The older version of Ajam, the one found in older muwashshahat from Syria, and in Ottoman Turkish music, is referred to as "Ajam Ushayran"--or "Ajam B-flat", since "Ushayran" refers to the note B-flat in the Ottoman double-octave scale system (a number of other maqamat share their names with notes in this system, notably Rast, Sikah, Jiharkah, Nawa, Husseini, & Awj). The behavior of Ajam Ushayran is more-or-less equivalent to the behavior of Ajam when it occurs on the 6th degree of Maqam Bayati or Maqam Saba--note the relationships among ajnas in these examples from Maqam Bayati: A relationship with Jins Nahawand a third underneath the Ajam tonic, and with Jins Bayati a 6th underneath the Ajam tonic.
Maqam Ajam Ushayran preserves those notes of emphasis: the third degree and the 6th degree. On the third scale degree, modulations to jins Bayati and Jins Hijazkar occur, among others; on the 6th scale degree, a modulation to Jins Nahawand occurs. an ambiguous Saba/secondary Saba can occur between the 6th and 8th scale degrees, as below.
Unfortunately, not many recordings exist of songs in Ajam Ushayran, and I couldn't find any recordings of some of the Muwashshahat from the famous Syrian book "Min Kunuuzina," in which some of the modulations I refer to above occur. The muwashshah I chose for this site, I chose in order to illustrate the Saba modulation, and while it does also have the Nahawand 6 modulation, it doesn't have any real modulation to the third scale degree. So my apologies. From Muwashshah "Ayqadha-l-hubbu Fu'aadi":
Despite the lack of completeness of the previous example, I think you will notice a palpable difference in the character of the Maqam Ajam represented in "Lissa Fakir," which for lack of another name I've been calling "Egyptian" Ajam, since it seems to have been prevalent in Egypt in the mid 20th century.
You can see immediately a different emphasis, on the 5th scale degree above the Ajam tonic:
Jins/Maqam Ajam is behaving much like Jins/Maqam Rast, Jins/Maqam Nahawand, or Jins/Maqam Nakriz, all of which emphasize/modulate on their fifth scale degrees. From "Ghannili Shwayya":
And from "Gameel Gamaal":
Going back to "Egyptian Ajam" and Lissa Fakir: some confuse this Ajam with "Ajam Ushayran" simply because Umm Kulthum sings it in concert B-flat. The presence of Bayati on the fifth scale degree should dispel this misconception; that would be Bayati on F, using the notes F, G-1/2-flat, A-flat, B-flat--and nothing could be further from the world of Bayati D/Ajam Ushayran B-flat, aside from the tuning difficulties that would result from oud and violin players playing this piece in concert pitch--with prominent open G strings that anchor the whole tuning system. A knowledge of mid-20th century performance practice, however, reveals that many orchestras tuned down a whole step, (this tuning was so common that it even has a name, "Tabaqa Kebira," i.e. big step i.e. whole step), and that "Lissa Fakir" is conceptually on C, with the orchestra tuned down to B-flat. Here are the examples of prominent Bayati on the 5th scale degree:
Again, part of the point here is the same as it was in the page on alternate Bayati Shuri pathways: The paths taken by a maqam are cultural, historical, arbitrary, rather than determined by some abstract and ideal relationship among notes, intervals, or harmonics. Although the acoustics of sound, and the natural harmonic relationships among notes, place some limits the range of choice and the consequences of choice, nonetheless the actual relationships manifested in the intervallic structure of ajnas and the larger structure of maqamat are selected from infinite possibility, remembered, and passed down through oral tradition, misremembered, altered, and changed over time.