Abdel Halim Hafez

Abdel Halim Hafez was an Egyptian singer and actor, known as al-Andaleeb el-Asmar ("the Dark Nightingale"), "King of Music", "Son of the Nile" and "the Voice of the People". ^{1 2} He recorded more than three hundred songs and starred in sixteen films, and his patriotic songs became the voice of Egypt's 1952 revolution and of the decades that followed. ¹

He was born Abdel Halim Ali Shabana on 21 June 1929 at al-Hilwat, a village in the Sharqia Governorate; the Arabic article gives his full name as Abdel Halim Ali Ismail Shabana. ^{1 2 3} His mother died days after his birth and his father within the year, and he was raised by an aunt and uncle in Cairo. ¹ His brother Ismail was his first music teacher. ¹ He entered the Arabic Music Institute at fourteen and later taught music at Tanta and al-Mahalla. ¹

In 1953 he was called in as a last-minute substitute for a radio concert and was heard by Hafez Abdel Wahab, a senior radio official, whose name he added to his own to become Abdel Halim Hafez. ¹

He worked with the leading composers and poets of his age: Mohamed Abdel Wahab composed for him "Ahwak", "Nebtedi Minen el Hekaya" and "Fatet Ganbena", and he sang the words of Mohamed Hamza and the music of Kamal al-Taweel and Baligh Hamdi, with lyrics by Salah Jahin and Abdel Rahman el-Abnoudi. ¹ His recorded religious invocations (ibtihalat), written by Abdel-Fattah Mustafa and composed by Muhammad al-Mouji, form part of that repertoire. ¹ In all he recorded more than three hundred songs. ¹

He starred in sixteen films. ¹ Among them was Dalilah, the first colour film made in the Middle East. ¹

He sang for the revolution of 1952 and for President Gamal Abdel Nasser, and his patriotic songs became a soundtrack of the era. ¹ After the defeat of 1967 he sang "Aadah al-Nahar" ("The Day Has Returned"), and he sang for President Anwar Sadat after the 1973 war. ¹ Crowds sang his patriotic songs again during the revolution of 2011, more than three decades after his death. ¹

With Mohamed Abdel Wahab and Magdi el-Amroussi he co-founded Soutelphan, a production company. ¹ In 1969 he built a hospital, an act of public giving the sources record among his works. ¹

He contracted schistosomiasis, the parasitic disease of Egypt's irrigation canals, at the age of eleven, and it was diagnosed in 1956. ¹ The disease destroyed his liver, and he died of cirrhosis at King's College Hospital in London on 30 March 1977. ^{1 3} His funeral in Cairo was attended by tens of thousands, and the sources report suicides among distraught fans, recorded here as reports. ¹ He is buried in the Al Bassatin Cemetery in Cairo. ³

He never married. ¹ A rumoured secret marriage to the actress Soad Hosni has been denied by people close to both of them, and the English article reports the denial. ¹

His song "Khosara" was interpolated in Jay-Z's "Big Pimpin'" in 1999, carrying his voice to a worldwide hip-hop audience. ¹ In 2019 he appeared as a hologram in concert alongside the singer Carole Samaha. ¹

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