The Oud in Berlin: A Story of One Instrument in the City
In a multicultural city like Berlin, the music scene is as diverse as the people who live there, as are the instruments that fill its clubs, concert halls and street corners. Electric guitars, classical violins, DJ decks and synthesizers mingle with the traditional instruments brought by the city's many diaspora communities. One of the most prominent of these is the oud, a Middle Eastern lute with a history stretching back to Persia and ancient Mesopotamia.
The oud is a fretless lute with a distinctive, deeply emotional sound, thanks to its expressive microtonal range, which includes quarter and three-quarter tones rarely used in Western music. Its lineage connects ancient Egyptian, Persian, and Mediterranean traditions, and it spread through Arab cultural influence. It has also had a major influence on the development of the European lute. Today, the oud remains central to music in the Middle East, North Africa and the Mediterranean, and in Berlin it thrives among communities from Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Turkey and beyond.
There is no precise historical record pinpointing the exact year or period when the oud was first introduced to Berlin. However, the city's connection to the oud largely emerged through its modern multicultural and diasporic contexts, particularly in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, when Middle Eastern, North African and Turkish communities settled there and brought with them their musical traditions, including the oud.
One of the guardians of the instrument in Berlin is luthier Mohamed Khoudir. His small workshop, located on a side street in Kreuzberg, is marked by a curious sign: a wooden oud above the door. Inside, the air is filled with the scent of wood shavings and the soft glow of polished instruments: ouds, drums and other stringed instruments. Behind the counter, Khoudir (with his easy smile and grey hair) works at a bench surrounded by half-finished soundboards, bent wooden ribs and delicate carving tools.
Khourid built his first oud in 2008, after becoming friends with a Syrian oud teacher in Schöneberg. At the time, the only oud he could find in Berlin was purely decorative — beautiful, but unplayable. This prompted him to ask: what constitutes a real oud? He then immersed himself in woodworking and discovered that the tone of an oud is shaped by the type of wood used to make it. Using offcuts from a local carpenter and with the help of guitar and violin makers around Berlin, he spent six months crafting his first playable oud.
Since then, Khoudir has specialised in making, repairing and restoring traditional plucked string instruments, especially ouds, at his Khoudir Oud Boutique. His instruments are crafted from carefully selected woods sourced from around the globe, striking a balance between historical authenticity and contemporary performance designs. As well as ouds, he experiments with other instruments. For example, he built a child-sized qanun (a Middle Eastern zither) to make traditional music more accessible to young learners, a rare occurrence in the world of oriental instruments.
His shop has become a meeting point for musicians from many different cultures. On a typical day, a Brazilian musician might bring in his viola caipira for repair, which Khoudir will examine with the same care that he would give to an oud. He is most fascinated by the culture behind each instrument — the human stories embedded in the wood, strings and sound.
Although he is often seen as part of Berlin’s Arab musical community, Khoudir resists labels that limit the oud to one nationality. “People argue — oud is Syrian! No, it’s Turkish! For me, the oud is the oud,” he says. At workshops, concerts and educational events in Berlin, the oud is not just a relic of tradition; it is a living bridge, connecting cultures, preserving history and inspiring new music.
