I have had quite the sabbatical
from blogging! Since September, I have been fiddling with revisions to my novel
(historical fiction, natch). In May, all that fiddling finally came to fruition
as an idea that I liked, and on Friday, I at last finished my new draft and
sent it off to some friends who have generously agreed to read it and give me
feedback so that I can tweak it a little bit more before sending it back to my
agent.
In the meantime, while the
manuscript is in someone else’s court, I can focus my writerly attention on
some of the projects I have neglected of late. It seems fitting that my first
new post should feature a woman who is a background detail in my book, a woman
who is possibly the most revered singer in the Arab world: Umm Kulthum.
This is how Virginia Danielson, a
Harvard musicologist and author of “The Voice of Egypt” describes Umm Kulthum:
Imagine a singer with the virtuosity
of Joan Sutherland or Ella Fitzgerald, the public persona of Eleanor Roosevelt,
and the audience of Elvis, and you have Umm Kulthum, the most accomplished
singer of her century in the Arab World.
Umm Kulthum
lived through a time of enormous changes in Egypt, changes which she
successfully navigated, and sometimes, even helped shape. She simultaneously
became the voice of an old Arabic culture and the new, modern, uniquely
Egyptian one. She was in many ways, the narrator of Egypt’s twentieth century.
Yet, despite being such a large public figure in Egypt, little is known about
her personal life.
Umm Kulthum was born in rural
Egypt, sometime in the turn of the century – probably between 1898 and 1904,
but the exact date is unknown. She was named after one of the Prophet Muhammad’s
daughters, who later became the wife of one of the first “rightly-guided
Caliphs” after Muhammad’s death. In Arabic, Umm (or Um) literally means “Mother
of” but can also mean “the woman with.” Umm Kulthum can be translated as “the
one with the round face.” (The male version would be Abu, which means “father
of” and can also mean “man with.” Many
adults have nicknames in this style that relate them either to a person – their
literal offspring – or to some physical feature. My personal favorite is that
Iraqi communists called Joseph Stalin Abu Sharib/Abu Shanab: the man with the
mustache. But I digress.)
Umm Kulthum’s father was a Shaykh –
a mid-level scholar of Islam, who was mainly called upon to recite passages of
the Qu’ran and sing religious songs at important events, such as weddings. In
Arabic, Qu’ran means recite and in
religious families it is common for both boys and girls to learn to recite the
Qu’ran in unadulterated classical Arabic, often by singing or chanting the
poetic suras. Umm Kulthum was famous for her excellent diction of the classical
Arabic poems that she sang, as well as the emotion she infused in the words:
some credit these talents with her childhood memorization of the Qu’ran.
It was clear from a young age that
Umm Kulthum had a powerful voice. Her father began to bring her along with him
as he travelled the Nile Delta to sing for his clients. Being a conservative
Muslim, he did not feel comfortable having his daughter sing in front of
strange men, and so he dressed her as a boy for the first several years of
their travels. Umm Kulthum’s performances helped to supplement her father’s
meager income, while also drawing the attention of wealthier and more important
clients. By the early 1920s, with the help of her clients, she and her family
moved to Cairo, by then a rapidly growing and changing city.
 |
| Umm Kulthum, on the left, dressed as a boy. |
The Middle East of the 1920s was swept up in a revolutionary fervor. The centuries-old Ottoman Empire had died with the end of World War I, and new states were emerging from its ashes, each struggling to strike a balance between autonomy from Western Imperial powers, Western-style modernity, and unique national identities based on local culture. A failed revolution in 1919 against British rule did little to quench the revolutionary thirst in Cairo and this revolutionary spirit manifested itself in the arts. After the 1919 revolution, women became a much more visible part of Egyptian culture, particularly in the entertainment industry. This was a trend that both enabled Umm Kulthum’s rise to fame, but also, one that set her apart. Female singers and dancers (as in many cultures) tended to be seen as disreputable. Often, these women wore a lot of makeup and jewelry, perhaps even scandalous dresses. Umm Kulthum, by contrast, wore conservative, often simple, cotton dresses and almost exclusively sang religious poetry. At first her course manners made Umm Kulthum and object of ridicule, but after a little cultivation from some of her patrons, her country charm became part of what endeared her to her audience. She was famous for wearing a long-sleeved, floor-length gown and clutching a scarf in one hand whenever she performed.
