Umm Kulthum
Fatima Ibrahim es-Sayyid el-Beltagi, known by her stage name Umm Kulthum, was an Egyptian singer and film actress. She was given the honorific title . Immensely popular throughout the Middle East and beyond, Umm Kulthum is a national icon in her native Egypt; she has been dubbed "The Voice of Egypt" and "Egypt's Fourth Pyramid". In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked Umm Kulthum at number 61 on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.
She is widely regarded as Egypt and the Arab world's most distinguished singer of the 20th century. Her funeral in Cairo in 1975 drew a crowd of over 4 million people, the largest human gathering in Egypt's history, and one of the largest funerals in history, even surpassing that of former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser.
Born in the village of Tamay al-Zahayra in the Dakahlia Governorate of Egypt. She began her music career as a child, singing religious hymns with her father, who initially dressed her in boys' clothes, as singing was unacceptable for girls in the countryside at that time. She moved to the city of Cairo in the early 1920s, where her career truly took off. She collaborated with renowned poets such as Ahmed Rami and composers such as Mohamed El Qasabgi, Zakaria Ahmed, Riad El Sunbati, and later Baligh Hamdi and Mohammed Abdel Wahab.
Distinguished by her powerful contralto voice and exceptional performance and expressive abilities, she reigned supreme in the world of both Egyptian and Arabic song for decades. She was famous for performing long, musically and lyrically complex songs, as well as singing religious hymns and classical Arabic poems. Active from the 1920s to the 1970s, Umm Kulthum performed hundreds of songs that remain widely popular today, including Ya Laylat al-Eid, Wallāh Zamān, Yā Silāḥī, Inta Omri, Al Atlal, Alf Laila wa Laila, Seret El Hob, and Rubaiyat Omar Khayyam. In film, Umm Kulthum starred in six films, including Weddad and Sallama.
Umm Kulthum's music and public persona were seen as authentically Egyptian, deeply rooted in the country's rural, working-class origins and classical Egyptian traditions. She used her immense fame to promote Egyptian identity. She played a prominent national role, particularly after the 1967 war, performing concerts in various Arab and European countries to raise funds for the Egyptian war effort under the slogan "Art for the War Effort." She continued this practice until shortly before the 1973 war. Although she was unable to sing the victory song at the 1973 war victory celebrations due to her health problems, she visited the war wounded, attended the victory celebrations, and received a letter of gratitude from President Anwar Sadat for her efforts on behalf of the nation.
She remains the most influential singer in the history of the modern Egypt. In 2025, her enduring legacy was marked by extensive international commemorations for the 50th anniversary of her passing. The Umm Kulthum Museum is located in Cairo, where visitors can view her personal belongings and learn about her rich artistic history. Her works continue to be broadcast and studied, and she remains an influential cultural icon to this day.
Early life
Fatima Ibrahim es-Sayyid el-Beltagi was born in the village of Tamay ez-Zahayra within the markaz of Senbellawein, Dakahlia Governorate, to a family of a religious background. Her father, Ibrahim es-Sayyid el-Beltagi, was a rural imam, while her mother, Fatmah el-Maleegi, was a housewife. She learned how to sing by listening to her father teach her older brother, Khalid. From a young age, she showed exceptional singing talent. Through her father, she learned to recite the Qur'an, and she reportedly memorized the entire book.Her grandfather was also a well-known reader of the Qur'an and she remembered how the villagers used to listen to him when he recited the Qur'an. When she was 12 years old, having noticed her strength in singing, her father asked her to join the family ensemble. She subsequently joined as a supporting voice, initially just repeating what the others sang. On stage, she wore a boy's cloak and bedouin head covering in order to alleviate her father's anxiety about her reputation and public performance. At the age of 16, she was noticed by Mohamed Abo Al-Ela, a modestly famous singer, who taught her the old classical Arabic repertoire. A few years later, she met the famous composer and oudist Zakariyya Ahmad, who took her to Cairo. Although she made several visits to Cairo in the early 1920s, she waited until 1923 before permanently moving there. She was invited on several occasions to the home of Amin Beh Al Mahdy, who taught her to play the oud, a type of lute. She developed a close relationship with Rawheya Al-Mahdi, Amin's daughter, and became her closest friend. Umm Kulthum even attended Rawheya's daughter's wedding, although she usually preferred not to appear in public, outside of her performances.
During the early years of her career, she faced staunch competition from two prominent singers: Mounira El Mahdeya and Fatheya Ahmed, who had voices similar to hers. El Mahdeya's friend, who worked as an editor at Al-Masra, suggested several times that Umm Kulthum had married one of the guests who frequently visited her household; this affected her conservative father so much that he decided that the whole family should return to their village. He would only change his mind after being persuaded by the arguments of Amin Al Mahdi. Following this incident, Umm Kulthum made a public statement regarding visits in her household in which she announced she would no longer receive visitors. In 1924, she struck a contract with Odeon Records which by 1926 would pay her more than any other Egyptian musical artist per record.
