thought to have been essentially fixed, though over the generations various components of the heritage were lost. Today the musical cultures labeled “Andalusian” in Syria and Morocco, despite a sense of shared history, are remarkably different in terms of tonality, rhythm, song texts, and performance practice. Among the more interesting and little explored differences between these two contexts is the question of composition and innovation within Andalusian music. In Syria, on the one hand, composition in the genre most associated with the Andalusian legacy, namely the muwashsha, remains a vital part of contemporary musical practice: the muwashsha exists as a living compositional form. In Morocco, on the other hand, composition in the major genres of the la tradition is not considered to be appropriate; the muwashsha, for example, is not considered a living compositional …