Kharja

A kharja or kharjah (Arabic: خرجة, romanized: kharjah, lit. 'exit' [ˈxardʒa]; Spanish: jarcha [ˈxaɾtʃa]; Portuguese: carja [ˈkaɾʒɐ]; also known as a markaz مَرْكَز 'center'), is the final couple of abyāt, or verses, of a muwaššaḥ (مُوَشَّح 'girdle'), a poem or song of the strophic lyric genre from al-Andalus. The kharja can be in a language that is different from the body; a muwaššaḥ in literary Arabic might have a kharja in vernacular Andalusi Arabic or in a mix of Arabic and Andalusi Romance, while a muwaššaḥ in Hebrew might contain a kharja in Arabic, Romance, Hebrew, or a mix. The muwashshah typically consists of five strophes of four to six lines, alternating with five or six refrains (qufl); each refrain has the same rhyme and metre, whereas each stanza has only the same metre. The kharja appears often to have been composed independently of the muwashshah in which it is found.