Fatima bint Sheikh Muezzin Ibrahim Al-Sayyid Al-Beltagy, also known by her famous nickname Umm Kulthum, is also known by several titles, including: Thuma, the Arab League, the Six, the Lady of Arab Singing, Shams Al-Aseel, the owner of the infallibility, the planet of the east, the lyre of the East, the artist of the people. She is an Egyptian singer and actress. She was born in Dakahlia Governorate in the Egyptian Khedive on December 31, 1898 AD, or officially according to civil records on May 4, 1908 AD, and she died in Cairo after suffering from illness on February 3, 1975 AD. Umm Kulthum is considered one of the most prominent singers of the twentieth century AD, and began her artistic career in childhood, became famous in Egypt and throughout the Arab world.
Fatima was born to a modest family in a rural village called Tamay Al-Zahayra, in the center of Sinbillawain, Dakahlia Governorate, the Egyptian Khedive. Her father, Sheikh Ibrahim, was the imam and muezzin of a mosque in the village, and her mother, Fatima El-Meligy, worked as a housewife. Sources of her exact date of birth conflict. Some sources indicate that her date of birth dates back to December 30, 1898 AD, and other sources suggest that her birth dates back to May 4, 1908 AD, which is mentioned in the governorate’s birth registry. The family lived in a small house built of mud bricks. The family's financial situation was low, as the main source of income was her father, who works as a vocalist in the village wedding ceremonies.
Despite the difficult financial situation of the family, her parents attached her to the village book so that she could learn and sing from her father at a young age, so her special talent emerged, and he also taught her to recite the Qur’an, and she mentioned that she had memorized it by heart. Once she heard her father teach her brother Khaled to sing, as he used to accompany him to sing with him in the celebrations. When he heard what she had learned, he was impressed by the strength of her tone, so he asked her to join him for singing lessons, and she started singing at the age of twelve, after her father took her to parties to sing with him and she was singing She wears the headband and boys' clothes. And after Judge Ali Bey Abu Hussein heard her, he said to her father: You have a treasure that you don't know the value of...it lies in your daughter's throat, and he instructed him to take care of her.
Umm Kulthum's reputation began to spread since she was young, when her work was just an additional source of income for the family, but she exceeded the father's dreams when she became the main source of family income. On one occasion, Abu Al-Ela was with her on the train and heard her repeating his tunes without knowing that he was with her on the train, after 1916, when her father got to know Sheikhs Zakaria Ahmed and Abu Al-Ela Muhammad, who came to Al-Sinbillawain to revive the nights of Ramadan, and with much urgency they persuaded the father to move to Cairo with Umm Kulthum in 1922 AD. This was the first step in her career. At that time, the night of the Isra and Mi’raj was performed in the palace of Izz al-Din Yakan Pasha, and the lady of the palace gave her a golden ring, and Umm Kulthum received 3 pounds as a wage for her.
She married Mr. Hassan El-Sayed El-Hefnawi in 1954 to 1975.
artistic life
Beginnings
She returned to Cairo to settle permanently in 1921. She was singing at the Bosphorus Theater in Ramses Square without a band. She sang on the stage of Al-Aziya Park, and was famous for the poem "Your Right, You Are the Desire and the Request." Later, Umm Kulthum learned from Amin al-Mahdi the basics of music, and she also learned to play the oud under the hands of Amin al-Mahdi, Mahmoud Rahmi and Muhammad al-Qasabji.
In 1923, she sang at the concerts of senior people, and she also sang in a party attended by the great singers of her time, led by Munira al-Mahdiyya personally, who was nicknamed the Sultana of Tarab. In the same year, she met the musician Muhammad Abdel Wahhab for the first time at a party held at the house of Abu Bakr Khairat's father.