Two prominent features of the early
twentieth century helped turn Umm Kulthum into the giant she was: first, mass
media, and second, the Egyptian nationalist soul search for an indigenous Egyptian
culture. Radio, the medium that helped propel the careers of Adolph Hitler,
Benito Mussolini, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill, also made Umm
Kulthum a star. By the 1930s, her voice was being broadcast on the radio and
recorded on gramophone so that she could be heard throughout the nation. Cairo
was also becoming the Hollywood of the Middle East. Similar to American cinema,
early Egyptian films tended to be musicals, featuring already famous singers,
among them, Umm Kulthum and her chief rival, Muhammad Abedel Wahab.
Abedel Wahab and Umm Kulthum
represented two conflicting sides of the same nationalist phenomenon. Both came
from poor, rural, religious families and had been trained to sing classical
Arabic poetry. While Umm Kulthum stuck with the classical, Abedel Wahab (who
was a composer as well as a singer) wanted to infuse his music with modernity
(meaning, some Western influence).
However, just because Umm Kulthum
maintained a classical style and classical subject matter, did not mean that
there wasn’t something new about her music. Both Umm Kulthum’s raw talent and
her business acumen helped her to attract other talented Egyptians to her
orbit. In the 1920s, she began collaborations with the poet Ahmad Rami and the
oud player-composer Mohamed El Qasabgi, which proved quite successful. Rami was
her mentor, helping her develop a deeper understanding of Arabic literature,
and by extension, the lyrics she was singing. In turn, Umm Kulthum was Rami’s muse, and in
the 20s and 30s, she became famous for singing romantic poetry that he had
written for her, about his unrequited love for her. Her records became so
popular, that in 1932, she went on tour in the major cities of the Arab world.
 |
| Poster advertising Umm Kulthum's concert in Jerusalem, then in British Mandatory Palestine. |
In 1934, she gave her first
broadcast on radio Cairo, beginning a decades long tradition. From the 1930s,
through the 1960s, on the first Thursday of the month, Umm Kulthum would give a
concert in Cairo to be broadcast live not only throughout Egypt, but throughout
the Arabic-speaking world. An apocryphal story claims that Israel launched its
first attack of Egypt in the Six Day War during one of Umm Kulthum’s concerts,
when they knew that everyone in Egypt would be glued to their radios. Although
it is not true that Israel timed their assault to be during her broadcast, it
is true that the streets could be practically empty during her hours-long
concerts.
Umm Kulthum and her music were also
perfect symbols for burgeoning Egyptian nationalism because they came from a
purely Egyptian tradition and her music appealed to all social classes. In the
1940s and 50s, her music shifted from being romantic and religious, to patriotic
and nationalistic and became a symbol of two very different administrations in
Egypt: the dying, British-backed monarchy of King Farouk, and the revolutionary
government of Gamal Abdel Nasser, with evidence suggesting that she was
personally much more supportive of the latter. After Nasser took over in 1952
(in a nearly bloodless revolution) some of the more zealous revolutionaries
took it upon themselves to remove Umm Kulthum from the radio since she had been
associated with the ousted king. Nasser, a fan of Umm Kulthum’s, asked why he
could no longer hear her on the radio. After his men explained their position,
Nasser allegedly said, “Do you want the people to turn against us? Are you
crazy?”
Il Sit, the Lady, as she was
sometimes called, was reinstated on the air. Nasser expanded the range of Radio
Cairo so that her broadcasts could be heard throughout the region, turning Umm
Kulthum into a proxy for Nasser and his new Egypt which was the cultural and
political epicenter of the Arab world.
In 1964, Umm Kulthum collaborated
with her longtime rival, Muhammad Abdel Wahab, on what became one of their most
famous songs: Enta Omri, You Are My Life. This composition blended Abdel Wahab’s
more modern style with Umm Kulthum’s classical one, to great success. Despite
their rivalry, Abdel Wahab once said of Umm Kulthum: “When she sings, I feel I’m
in the presence of a great leader.”
