Umm Kulthum was born in the village of Tamay e-Zahayra, belonging to the city of Senbellawein, Dakahlia Governorate, in the Nile Delta to a family with a religious background as her father Ibrahim El-Sayyid El-Beltagi was an imam from the Egyptian countryside, her mother was Fatmah El-Maleegi, a housewife.
Umm Kulthum was an Egyptian singer, songwriter, and film actress active from the 1920s to the 1970s. She was given the honorific title “Kawkab el-charq” She is considered a national icon in her native Egypt; she has been dubbed “The Voice of Egypt”, the “Lady of Arabic Song” and “Egypt’s Fourth Pyramid”.
Is Umm Kulthum dead?
Umm Kulthum died on 3 February 1975 aged 76, from kidney failure before she could finish and sing her two songs ”Awkaty below ma’aak wa hyaty btekmal b’redak” and another song that she asked for the poet Saleh Goudet to write for her to sing to commemorate the victory of Egypt in the October War (also known as: Yom kippur war) against Israel. She died before she was able to perform it on the second anniversary of the war.
