The oud (Arabic: oud) is a short-neck lute-type, pear-shaped stringed instrument (a chordophone in the Hornbostel-Sachs classification of instruments) with 11 or 13 strings grouped in 5 or 6 courses, commonly used in Sudanese Egyptian , Syrian, Palestinian, Lebanese, Iraqi, Arabian, Jewish, Persian, Greek, Armenian, Turkish, Azerbaijani, North African (Chaabi, Classical, and Spanish Andalusian), Somali, and various other forms of Middle Eastern and North African music.
