The historical background of the dastgāh concept, and the process through which it replaced the maqām system, still remains a major question in the history of Persian music. It is usually vaguely assumed that both concepts of the dastgāh and the radīf were introduced to Persian music during the Qajar era. The present paper is a first attempt to shed light on the issue through a historical musicological study as well as a number of hitherto neglected Persian musical manuscripts. This paper discusses the gradual historical evolution of the dastgāh concept from its eraliest manisfestations as an entity within the maqām system up to the formation of the idea of the radīf, as the main core and the model repertory of contemporary Persian classical music, in terms of several stages that began in the Safavid period and got its final accomplishment formulation in the Qajar epoch.
