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Introduction Just days before the fall of S .addām H . ussayn’s statue during the Iraq war of 2003, cassettes of a song about Baghdad suddenly sold out in Cairo. Not surprising, perhaps, for a recent hit like Sha‘bān ‘Abd al-Rah . ı̄m’s “al-D . arb x al-‘Irāq” (Attack on Iraq), but unusual for a song created nearly five decades earlier. Initially recorded after the overthrow of King Fays .al II of Iraq, the song “Baghdad” lauded the Ba‘th Party, glorified the city as a “lions’ fortress,” and called Arabs to “seize the torch of battle.” A halfcentury later, at the outset of the Iraq war, its assurances of victory offered Egyptians inspiration and hope. The iconic voice singing the lyrics—that of Umm Kulthūm—only added to their allure. Born in a small Egyptian village in 1904, Umm Kulthūm established herself as a singer in Cairo in the 1920s. Her popularity swelled during the next two decades as she took advantage of the burgeoning radio, recording , and film industries and developed a broad repertory of romantic, patriotic , and religious songs. Valuable social connections enhanced her artistic success. She forged long-lasting relationships with powerful cultural leaders, including leading journalists. She socialized with members of the elite, recorded songs honoring King Fārūq’s ascension to the throne, and received a marriage proposal from his uncle. After the 1952 revolution, she recorded patriotic songs in support of Jamāl ‘Abd al-Nās .ir. As ‘Abd alNa ̄s .ir’s wife, Tah . ı̄yah, stayed out of the public eye, Umm Kulthūm acquired the status of a surrogate first lady. Distinguished musically by her improvisatory skills and vocal stamina, she sustained her career and her popularity through the 1960s despite the emergence of younger singers and listeners. She gave her final concert in 1972. When she died three years later, her funeral reportedly drew more than four million mourners. In concluding her award-winning study of the singer, Virginia Danielson noted Umm Kulthūm’s lingering presence in late twentieth-century Egyp- umm kulthūm / 2 tian life (1997, 200–201). This presence continued into the twenty-first century , with her recordings accounting for 40 to 50 percent of Sono Cairo’s sales (Farag 2000b). Encounters with her music in daily life support these statistics. In 2003, when I lived in Cairo, uses of her music ranged from the commercial to the personal. A television ad for the beverage company Juh .aynah turned “Ghannı̄ Lı̄ Shwayya Shwayya” into a catchy jingle appealing to the country’s youngest viewers, and Egyptians of many generations turned to her music for personal entertainment. On separate occasions, I noticed an office assistant in his early thirties singing parts of “al-At .lāl” during his daily work, while a man in his twenties belted out selections from “Inta ‘Umrı̄” in an internet café and a teenager sang along as one of her movies played in a grilled chicken shop. Listeners have also used her music for pragmatic reasons. For example, in an effort to demonstrate their “culturedness” to Westerners, Egyptian drivers at archaeological digs abandoned recent pop hits for Umm Kulthūm’s recordings when escorting Western archaeologists.1 This continued consumption during the three and a half decades after Umm Kulthūm’s death has been accompanied by a reverent reception that prompts important questions about her career and its representations. Years of hagiographic portrayals have shaped listeners’ perceptions, leading an ordinary Egyptian in Michel Goldman’s 1996 documentary, Umm Kulthūm: A Voice Like Egypt, to laud the singer as a pyramid and proclaim that “today no one can do what she did.” Umm Kulthūm went from being described in the 1950s as a woman who “loves herself more than her art and refuses to extend a helping hand”2 to being hailed after her death as “the possessor of the most devoted and most compassionate human heart, who dedicated her life and everything she possessed in artistic magnificence, the utmost effort, and the height of giving to her homeland and her Arabness” (Zakariyā 1983, 5). While her concerts were described during her lifetime as a “drug that leads Arabs to linger in truancy” and “one of the reasons for the defeat of 1967” (I. Sah .h .āb 1980, 19), she was praised by ordinary Egyptians after her death as an exemplary patriot. Exactly what caused these...

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