1500 songs and participated in a movie by Abdel-Wahab ... Google celebrates Iraqi singer Afifa Iskandar

The global search engine "Google" commemorated the 98th anniversary of the birth of the late Iraqi singer Afifa Iskandar.

She was born on December 10, 1921 in the city of Mosul, from a Greek mother. She spent five years in Baghdad in her work and the beginning of her concerts in 1935 in the city of Erbil, and her first song was "Zenobah".

She married at the age of 12 of fifty fifty named Alexander Isfyan, and then took his surname. Her mother was the first to advise and support her in her artistic career.

Afifa was named after the Arab Music Academy monologist, as she performed Iraqi singing and maqamat, and she played several types of musical instruments.

I traveled to Cairo in 1938, sang there, and worked for a long time with the Badi`ah band, the most famous Egyptian dancer and actress in the 1940s, as well as with the Tahiyyat Karioka.

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Her most prominent Arab participation was acting in the movie "Happy Day" with the late artist Mohamed Abdel Wahab and Faten Hamama, and she sang in it. Unfortunately, the song did not appear when the film was shown because the director deleted it for the length of time exceeding two hours. She has acted in other films in Lebanon, Syria and Egypt, including "Cairo - Baghdad", directed by Ahmed Badrakhan and the movie "Laila in Iraq."

In Egypt, she met the writer and poet Ibrahim Naji, and then she began her artistic career, then she returned to Iraq and settled in Baghdad.

Afifa Iskandar Salon was established in Iraq in Al-Masbah area in Al-Karrada, and its council included at that time the most prominent men of politics, literature, art and culture, including Nuri Al-Saeed, former Prime Minister and Faek Al-Samarrai, member of the Independence Party and member of the National Assembly.

Afifa was the first singer of the royal era and senior officials of the Iraqi state, and King Faisal I, was a fan of her voice, but President Abdel Salam Aref (1963-1966) was fighting and restricting her according to her description, and she says he was accusing her of burying the Communists in the garden of her home. She sang nearly 1,500 songs throughout her artistic career.

She participated in the series "Babna Baghdad" in 2011, one year before her death, at the age of ninety. She died on October 22, 2012, at the age of 91, in Baghdad, after a long illness.