In 1924, I met Ahmed Rami through Abu Al-Ela, at one of the parties in which Umm Kulthum performed the song “The casting exposes his eyes.” Ahmed Ramy was present after he returned from Europe, and he realized that he had found his goal. However, the real beginning was when Muhammad Al-Qasabgy, the composer, the reformed at the time, heard it. In the same year 1924, Umm Kulthum met a dentist who loves music, Ahmed Sabry Al-Najiri, the first composer to compose Umm Kulthum her own tunes, but his tunes relied on musical motifs in an exaggerated manner, which prompted Umm Kulthum to end cooperation with him early.
The first band
Muhammad Al-Qasbaji began preparing Umm Kulthum, artistically and morally, by forming her own band, and the first musical band to be an alternative to the turban lining that she was always with, when Rose Al-Youssef and the theater launched a thunderbolt attack on her lining. Perhaps this is what made her father give up his role as a vocalist and withdraw with Sheikh Khaled. About a year later, Umm Kulthum took off the headband and abaya and appeared in the dress of the Egyptian women, after the death of Sheikh (Abu Al-Ala Muhammad), who left a great spiritual influence on her and was her guide in the world of music.
It was common in the early twentieth century for singers to present certain poems regardless of their uniqueness, and the match between singers was how to perform the same poem. Thus, Umm Kulthum recited the poem (I see you with tears) once composed by Al-Sunbati, and again composed by Abdo Al-Hamouli in 1926.
her star rise
In 1928, she sings a monologue (If I Forgive and Forget the Essence), to achieve the record of the highest sales of her time ever, and Umm Kulthum's name resounds strongly in the music scene, the same year in which Umm Kulthum composed the song (On the eyes of abandonment) by herself! ..
On May 31, 1934 AD, after the opening of the Egyptian radio, Umm Kulthum was the first to sing in it.
Cooperation with Sunbati
In 1935, Umm Kulthum sang (Ali Balad al-Mahboub and My Religion) composed by a young composer, Riyad al-Sunbati. In her second and last experience, her first experience was the song (On the Eyes of Desertion) in 1928.
In 1943, the first syndicate of musicians was established, headed by her, and she held her position for ten years.
In 1946, she sang 3 poems composed by Al-Sunbati and the words of Ahmed Shawqi.
In 1966, Riyad Al-Sunbati sang the poem Al-Atlal from the words of the poet Ibrahim Naji, and she sang this song one year after she sang the song “You are my life” composed by Mohamed Abdel Wahab. Al-Sunbati also had an outstanding ability to compose poems written in Fusha, and Al-Atlal was a strong success.
One of the most famous songs that you and I sang is love - love like this - I left you, I can forget your love.
July revolution
A complete revolution swept Egypt and dealt very aggressively with everything related to the era of the previous king, so Umm Kulthum's songs were banned from the radio once and for all and expelled from the position of (Syndicate of Musicians) as (singer of the bygone era). This was not a decision of the Revolutionary Command Council. But it is an individual decision made by the officer supervising the radio.
Although Umm Kulthum sang for the besieged army in Al-Faluja during the Palestine war the song (I overcame reconciliation in my soul), that army whose members were Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat. However, she was considered against the revolution because she obtained the infallibility necklace and sang to the king more than once, including a song in 1932 in the presence of King Fouad:
Redeem him if he saves passion or loses the king of the heart, so what can I do?
The issue reached Gamal Abdel Nasser personally, who canceled this decision. It is reported that the one who brought the matter up to him was Mustafa Amin in September 1952. Following a dispute over the position of the captain, the union elections were canceled, and Mohamed Abdel Wahab was appointed as the captain of musicians. As a result of this position and the rumors about the support of some of the Free Officers to Abdel Wahab; Umm Kulthum informs of the decision of her retirement to Al-Sagheer Ahmed Shafiq Al-Abu Auf.
Which he transferred to the Revolutionary Command Council, so a delegation consisting of Gamal Abdel Nasser, Abdel Hakim Amer and Salah Salem went to her to persuade her to change her opinion. This is evident in a song such as (After patience, the East rose and said, “We fulfilled our hopes, with your leadership, O Gamal) or (O Gamal, the example of patriotism.. our most beautiful Egyptian holidays are under your leadership of the Republic.”
