Dabke (Arabic: دبكة also spelled dabka, dabki, dubki, dabkeh, plural dabkaat) is a Levantine folk dance, particularly popular among Lebanese, Jordanian, Palestinian, and Syrian communities. Dabke combines circle dance and line dancing and is widely performed at weddings and other joyous occasions. The line forms from right to left and the leader of the dabke heads the line, alternating between facing the audience and the other dancers.

The etymology of 'dabke' is uncertain but is thought to be derived from the Levantine Arabic word dabaka (Arabic: دبكة) meaning "stamping of the feet" or "to make a noise".

According to Youssef Ibrahim Yazbec, a Lebanese historian, journalist, and politician, the dabke descends from Phoenician dances thousands of years old. According to Palestinian folklorists Abdul-Latif Barghouthi and Awwad Sa'ud al-'Awwad, the dabke jumps may have originated in ancient Canaanite fertility rituals related to agriculture, chasing off evil spirits and protecting young plants.

Another theory is that the stomping part of dabke started out as a way of solidifying roofs made of mud. People would stomp on the rooftops of houses together to help compress the material to compact it to prevent cracks from forming. This eventually evolved into the dancing form of dabke that is known today.

Dabke is popular across the Levant, Each type of dabke dance has its own corresponding set of songs, the theme of which is often love there are six main types of dabke:

There are about twenty types of dabke, including but not limited to:

There are numerous kinds of songs that are sung during and specifically for dabke, by both men and women respectively, depending on the occasion, song, and audience. Some of the most popular of these songs, such as Dal Ouna (دلعونا), Al Jafra (الجفرا), Al Daḥiyya (الدحية), and Ẓareef il-Ṭool (ظريف الطول), are actually entire genres in themselves, in the sense that lyrics can vary significantly in each performance but the basic rhythm of the music is consistent and recognizable. This variation can be seen in the hundreds of lyrical variations heard and recorded of these songs which regardless of specific lyrics, are recognized by their rhythm and at times, a single phrase, as in Ala Dal Ouna, Jafra, and others. For example, even though one might have heard Ala Dal Ouna sung previously telling a different story in this famous love song, people will still call another song ascribing to the same rhythm and theme as Dal Ouna.

The majority of dabke music, being folk songs, is on maqam Bayati musical mode.^{[citation needed]}