Rast is, to my mind, the most important and central of the Arabic Maqamat. In Syria the motto is "If your night is going to be long, sing in Rast," because there are so many great and well-known songs in this maqam. Several of those songs are contained on this page, songs every arab musician of any experience must know, like Ghannili Shwayya, Ya Shadi il-Alhaan, and Ya Maal ish-Sham. And a maqam so well used is likely to have not only numerous very common pathways, but a large number of additional, alternate pathways--and even those are well known enough to occur in numerous instances. Rast is, in that sense, a "Big" maqam, with a large network of modulatory options, or to put it another way, a large vocabulary of Ajnas within its overall melody.
Below is the large list of ajnas incuded within Maqam Rast which are represented at least once on this page; compare that with the "pedagogical version" of the Maqam Rast network I developed as part of the Demo site in 2010. You will find that the principal ajnas - the ones which are most common - are the same, while the version presented on this page is much more complete, containing some of the rarer ajnas like Musta3aar and Sikah Beladi, which were left out of the earlier demo page.
This first version of Maqam Rast, or, if you like, member of the Rast maqam family, is variously known, often simply as Rast, but also as "Maqam Kirdan" (referring to the note on which the melody starts, the octave above the root, a note which is known in the turkish naming system as "Kirdan"), or as "Maqam Sazkar" (the maqam name given to both "Ya Shadi il-Alhan" and "Sihtu Wajdan" in the collection Min Kunuuzina, despite it being known as "Rast" in other collections, such as Sabah Fakhri's majesterial recorded collection of Waslas known as Naghmat il-Ams), which refers to the raised second scale degree that occurs in some versions of these songs, including the Marie Jubran version of "Sihtu Wajdan" presented here.
The main defining ajnas of this version of Rast are: 2nd Rast 5/8, Nahawand 5, Hijaz 5, and Rast 1, presented in a descending order.
This version of Rast, known sometimes as "Maqam Suznak" for its emphasis on Jins Hijaz on the 5th scale degree, is also known simply as Rast, with an emphasis on 5. "Ghannili Shwayya" emphasizes the "Suznak" aspect, in that all verses end using Hijaz 5 as the second-to-final jins. Aruh Li meen is broader, (see extended discussion of Aruh Li meen), having many options of Rast pathways, but always emphasizing the 5th scale degree as the most important secondary tonic... and then in its final verse giving some time to the Secondary Rast pathway that dominates the first version of Rast.
Fakkaruni includes elements of both of the previously presented versions of Maqam Rast, starting with the emphasis on 5 common to the second version of Rast. After going into very distant territory indeed, with the "True Rast 5" in sample #13 (see the explanation for why this is a unique modulation in the sections on Jins Secondary Rast and Unique Maqam Pathways), this verse of Fakkaruni concludes with the descending Rast of the first version.
[song page with full recording]The last version of Maqam Rast presented here focuses primarily on the octave tonic, but unlike the first version of Rast (a.k.a. Kirdan a.k.a. Sazkar), this version remains on the octave, frequently using the Jins Rast above the octave, and the Jiharkah variant of those octave melodies; as well as using the Secondary Saba Jins, which, when it occurs in a more dominant/opening function defines "Maqam Dalansheen." Descent to the root tonic occurs, if at all, only at the very end of the song, or at the end of a few key phrases.
This Mawwal draws on elements of all three previous versions of Rast in its opening phrases, starting with an emphasis on the 5th, moving up to the octave and the Rast jins above the octave, and then transitioning via the Secondary Saba Jins, to an area that is so unusual that it cannot be considered a part of Maqam Rast--the use of Ajam on the same tonic (for a longer discussion and analysis of this mawwal, see the "Unique Pathways" page).
[song page with full recording]