CAIRO – Worshippers inspect Engineer Radwan Khalil to lead them in the Maghrib prayer, and who prays with them other than the one with the dewy voice, which most of the members of the Islamic movement throughout the Islamic world know through his songs as "Abu Mazen"?

The worshipers missed him, after they were other than him, and then they went out and found his car parked in front of his simple workshop specialized in textile and clothing, and it seems that Sheikh Radwan is in his office, so let them go up to him to ask him about the secret of his rare absence from congregational prayer, and he was in his last days praying sitting on a chair in the mosque.

The door of the Sheikh's office is unusually locked, they listened waiting for his response to knock on the door, but there was no answer, they called him; the phone ringing emanating from inside, the Sheikh was either sleeping inside, or he left his phone and went out in a hurry.

One of them, suspicious and worried, tricked to enter the office from his window of the legislator, seconds passed since entering, until his comrades heard the gasp inside and his throat, before opening the door for them to enter the office.

The sight of the septuagenarian sheikh thrown on his chair with a motionless body made everyone gasp and be stunned, before rushing to him to cooperate in carrying him to the car of one of them, taking him quickly to a nearby hospital, in which they were saddened by the painful news: Stay for God, the Sheikh died.

Echo of the end songs

Did you see us meeting or was it the meeting on the land of mirage?

Then it was gone and its shadow faded and memories of torment became impossible

The words of the anthem, which the sheikh sang decades ago, echoed in the head of Abdul Rahman Bakr, as he distributed tasks to the mosque and the operator between how to inform his family and five daughters, all of whom he married in Egypt.

Abdul Rahman Bakr wept as he remembered in front of the body the prisoner, "O martyr. O martyr. O martyr, may God elevate him. The front of truth along the run. O martyr."

This song, which Abdul Rahman used to hear through a weak cassette tape with a poorly recorded sound, in his youth, and then engage in bitter crying, and he learned at the time that the regime of Syrian President Hafez al-Assad had cut off the tongue of Abu Mazen, and let him bleed and die, to become the owner of the song "O martyr", a martyr, and an embodiment of the song that he composed and sang, so Abdul Rahman thought.

Today discovers – and the body of Abu Mazen Masja in front of him – that the story that circulated among the sons of the Islamic movement – Abu Mazen's authentic and wide audience – was not real, perhaps rumored by friends of Abu Mazen in order to stop the Syrian security services from pursuing the pioneer of kinetic chanting, has settled by the place in Cairo without advertising, so explains Abdul Rahman it in his interview with Al Jazeera Net.

The mihrab of the Ebad al-Rahman mosque, which Abu Mazen frequented for decades (Al Jazeera)

Congregation

The crowd of worshippers waiting for the sheikh at the evening prayer at the Ebad al-Rahman mosque turned looking for him, "Where is Haj Radwan, the imam of the mosque?" The mosque, despite its small size, could accommodate dozens of worshipers who flocked from around the Manshiet Al-Sadd area, east of Cairo, where the mosque is located on the National Mosque Street, branching from the famous Gesr El Suez Street.

The worshippers, most of whom do not know that he was the vocalist Abu Mazen, who was full of ears in the eighties of the last century, wondered.

Very surprised was on the face of one of his neighbors, during the simple condolences held near his mosque, has said to Al Jazeera Net, which is still overwhelmed in his surprise, "Although I am his neighbor since he set foot in the region about 30 years ago, I was surprised by the pictures of Sheikh on social networking sites accompanied by a painful lament of many, some of whom are famous sheikhs and influencers on networking sites, to know from them that he was a famous vocalist decades ago."

The spokesman continued, preferring not to be named, "The late never mentioned this throughout my knowledge of him, despite the closeness and closeness, nor did he try to perform songs in front of us, even as a chant, as some of us do with some songs and songs."

The vocalist "Abu Mazen" died, I did not know his name until today, Eng. Radwan Khalil Anan, but I know that I was raised on his songs that have a special name that have meanings and spirituality that live with them in another world that they wish to last, the "epic of the call" and its sisters were not just songs, but they raised within us the basics and painted us a picture that we live with and with them for today pic.twitter.com/jKtaxr5pIW

— Azza El-Garf (@AzzaElGarf) March 15, 2023

After most of them realized the value of the deceased and his impact on the Islamic movement that is now being pursued in countries, his in-laws refuse to photograph the simple mourning session, implicitly expressing concern and a preference for hiding, as the late preferred in his life.

