At the age of 66, a retired professor is keeping traditions alive by helping preserve a prominent Arabic musical instrument. Nazih Ghadban, who hails from a small village in North Bekaa, Lebanon, has been handcrafting the Oud—a short-neck lute-type, pear-shaped, fretless stringed instrument—for the last four decades. In an email interview with The Epoch Times, Ghadban, who worked in the education sector for 44 years, said that crafting the instrument was not his initial source of income. “It was a hobby that grew up with me and with time, curiosity, experimenting, and passion, it turns out to be a handicraft that has a lot of lovers in the world and I am very proud of it,” Ghadban said. One of the top luthiers in the world, Ghadban, who was the youngest of the three sons in his family, had a keen passion for music from an early age. He was only …