Career
Amin El Mahdi invited her into the cultural circles in Cairo. In 1924, she was introduced to the poet Ahmed Rami, who would later on write 137 songs for her, and would also introduce her to French literature and become her head mentor in Arabic literature and literary analysis. The mid-to-late 1920s marked her transition into a professional recording artist and cultural icon. She made her first audio recordings in 1924 for labels like Odeon Records, but it was her 1927 recordings that truly launched her career.In 1926, she left Odeon Records for His Master's Voice who would pay her about double per record and even an additional $10,000 salary. She also maintained a tightly managed public image, which undoubtedly added to her allure. Furthermore, she was introduced to the renowned oud virtuoso and composer Mohamed El Qasabgi, who introduced her to the Arabic Theatre Palace, where she would experience her first real public success. Other musicians who influenced her musical performances at the time were Dawwod Hosni and. Al-Ila Muhammad instructed her in voice control, and variants of the Arabic Muwashshah poetic form. Her repertoire expanded into taqatiq and monologues. One of her most influential early works was In Kunt 'Asamih, which blended modern aesthetics with classical artistry. In 1928, she released her first monologue, a new genre for her that featured virtuosic and dramatic themes of romantic loss. The year 1929 is famous for a meeting between Umm Kulthum and high-profile intellectuals, including the Islamic reformer Sayyid Rashid Rida and Prince Shakib Arslan, at a music hall in Cairo, signaling her growing influence beyond entertainment into cultural and social spheres. By the end of the 1920s, Umm Kulthum had successfully navigated the competitive Cairo music scene to become one of the city's highest-paid performers. She abandoned her masculine attire for conservative but fashionable women's dresses and began securing lucrative contracts with Gramophone Records, which paid her significant annual fees and royalties.
By 1930, she was so well known to the public that she had become a role model for several young female singers. Her influence expanded beyond the artistic scene into the hearts of the Egyptian elite and the general public alike. In 1932, she solidified her standing at this prestigious event under the patronage of King Fuad I, effectively silencing her critics. In 1932, she embarked upon a major tour of the Middle East and North Africa, performing in prominent Arab capital cities such as Damascus, Baghdad, Beirut, Rabat, Tunis, and finally Tripoli.
In 1934, Umm Kulthum sang for the inaugural broadcast of the Egyptian Radio, the state station. From then on onwards, she performed in a concert on the first Thursday of every month for forty years. Her influence kept growing and expanding beyond the artistic scene: the reigning royal family would request private concerts and even attend her public performances.
During the 1930s, her repertoire took the first of several specific stylistic directions. Her songs were virtuosic, as befitted her newly trained and very capable voice, and romantic and modern in musical style, feeding the prevailing currents in Egyptian popular culture of the time. She worked extensively with texts by romance poet Ahmad Rami and composer Mohammad El-Qasabgi, whose songs incorporated European instruments such as the violoncello and double bass, as well as harmony.
The 1930 song Madam Teheb Betenker Leih was one of her popular early urban hits. Followed by Ya Ghaeb An Eyouni, released in 1931, a monologue style song with lyrics by Ahmed Rami. The 1935 song Ala Balad El Mahboub was a widely beloved song, where she sang in her first film, Weddad. Part of her late-30s repertoire showcasing her vocal evolution was El Noom Yodaeb. An iconic celebratory song typically performed during Eid festivities until the present day is Ya Leilet El Eid, released primarily in 1939, and added to her 1940 film Dananeer.
In 1944, King Farouk I of Egypt decorated her with the Supreme Class of the Order of the Virtues, a decoration reserved exclusively for female royalty and politicians. Despite this recognition, the royal family rigidly opposed her potential marriage to the King's uncle, a rejection that deeply wounded her pride. It led her to distance herself from the royal family and embrace grassroots causes, exemplified by her acceptance of the request of the Egyptian legion trapped in the Faluja Pocket during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, who had asked her to sing a particular song. Among the army men trapped were the figures who would lead the 1952 Egyptian revolution, prominently Gamal Abdel Nasser. Following the revolution, the Egyptian Musicians' Union of which she became a member, rejected her because she had sung for the then-deposed King Farouk of Egypt. When Nasser discovered that her songs were banned from being aired on the radio, he reportedly said something to the effect of "What are they, crazy? Do you want Egypt to turn against us?" Later, Nasser would schedule his speeches so they would not interfere with the radio performances of Umm Kulthum.
Umm Kulthum had a brief but highly successful film career in Egypt between 1936 and 1947. While she is most famous as a singer, her six feature films were instrumental in cementing her status as a cultural icon and expanding her reach across the Arab world. Umm Kulthum starred in six major motion pictures, often portraying strong-willed female characters in stories that blended romance with moral and nationalist themes. She made her debut as an actress in the movie Weddad by Fritz Kramp. During her career, she would act in five more movies, of which four would be directed by Ahmad Badrakhan while Sallama and Fatma would be the most acclaimed.
Some claim that Umm Kulthum's popularity helped Nasser's political agenda. For example, Nasser's speeches and other government messages were frequently broadcast immediately after Umm Kulthum's monthly radio concerts. She sang many songs in support of Nasser, with whom she developed a close friendship. One of her songs associated with Nasser—Wallāhi Zamān, Yā Silāḥī —was adopted as the Egyptian national anthem from 1960 to 1979, when President Sadat replaced it by the less militant Bilady, Bilady, Bilady, following peace negotiations with Israel; it remains the Egyptian anthem to this day.
Umm Kulthum was also known for her continuous contributions to works supporting the Egyptian military efforts. Until 1972, for about half a century she gave at least one monthly concert. Umm Kulthum's monthly concerts were renowned for their ability to clear the streets of some of the world's most populous cities as people rushed home to tune in.
Her songs deal mostly with the universal themes of love, longing and loss. A typical Umm Kulthum concert consisted of the performance of two or three songs over a period of three to four hours. These performances are in some ways reminiscent of the structure of Western opera, consisting of long vocal passages linked by shorter orchestral interludes. However, Umm Kulthum was not stylistically influenced by opera, and she sang solo for most of her career.