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(Umm Kulthum Ibrahim)
born on December 30, 1898 (?) in Tamay az-Zuhaira (village in the Nile Delta), Egypt
died on February 3, 1975 in Cairo, Egypt
Egyptian singer
50th anniversary of her death on February 3, 2025
Biography
When the curtain went up on her last concert, the audience greeted her with cries of “O star of stars!” and applause that lasted 30 minutes. She had to repeat the introduction to her song “Love of the Night” twice. After 45 minutes she had sung only the first verse, but the audience demanded yet another repetition. The composer and orchestra leader avowed: “By God, there is nothing more beautiful than this.” When the performance was over, the crowd went wild.
Umm Kulthum, a simple girl from the countryside, had a unique career; she became the richest and most famous singer in the Arab world. Above all, however, she is to be credited for having brought sophisticated classical Arabic poetry to ordinary people through her singing. She was revered and loved by the entire Arabic-speaking world.
Uncommon as it was for a girl in a poor family, she was allowed by her father to attend a madrasa school. He was an imam at the village mosque who supplemented his meager salary by singing religious songs at festive events; he taught both his son and his daughter Umm how to sing. Umm Kulthum began her career at the age of about nine, singing religious songs in performances with her father and brother in provincial towns. She wore boys' clothing as the presence of a girl at religious celebrations would have been unthinkable.
New media contributed to her meteoric rise in Cairo in the 1920s. When Egyptian radio began broadcasting in 1934, Umm Kulthum was the first Arab artist to perform on shortwave. For 30 years, listeners across the Arab world would turn on their radios to listen to her every Thursday.
Umm Kulthum's songs and radio broadcasts began to take on a new dimension starting in 1952 under Nasser. She gave expression to the pan-Arab national pride that was awakening, and she succeeded where every Arab politician had failed: her songs fostered a sense of community among Arabs from East to West. People across the Arab world were enchanted.
She received numerous awards and honors, as well as honorary nicknames (“Star of the Orient”).
Umm Kulthum's private life was completely unspectacular. When she died on February 3, 1975, the entire Arab world mourned. She was given a state funeral, an honor otherwise reserved for only a few high-ranking politicians. Even today, her songs are still popular and frequently played.
(Text from 1997; translated with DeepL.com; edited by Ramona Fararo, 2025.
Please consult the German version for additional information, pictures, sources, videos, and bibliography.)
Quotes
When her program was broadcast live on Egyptian television, traffic would come to a standstill in Arab cities from the Persian Gulf to the Atlantic coast. The Bedouins of the desert, the fishermen by the sea, the peasants in the countryside and the people in the cities would listen to her sing. On these Thursdays, the Arab public refrained from all the things that ostensibly determined their lives and devoted themselves entirely to listening to her singing. (They would become) so overwhelmed by the emotions her singing evoked that the surrounding world would fade away and all their worries would be forgotten. (Gabriele Braune)
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