Sharing seated some of his biography, said one of his friends to Al Jazeera Net – reserving to mention his name – that the late "did not like to digress in the biography of his history chanting", so that although he is very close to him, did not know his story with chanting and his old fame only after his death.

May God have mercy on the spiritual vocalist, the legend of the sophisticated Islamic anthem Abu Mazen. He recorded and composed at the age of 16 years and within 3 years he created and inflamed the sons of the Islamic awakening, and migrated with his religion from the Levant to the land of Kenana, so he became the unknown soldier and the father of God, but his songs and the hearts of people spread with him by the size of his sincerity, may God have mercy on Engineer Radwan Annan pic.twitter.com/f6XWqNAXkh

— Jassim Rashid Al Shamsi (@jalshamsi777) March 17, 2023

Abu Mazen remained authorized to pray and lead worshipers in the mosque "Ebad al-Rahman" for many years, his voice was dewy in the call to prayer for the five prayers attracting, "was thin and sweet and stemming from the heart sincerely," according to Hajj Samir Abdullah, performer rituals in the mosque currently, who explained to Al Jazeera Net that the late stopped the call to prayer a while ago for the five prayers, sufficing with the call to prayer Friday only.

The late continued to lead Taraweeh prayers on Ramadan every year, which made the mosque crowded worshippers behind him to enjoy his melodious voice, which "we will miss next Ramadan and we have been waiting for him eagerly," the spokesman said.

He resisted the tyrants with his melodious voice, and used his songs to expose their injustice to their people. Syrian vocalist #أبو_مازن (#رضوان_خليل_عنان) passed away after presenting 10 generations with artistic publications, which caress the dreams of the vulnerable and chart the path of salvation for the disadvantaged. pic.twitter.com/CZNS5HkuSF

— Meem Magazine. Our Mirror (@Meemmag) March 16, 2023

Strangers

"Strangers, and for other than God, we do not bow the foreheads."

Strangers and we accepted it as a slogan of life

If you ask about us, we don't care about tyrants.

We are always God's soldiers

We have trained the path of the fathers..".

The anthem echoes in the hearts of the spokesman for the "Salafist Front" Khaled Saeed, reflecting on the life and death of Abu Mazen, trying to understand that "the deep impact he left in the hearts of an entire generation of the sons of the Islamic movement, who lived the plight of Islam and its call, and was consumed by its fire, and witnessed the killing and capture of his friends and loved ones, and even none of them but received his luck from oppression and abuse."

Khaled Saeed goes on in his speech to Al Jazeera Net, "I concluded from that reflection to several facts that combine the importance of the "emotional side", the man launched the words of the pioneers vibrant, arrows his voice shocking in the space of the nation, to tell about the alienation in the homeland, and the brutality of families, and the cruelty of the jailer, and the blood of the spilled, and the presentation of humiliation, and a nation that is embraced, and the law of waste and painful ordeal. "

Abu Mazen's wide fame, from the days of the start of his throat with singing as a young man in high school, was limited to the spectra of the sons of the Islamic awakening, at the level of its geographical extension among most Arab countries, without the general public, because it "represented the beginnings of listening to the art of kinetic chanting for most of this generation, and the subsequent generations for a certain period, before the emergence of chanting tapes that use modern technologies, and then used musical instruments," according to Sheikh Essam Talima.

The Ebad al-Rahman Mosque, where Abu Mazen held the call to prayer and led worshippers for years (Al-Jazeera)

Abu Mazen's voice in the recordings was faint and weak, hardly visible in certain phrases, due to the poor quality of the recording, until efforts were made to collect most of the written songs in a series of books entitled "Songs of the Islamic Call", so people began to know the intermittent words that their ears did not accurately capture.

This is how people became aware of Abu Mazen's words, but they remained ignorant of his form, and even his real name, so his personality was surrounded by rumors suitable for his enthusiastic songs, and it was rumored that the followers of the Syrian regime cut off his tongue, all of which were baseless rumors.

After he settled in Egypt, the vocalist has long resisted attempts by journalists to show him in the media, preferring to take care of his family and protect his private life, however, the generations of the seventies and what followed remembered him, despite the continuation of his brothers singers senior such as Abu Rateb and Abu Al-Jud, and the impact of what he presented remained.