It's True!

The Oud is a pear-shaped stringed instrument commonly used in Arabic, Hebrew/Jewish, Greek, Turkish, Byzantine, North African, Somali and Middle Eastern music. Construction of the oud is similar to that of the lute. According to noted 10th-century philosopher-logician Al-Farabi, the oud was invented by Lamech, the sixth grandson of Adam. The oldest pictorial record of it dates back to the Uruk period in Southern Mesopotamia, over 5000 years ago on a cylinder seal. It is considered an ancestor of the guitar.