Italian opera "Dafne" by Jacopo Peri was the earliest composition considered opera, as understood today. Peri's works, however, did not arise out of a creative vacuum in the area of sung drama. An underlying prerequisite for the creation of opera proper was the practice of monody. Monody is the solo singing/setting of a dramatically conceived melody, designed to express the emotional content of the text it carries, which is accompanied by a relatively simple sequence of chords rather than other polyphonic parts. Italian composers began composing in this style late in the 16th century, and it grew in part from the long-standing
Peri by locking them in iron cages. This persecution was brought about by, as the divs perceived it, the peris' lack of sufficient self-esteem to join the rebellion against perversion. With the spread of Islam through Persia, the "pari" (or "peri" in Turkish) was integrated into Islamic folklore. They are often regarded as a kind of good jinn, while the evil ones are often identified by Persians with the divs. The belief in Peri still persist among Muslims in India as a type of spiritual creature besides the jinn, shayatin and the ghosts of the wicked. Turkish Muslims often accept the