hen a foreign pop star performs in New York City, a national flag is usually tossed onstage from the audience. Kazem al-Sahir, who started his United States tour on Friday night at the Beacon Theater, was no exception. But he didn't do any flag-waving. He left the flag carefully folded and put it down, then spoke about his hopes for peace. Mr. Sahir is from Iraq.

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For both Mr. Sahir, whose recordings have sold in the millions across the Arabic-speaking world, and for an audience that sang and clapped along with his hits, the concert was about something more than his set of ardent love songs. It was about Baghdad as a place of poetry and song, culture and romance, a place far removed from its current role in the news as the seat of a dictatorship and a potential target for invasion. His songs implied that daily life and private affairs continue in every political climate, with yearnings that are only compounded by the threat of war.

Mr. Sahir's music has earned him a place as one of the Arab world's major stars. He has a rich, grainy voice that's both hearty and imploring, and he moves easily between Arab classical traditions — suitelike compositions and an improvisatory dialogue between singer and instruments — and the shorter, simpler melodies and heavier drumbeats of pop.

Mr. Sahir was backed by a 15-piece orchestra, mixing instruments like hand drums and ney (flute) with trap drums and electric guitar and bass. The two backup singers were his daughters. Many songs began with an introspective solo called a mawal, with his vocal lines curling above the feathery phrases of Jamal Sinno on qanun (zither). Within the songs Mr. Sahir's voice was answered by melodies from accordion or violin, as pensive ballads made their way toward Middle Eastern dance rhythms.

Unlike many singers who reach for an international audience — the lyrics on his albums are often translated from Arabic into French and English — Mr. Sahir's attempts at crossover rarely turned tacky.

His Beacon set included only one song, and part of another, that veered toward disco, and only a few moments when his finely turned inflections opened out toward Broadway-tinged melodrama. For most of his set he was a voice of loyal devotion, bemoaning a lover's inconstancy and wishing to be reunited.

To his audience the metaphors of love, sadness, longing and jealousy in his songs can take on multiple meanings.

The distant, impossible love he addresses could be a nation as well as a person. "You are the woman I love, you are my home and my shelter," he sang in "Zeidini Ishqan," and his listeners knew that at this moment home and shelter remained far away.