المجموعه الكامله لكوكب الشرق ( أم كلثوم ) متجدد دائما

The Star of the East
The Diva of Arabic Song
" More than a musician, she became The voice and face of Egypt "
Biography

Umm Kulthum was born in a small rural village to a poor family
Her father,al-Shaykh
Ibrahim al-Sayyid al-Baltaji (d. 1932), was the imam of the local
mosque, and her mother, Fatmah al-Maliji (d. 1947), was a housewife
Her date of birth is
not known for certain,but the most reliable suggestion is May 4, 1904,
given on a page from the Daqahliyah provincial birth records for Tammay
al-Zahayrah
Umm Kulthum's mother
cared for the children: Umm Kulthum, her sister, Sayyidah, about ten
years older than Umm Kulthum, and her brother, Khalid, who was one year
older
Umm Kulthum was her
last child. She described her mother as a good woman who lived simply
and taught her children the importance of truth, humility and trust in
God
The family house was a small one made of mud brick; they owned no other property
When she was about
five years old, Umm Kulthum entered the kuttab, or Qur'an school, in
her village that her older brother Khalid attended.Umm Kulthum learned
to sing from her father.When al-Shaykh Ibrahim discovered what she had
learned and heard the unusual strength of her voice, he asked her to
join the lessons. Umm Kulthum began performing in her own village at
the house of the oumdah on an occasion when Khalid felt ill
A number of people
encouraged Umm Kulthum and her father to consider going to Cairo to
further her career in the center of the entertainment business. The
move was finally accomplished in about 1923 with the aid of musical
mashayaikh from the city with whom Umm Kulthum and her father had
established contact. They helped the young girl find performing
opportunities and meet the theatrical agents who were essential to
Following hints in the spring of 1926 that she should not succeed in
the long run accompanied by her family, she hired accomplished and
prestigious instrumentalists in their place. Her repertory of religious
qasa'id and tawashih gave way to new During the 1920s and 1930s, Umm
Kulthum began to make commercial recordings and launched her life-long
involvement with mass media, essential to her long and extensive
popularity. Her commitments later expanded to include radio, from the
inception of Egyptian National Radio in 1934, films, which she began in
1935, and television in 1960, andsustaining a career in the
entertainment world at the time
Umm Kulthum's musical
directions in the 1940s and early 1950s and her mature performing style
caused this period to be popularly called the "golden age" of Umm
Kulthum.In 1946,personal problems thrust themselves on Umm Kulthum in
such a way as to disrupt her professional activities for the first time
in her career
Questions about Umm
Kulthum's personal life, especially that of why she had never
married,followed Umm Kulthum from the time she began her career in
Cairo until she married Dr. Hasan al-Hifnawi in 1954. In the 1920s she
was linked with a number of men,including poet Ahmad Rami. Her apparent
strong will, sharp tongue and absence of any lasting close personal
involvements prompted the assessment that "she has no heart
Another that, "like Greta Garbo" she had been disappointed in love early in life and could not love another
Feeling the
disappointment of the broken engagement and the burdens of medical
problems, Umm Kulthum agreed to marry a fellow musician,the oud player,
composer and them vice-president of the Musician's Union,Mahmud Sharif.
The marriage was dissolved within days, regarded by both parties as a
mistake, amid a tremendous outcry of protest from Umm Kulthum's fans
who attacked the character, personal status, and abilities of Mahmud
Sharif. "as if the man had not a single good quality." Finally Umm
Kulthum married one of her doctors and a long-time audience member, Dr.
Hasan al-Hifnawi, in 1954, During the 1950s and 1960s Umm Kulthum
expanded her role in Egyptian public life
She granted more
interviews during which she spoke about her life, repeatedly
identifying herself as a villager, a fallahah or peasant, who shared a
cultural background and essential values with the majority of the
Egyptian populace
Her interviews were full of stories of her family, her neighbors, and the familial qualities of village life
The health problems
that plagued Umm Kulthum throughout much of her life worsened as she
aged. her eyes remained hypersensitive to light and in her later years,
she wore dark glasses almost all the time. Beginning in 1971,Umm
Kulthum's health deteriorated dramatically. In March of that year, she
suffered a gall bladder attack which resulted in the postponement of
her March and Aprilconcerts. The following winter, she was struck with
a serious kidney infection that forced the cancellation of two more
concerts in February and March of 1972.During the first concert of the
following season, in December of 1972, Umm Kulthum felt faint during
the program. She sang the entire concert, but it was her last. Failing
health caused her to cancel the remainder of the season and, although
she constantly planned to perform again, she never did so. She spent
her time from the winter of 1973 through the summer of 1974 traveling
to Europe and the United States to kidney specialists and suffering
continually from weak health.The song "Hakam alayna al-hawa'" was
scheduled for premiere in the spring of 1973. As was her custom, Umm
Kulthum planned to record it before its first performance. She did so
with great difficulty on March 13, 1973
The recording occupied
twelve hours. For the first time, she sang while sitting in a chair,
quietly brought to her by a recording engineer who saw that she was too
weak to remain standing. the concert at which the song was to have been
premiered was cancelled and the recording was released, never having
been performed for a live audience
On January 21, 1975,
she suffered the final kidney attack that led to her death on February
3. Despite years of medical treatment, she resisted hospitalization at
this time, saying that "If I go to the hospital, I'll die there."She
died of heart failure on February 3, 1975. Her funeral was to be held
at the Oumar Makram mosque in central Cairo, the site of most funerals
for well-known Muslims in the city

Films

Widad 1936, Nashid Al Amal 1937, Dananir 1940, Aydah 1942, Salamah 1945, Fatmah 1947



Virtually
every culture has its divas. The Arab world has Umm Kalthoum. With a
devoted audience stretching from North Africa to the Levant and hailing
from all parts of Arab society, this Egyptian born singer is regarded
as the most gifted female voice of the twentieth century. Over twenty
years after her death, Umm Kalthoums popularity is as phenomenal as the
voice she was blessed with. Her expressive voice, her cries of despair,
and her ability to convey the meaning and mood of her lyrics still
manages to profoundly effect her audience. Whether they are national
songs, religious chants, or love ballads, Umm Kalthoums voice touches
the Arab soul
Yet Umm Kalthoums
popularity is without boundaries in time or geography. For decades she
performed live not only in her native country, but throughtout the Arab
world, as well as Europe. Having reached world renown status, her
albums can be found today at most American music distributors as well;
something unique to only a few Arab performers. What is most amazing
about Umm Kalthoum, however, is that it is not necessary to understand
Arabic well or to have lived in the Middle East to appreciate the
feeling behind the words. Some of her most avid admirers are young
Arab-Americans who grew up in a completely different time and place
than the Arab audience of the 1930’s to 1960’s. Celebrating the miracle
of Arabs and the Muslim faith through song, she has come to represent
everything Arab. Not surprisingly, she has been given the honorable
titles of “Star of the East”, “Empress of Arab Tunes”, “Ambassadress of
Arabic Arts” and the “Voice of Egypt”