This is the only CD of Arabic music I know of that really tries to do historical authenticity:
http://www.al-fann.net/path/Palestine/T ... uwashahat/You may be able to find fragmentary recordings of the "nubat" of North Africa (it isn't really recordable) which is probably less changed from the Middle Ages than any other Arabic genre.
From quite a bit later, look for recordings by the Turkish group Bezmara. They reconstructed Ottoman instruments from as far back as the 15th century and figured out their playing techniques.
http://www.todayszaman.com/newsDetail_g ... sId=243892They have hours of video on YouTube and several superbly produced CDs.
Back then Turkish and Arabic music were less separated than they are now. The oldest surviving notation of makam music is from the 17th century, written down by Ali Ufki, a Pole working for the Ottoman court.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojciech_BobowskiHere is a video of Bezmara playing one of his pieces, with the original notation on screen.
His entire book here, in the original notation:
http://www.mikeouds.com/messageboard/vi ... ?tid=13862The somewhat later notation of Dimitrius Cantemir is even harder to read - he used a solfa-like system of his own. Bezmara have recorded a lot of his pieces too.
There is also a set of 5 very wide-ranging CDs by a Greek-Turkish group "Bosporus" which I think overlaps both Bezmara and Savall's bunch.
