18 – “al-Maʿāzif” (pp. 38, 45, 51)
According to al-Nihāyah, the term refers to frame-drums and anything else that people strike to produce sound.

Al-Qāmūs adds: it denotes instruments of amusement such as the ʿūd and the ṭanbūr. The singular is ʿazf or maʿzif, analogous to minbar and maknasah, while the ʿāzif is the one who plays them or sings.

For this reason Ibn al-Qayyim states in Ighāthat al-Lahfān: “They are all instruments of diversion; the scholars of language are unanimous on that.”

Even clearer is al-Dhahabī’s wording in Siyar 21/158: “al-Maʿāzif is a collective name for every leisure instrument that is played, such as the mizmār, the ṭanbūr, the shabbābah, and the ṣunūj (cymbals).”

The same definition appears in his Tadhkirat al-Ḥuffāẓ 2/1337.