Here is a recording of Umm
Kulthum singing Enta Omri in Paris in 1967. You can hear the combination of
traditional Arab music with some Western influence. This is a relatively short
clip. A full performance could be nearly two hours
Although the full text of the song
is quite short, Umm Kulthum’s performance of it could last two hours. Egypt’s Nobel
laureate Naguib Mafouz described Umm Kulthum as being like a preacher,
responding to what her audience wanted. Part of her style included repeating
lines, each time with a slightly different intonation that would alter the
meaning of the words, or emphasize the emotion behind them. Watching her perform
is reminiscent of watching an opera diva perform an aria. For those not steeped
Arabic musical traditions, or who don’t understand Arabic, it can be difficult
to understand the appeal of Umm Kulthum, or the depth of emotion that she
inspired in her listeners. Part of her objective when she performed was to
inspire tarab: an Arabic musical term
that has no direct English language equivalent, but has been translated to mean
enchantment or ecstasy. The repetition and emphasis of certain phrases was one
of her methods to achieve tarab. An Egyptian journalist described Umm Kulthum’s
singing style as being like flying an airplane: she would gradually lift off,
soar, and then come down slowly for a soft landing. This was perhaps another
quality that helped her induce tarab in her audience.
Umm Kulthum’s career had political
as well as artistic dimensions. Deeply nationalistic, she secluded herself in
her basement for two weeks after Egypt’s defeat in the Six Day War in 1967.
When she emerged, she set off on a tour of the Middle East, North Africa, and
even Europe to help raise money for the Egyptian government. Her visits to
other Arab countries were practically like state visits. After giving a concert
in Tunis, she met for several hours with the president of Tunisia. Diplomatic
relations between Egypt and Tunisia had been severed over disagreements
regarding Israel: after her meeting, diplomatic relations were restored.
It is ironic that Umm Kulthum
raised money for war, by singing about love. Even more ironically, she raised
money for a war against Israel, when she was as beloved by Arab Jews in Israel
as she was by other Arabic speakers throughout the region.
Despite being the voice and face of
Egypt, Umm Kulthum was intensely private. Her public persona was carefully
crafted, and she was guarded among journalists so that the public knew little
about her except what they saw on stage. Despite the romantic theme of her
songs, she did not marry until she was in her forties or fifties, to a prominent
doctor and many suspect it was a marriage of convenience. She suffered many
recurring health problems, particularly in her eyes and kidneys. (She even came
to the U.S. seeking treatment at Bethesda Naval Hospital, which I solely
mention because I live very close to it.)
When she died in February of 1975,
Radio Egypt interrupted its regular programming to broadcast verses from the Qu’ran
to indicate that someone of great importance to the nation had died. Nearly 4
million people attended her funeral in Cairo. Her music is still broadcasted
once a month and remains popular in Egypt.
So, how does The Lady fit in with
my novel? Most of the book takes place in Iraq in the early 1950s. The
protagonist is a film-obsessed Iraqi Jewish teenager. When I first began
research for my book in 2013, I read several English memoirs by Iraqi Jews
about life in Baghdad in the 1940s and 50s and subsequent emigration to Israel.
Nearly all of them mentioned the music of Umm Kulthum as well as the popularity
of both American and Egyptian films, so, I made them a part of my protagonist’s
milieu. I chose to exclusively reference American actors in my narration, based
on the assumption that my primarily American audience would be more likely to
recognize stars of 1940s American cinema than Egyptian. But, I still wanted to
acknowledge that Egyptian culture and film would have been just as, if not more,
popular in 1950s Iraq. So, Umm Kulthum gets a nod. If it survives the editorial
chopping block, maybe someday you will read my book and find it.
Sources:
A Voice Like Egypt This
documentary is a little over an hour and well worth watching. It includes a lot
of documentary film of Umm Kulthum, as well as Egyptians singing the parts of
her songs most meaningful to them.
Harvard Magazine
A short description by Virginia Danielson. Danielson wrote The
Voice of Egypt: Umm Kulthum, Arabic Song, and Egyptian Society in the Twentieth
Century. I did not read it for
this post, but I did find some of Danielson’s shorter works.
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