Saba for sadness

My 3oud teacher have told me to practise on a piece called "howa saHeeH al-hawa ghallâb" (هو صحيح الهوى غلاب) [It is true that love is irresistible], composed by Zakaria AHmed and sung by Um Kalthoum. It's on maqâm Saba, which is one of the most sad maqâmât.

Saba contains of the following notes: d; e half-b; f; g b; a; b b; c; d b (or re-mi half flat-fa-sol flat-la-si flat-do-re flat as I've learned to say here):

In other words it's a very Arabic maqâm with both quartertone and with a 1½tone interval (g b; a), and my teacher warned me that maybe I couldn't listen to it, cus it sounds so different than our Western minor and major scales. But he gave me a recording of it (thanks to Bluetooth on cellphones! Another recording can be found on youtube here) and complained that the 40 minutes of music was too short time for Um Kalthoum to sing.

He played it for me once (it's repeated in my notes) and then stopped, saying he would start to cry if he continued. "You have to feel the sadness when you play." And I should try to ornamentate it, not just play the written notes.