Mohamed Abdullah - Cairo

On the 4th of February 3, 1975, the corridors of Maadi Military Hospital were troubled, doctors rushed here and there to revitalize Mrs. Umm Kulthum's heart, and attempts to pump oxygen to her lungs until she breathed her last thirty minutes.

This date, day, hour, and minute, is recorded and known to contemporary Umm Kulthum and those who attended her funeral 45 years ago, and even those born after her death who are interested in the life of the planet East, but the date of her birth is not specified, and the accounts differ about it, between December 1898 and May 1904, These various accounts give birth to dimensions of the legend of Umm Kulthum, as it dominated the music of the twentieth century, which was born in the beginning.

A child born in a simple house in a poor village, tens of kilometers away from the capital, and the nature of time and space had been waiting for a traditional fate, marriage, procreation and death, but Fatima Ibrahim Al-Beltagi, who is endowed with a strong voice in wide areas that have a different path, her father set it at the beginning and set out to establish her path that will raise her to a place Unprecedented in the Arab world and internationally, she started singing at the age of twelve alongside her brother and her father in the episodes of remembrance and singing nights in a small lyric family.

Changing the path change
One of Ramadan nights was when Sheikh Abu Al-Ella Muhammad, the first pioneer in the composer of the poem at the time, took the train from Cairo heading to Sinbillawain (a center southeast of Dakahlia Governorate), and on the train route the small family went up to the train.

The child Fatima sang from the tunes of Sheikh Abu Al-Ula, whom he accidentally heard to establish a friendship between the famous sheikh and the small family. Abu Al-Ela insisted on the father that the child should take her opportunity in Cairo to convince the father and the family move to Cairo.

The girl, who became a young woman, began to learn the origins of music, singing and maqam, to sing her first single, "Casting, Exposed by Eyes", composed by Sheikh Abu El-Ela and the lyrics of the poet Ahmed Rami, who will participate in making her legend and write 139 songs for her for about fifty years.

Bulbul East
Ahmed Rami and his family played a pivotal role in the life of Umm Kulthum, who came from the Delta of Egypt, dressed in robe and headband clothes, as she learned in his family's house and at the hands of his sisters the principles of fitness, and Rami himself helped her to open her literacy and refine her poetic taste, as he was the first poet to write Especially for her, as she wrote to her thirty songs during six years from 1924 to 1929, including the song "If I Forgive and Forget Exponential", whose cylinder achieved great sales and remarkable success in 1928.

Rami also helped her to choose words from Andalusian and Abbasid poetry, and introduced her to the young and renewed composer at the time, Muhammad al-Qasbaji, to form the new trio a new singing project in the mid-twenties of the last century, which made her wanted even outside the Egyptian borders, as she performed concerts in several Palestinian cities in the framework of artistic tours In it it was called the "Bulbul East", which later became "Planet of the East".

The golden thirties
Like Rami did, Al-Qasbaji played a role in preparing Umm Kulthum artistically and morally and formed her own band, and in the thirties the trio continued their project, between the new songs and the new light songs, to form their masses that would qualify them to sing in the opening of the Egyptian radio, as the first lyric after the Quran of Sheikh Muhammad Rifaat And the rituals of the concert of the first Thursday of each month began in 1934, and the crossing to the cinema in her first movie "Danars", which did not succeed enough, but Um Kulthum has maintained her success as a singer, will become the first in her time and place during the next decade.

Maturity of the forties
In the 1940s, Umm Kulthum rose to the throne of singing, as she is the first singer in Egypt, everyone is racing to present words and melodies for her, while the audience is racing to attend her concerts or request to revive his own concerts if he managed to do this, and I went to long songs, with melodic and performance variations, in conjunction with The emergence of the Tunisian poet Bayram, who wrote to her, "My beloved makes his times happy" and other longer songs than before, and Umm Kulthum sings before the kings and princes, in Egypt and in the surrounding Arab countries.

New eloquent blood
Umm Kulthum maintained its success during the forties and fifties even after the July 1952 revolution that changed the page of Egyptian art, and she retained control of the ears and hearts of the Arab audience even with changes in public taste.

Umm Kulthum used the new young man at the time, eloquent Hamdi and his fast dancing rhythms, down to the passion of the audience, who was good at catching it first, as well as interacting with him until she sang on the introductions of dancers when she was seven years old in the sixties of the last century.

The thundering revolution trend
Writer Mahmoud Awad, in his book "Umm Kulthum, which no one knows", tells about a strange request made by the Egyptian General (a division of the army) that was trapped in the Palestinian Fallujah, from October 1948 until April 1949, as it was requested through It is wireless for Umm Kulthum to sing the song "I Overcame Islah in My Soul" at her upcoming concert, which was scheduled to take place on the first Thursday of February 1949.

Writer Mustafa Amin conveyed this request to Umm Kulthum and she had already prepared the concert program, as it included three songs that were not "overpowered in my soul" and one of them, but it fulfilled the request of the besieged brigade, and it was one of the most beautiful recordings of the song.

This brigade included its commander, Sayed Mahmoud Taha, and Gamal Abdel Nasser, who would become president of the republic after 1952, and between the siege of Fallujah and the July Revolution, their return was from Palestine, where Umm Kulthum celebrated their home in the Zamalek district of Cairo.

When the revolution took place, Umm Kulthum was at the top of her lyrical artistic glory, and she was satisfied with the royal family, she sang to the king and complimented him, and after the revolution, it was possible that she would be subjected to the deportation or ban of many other artists, but because she had precedent precedents with the army And because she is the mother of Kulthum who can direct and rally the people, she was able to escape the thundering trend of the revolution.

Umm Kulthum sang for the revolution as well, perhaps believing in it and perhaps in order to harmonize with the new regime, but she certainly succeeded in maintaining her position and played a national role in collecting donations for the benefit of the Egyptian army after the 1967 setback, and she continued to play her role until she died in February 1975.