Everything that happened previously against Umm Kulthum was corrected after things calmed down.. It is confirmed that the revolution - after that - gave her a strong moral impulse, even as she headed the committee that supervised the selection of the new national anthem of the republic, where Umm Kulthum supported the national anthem prepared by Abdul Al-Wahhab However, Dr. Hussein Fawzy proved that the anthem was copied from a CD by the Czech musician Bella Barnock, after several modifications were made to it.
On December 19, 1952, the Higher Musical Committee was formed, which was one of its members, along with (Al-Sunbati) and Abdel-Wahhab. In 1953, she was elected as an honorary member of the Mark Twain International Society, the same society whose honorary members are Dwight Eisenhower, Winston Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt. In the same year.. specifically on July 8, her brother Khaled, Sheikh Khaled, who was supposed to be the fame of the family, died.
illness
In 1954, Umm Kulthum reduced her concert schedule due to her health problems. It is reported that the black glasses that she wore continuously was due to thyroid disease, which led to her exophthalmos, which was also a reason for stopping her acting activity, which was limited to 6 films.
her marriage
In 1954, Umm Kulthum married d. Hassan Al-Sayyid Al-Hefnawi and the marriage continued until her death.
unique incident
On October 29, 1956, Umm Kulthum sang the anthem of Salah Jahin (God is the time, my weapon), which became a national anthem. That anthem that Kamal al-Taweel brought to her one night when a raid took place and she memorized the anthem by candlelight.. When she decided to record it on the radio station on Sharifian Street, most musicians objected for fear that Israel would announce that it would strike the radio station, so Umm Kulthum decided to record the anthem.
Rabaa Al-Adawiya series
In that period - the fifties - she sings (Egypt that is in my mind), (The Song of Evacuation) and (Hasbek for Time) and participates in a radio series, which is the Rabaa Al-Adawiya series, where she participates in presenting songs in the series, songs such as: (On my eyes, my eyes cried), (For others) I didn't extend a hand), (O companions of the merciful), (Destiny has come), (satisfaction and light), (I have known passion since I have known your love).. Those songs that were used in the famous movie (Rabaa Al-Adawiya), which she starred in, and then the film was repeated once Others, but Nabila Obeid starred.
For the sake of documentation, we prove what Newsweek magazine said in 1956: Umm Kulthum's voice is the favorite and beloved voice throughout the Middle East, in addition to the fact that the magazine described her as (Queen of Arabia).
the sixties
In the sixties, Umm Kulthum lived her most artistic era at all. The fact that the fifties did not end except with a strange incident, which is that Umm Kulthum's dog bit a passerby and the prosecution acquitted her. Later, the colloquial poet Ahmed Fouad Negm wrote the famous poem “Kaleb Al-Sit”. This incident did not pass without noise, as professors of the University of Law objected to the prosecution's decision and considered it favoritism for Umm Kulthum. Rather, the matter would reach the pages of Al-Ahram, the first official newspaper.
Umm Kulthum and Baligh Hamdi
Umm Kulthum ends the year 1959 with her kind song (Hijratak), written by Ahmed Rami and composed by the genius Riad Al-Sunbati. And this song has a well-known story, which is that in one of the meetings between Umm Kulthum and Muhammad Fawzy, the owner of the Misr Phone Company, before the nationalization, he offered her to hear it as a melody for a young composer who liked it very much. One of the singers was going to sing it, but she asked him to repeat the melody again and again until she offered him to sing the song! Since this date, she has composed at least one eloquent song annually.
It ends in 1961 with the song (Hawa Sahih al-Hawa Ghallab). Bayram, the owner of the song, dies before the party in which this poem is sung, and dies one month later, Zakaria Ahmed, the composer of the song and Bayram's loyal friend on February 14, after his problems with Umm Kulthum ended amicably. Certainly, the sixties were a turning point in Umm Kulthum's life, and although her most famous songs were sung during that period, many believe that it was one of her least artistic periods, with the exception of a few songs.
