Dastgāh–e Navā and Dastgāh–e Rast–Panjgāh are the two least performed of Persian dastgāhs. There are not many musicians who know all the gušes of these two dastgāhs. It is difficult to find a reason why Navā is not more commonly performed. While it contains a number of pieces which are performed in one or more of the other dastgāhs, it does embody a number of gušes peculiar to its own repertoire. Rāst–Panjgāh's lack of popularity, on the other hand, is due to more tangible reasons which will be discussed in chapter 15.

Traditionally, Navā is regarded as one of the seven dastgāhs. But, among twentieth-century Persian musicians, Ali Naqi Vaziri and his disciple, Ruhollāh Xāleqi, have considered Navā as a derivative of dastgāh–e Šur. Their view is a personal one, based mostly on the fact that the scale of Navā can be constructed from the 4th degree of the scale of Šur. This is the same sort of argument which is given to establish Bayāt-e Esfahān as a derivative of Homāyun, considered and rejected in the preceding chapter. Again, it must be emphasised that the very notion of scales is quite irrelevant to Persian music. Persian modes are conceived around a few notes, often not exceeding a tetrachord. Above all, it is the role of these tones and their relationships to one another that determine the identity of the modes.