If we want fairness, Umm Kulthum in this period and until her death became a sacred icon in the lives of Egyptians. Gudon Jeskill wrote in Life magazine: A change involves the lives of people in the Middle East of different classes, ages, and creeds once a month and always at ten in the evening. Traffic almost stops in Cairo and in cafes in Casablanca, the table disappears, and in Baghdad the rich leave their trade, the intellectuals leave their books, and the streets empty of pedestrians All of them are ears focused on Cairo Radio, waiting for Umm Kulthum.
In 1960 she was awarded the Order of Merit, 1st class. Opens television as well as radio opened 26 years ago. In 1962, she sings the song "Ansak", which Zakaria Ahmed composed his doctrine before he died, and assigns the rest of the melody to Baligh Hamdi. This song is from the words of Mamoun Al-Shennawi. The truth is that Mamoun Al-Shennawi tried to cooperate with her more than once. The problem between them is Mamoun Al-Shennawi's adherence to his words and Umm Kulthum's adherence to changing the words, this time Mamoun acquiesced to all her requests, declaring Umm Kulthum's victory.
In 1962, the US Naval Hospital prepared to receive Umm Kulthum for periodic examination (in appreciation of the status of Umm Kulthum in the Arab world by the US government).
1964
This year, Umm Kulthum sings one of her most famous songs ever, the song that was the product of a 40-year-delayed collaboration, the song (You are my life).
After the setback
Umm Kulthum and Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan
Umm Kulthum received the news of the June setback and the defeat of the Egyptian army with sadness and sorrow, like all Egyptians at the time, but she was one of the first singers who held many concerts inside and outside Egypt to donate her profits to the war effort and sings her famous song (I now have a gun) and she also sang the song ( Habib Al-Shaab) to Abdel Nasser after he stepped down and returned again
singing in france
On the nights of Monday the 13th and Wednesday the 15th of November 1967, Umm Kulthum sang on the Olympia Theatre, the most famous theater ever. One of Olympia's directors at that time said that 3 singers carved their names into Olympia's memory: Umm Kulthum; Adit Piaf and Jacques Brall
Among the things that Umm Kulthum sang in those two concerts (the ruins), and the funny thing is that she fell off the stage while saying this house: (Has love seen drunk like us how much imagination we built around us) when someone from the audience went up on the stage and insisted on kissing her feet
Abdel Nasser's death
The sixties end with the death of Gamal Abdel Nasser on September 28, 1970, and she was then singing at a party in Russia, so she returned to Egypt and sang (Message to the Leader) composed by Nizar Qabbani and composed by Riyad Al-Sunbati in 1970, mourning Abdel Nasser after his death.
the seventies
After the death of Gamal Abdel Nasser and the accession of Muhammad Anwar Sadat to the rule of Egypt, Umm Kulthum remained in her destiny as the first singer and a close friend of Sadat.
Awards and Honors
Umm Kulthum Square in Mansoura
The Al-Rafidain Medal by the Iraqi government in 1946, which is the highest decoration awarded in Iraq, in the era of the monarchy
In 1975, it included the Renaissance Medal from the King of Jordan in 1975, and the Order of Merit, First Class, from President Hashem al-Atassi.
Order of the Republic from President Bourguiba of Tunisia in 1968.
In 1959, he was awarded the Order of the Cedars with the rank of commando from Lebanese Prime Minister Rashid Karami.
Suffering and death
Umm Kulthum's funeral procession in 1975 AD, Cairo, Egypt.
News in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram about the death of Umm Kulthum.
You were not able to sing the song “My times are good with you and my life is complete with your satisfaction.” During the rehearsals for the song, I fell ill with kidney infection. She traveled to London to receive treatment. Before her travels, she asked the poet Saleh Jawdat to write a song on the occasion of the October victory, and after her return, she asked the composer Riad Al-Sunbati to compose it to sing it on Victory Day, but she died before performing it.
Her health began to deteriorate in 1971, so she stopped giving concerts, and the last song she sang was Lailat Hob, on November 17, 1972, on January 21, 1975 AD.
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