Asmahan (Arabic: أسمهان Asmahān; Amal al-Atrash; 18 November 1918 at Mediterranean Sea – 14 July 1944 in Nile River, Egypt)^[1] was a Syrian-Egyptian^[2] singer and actor. Having immigrated to Egypt in childhood, she became the apprentice of Egyptian classical music pioneers, Dawood Hosni, Mohamed El Qasabgi and Zakariyya Ahmad.^[3][4] She also sang the compositions of Mohammed Abdel Wahab and her brother Farid al-Atrash, a then rising star musician in his own right. Hers was the only voice in Arab music to ever pose a serious competition to that of Umm Kulthum,^[5] considered to be the Arab world's most distinguished singer of the 20th century.^[6] Her mysterious, untimely death by drowning at the age of twenty-six drew speculations about tribulations in her personal life and an espionage role in World War II.

Early life

Asmahan was born to Fahd al-Atrash, a Syrian Druze from Suwayda, and 'Alia al-Mundhir, a Lebanese Druze from Hasbaya.^[7] Her father—who came from the Druze al-Atrash clan, well-known in Syria for its role in fighting against the French occupation^[8]—was married twice and had two children before marrying 'Alia.^[7] 'Alia played a big part in her children's musical upbringing, being a singer and oud player. Asmahan's brother, Farid, was also a musician, singer and oud player; he composed several of her songs.^[9] She also had an older brother, Fuad, and a sister and brother, Widad and Anwar who both had died at a very young age.^[10][11]

In October 1918, during World War I, as the Allied Forces were advancing against the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, Asmahan's father feared being attacked by Greek Allied troops, due to his post as the Ottoman-appointed governor of Dimerji. Thus, upon being warned of the arrival of Greek troops, he fled to Izmir with his two sons and his pregnant wife.^[12] From Izmir, they boarded a boat to Beirut. On November 23^[13], while still on the trip, Asmahan was born. Fahd suggested naming her "Bahriyya" (meaning "of the sea" in Arabic), but her mother objected and decided to name her "Amal", meaning "hope".^[14] Fahd later worked as a judge in Suwayda.^[7]

Following the 1922 Adham Khanjar incident, fighting between French and Syrian forces erupted in the Jabal al-Druze. During the hostilities, the French shelled the al-Atrash home in the town of al-Qrayya, near Suwayda. Due to the conflict 'Alia fled with her children for Damascus and refused to return. Fahd sent his cousin Salim al-Atrash to return her and their children to the Jabal, but 'Alia refused to come back, stating Fahd would be cursed for the deaths of their children, who might be killed in the fighting there.^[15] Asmahan later recalled her childhood years in the Jabal as "untouched by anything truly bad", although she did not spend much time in the Jabal and probably recalled visits in the early 1920s.^[16]

Immigration to Egypt

'Alia and her children moved on to Beirut, but after being alerted that she might be arrested by the French to force a ceasefire in the Jabal, she drove south with her children, Fuad, Farid, and Amal al-Atrash, to Haifa, Palestine. There, on Fuad's advice, she sold the car and they boarded a train toward Egypt.^[17] 'Alia chose to escape to Egypt because it was under British, as opposed to French Mandate, and she knew of a written correspondence relationship between Sultan al-Atrash and Egypt's nationalist prime minister Saad Zaghloul, each fighting colonial occupation on his respective turf.^[18] At the immigration check-point in al-Arish, they were confronted by Egyptian immigration officials for not possessing any passports. 'Alia asked a border official to call Zaghloul and to tell him that 'Alia al-Mundhir al-Atrash, from the House of Sultan al-Atrash, was requesting his sponsorship. Zaghloul personally came online and agreed to sponsor the family into Egypt,^[19] where the migrant family were later naturalized as citizens.^[2]

She and her children hid under a pseudonym, Kusa (meaning "zucchini"), fearing French action against the al-Atrash family in Egypt.^[20] 'Alia started to take laundry, sew, sing at private parties, and record songs to support herself and her children. This gave her musical connections which she used to provide Farid and Amal professional musical training.^[7] 'Alia's husband threatened to divorce her if she did not return to Syria. 'Alia refused and was therefore divorced. Her husband later remarried.^{[citation needed]}

Career

Musical debut

Asmahan's musical talents were discovered by the renowned Egyptian composer Dawood Hosni on visiting her brother Farid. He happened to hear Amal singing while she was in her room, so he demanded to see her immediately and asked her to sing again. Amal sang one more time and Hosni was very impressed and pleased. After Amal finished her singing, he told her she reminded him of a musical student he once had, who possessed a beautiful voice but died at a very young age before knowing the fame she deserved. He proposed that student’s name, Asmahan, as a stage name for Amal, and Amal henceforth became Asmahan.^[21]

Asmahan's rise to fame was quick; she was not even fourteen years old when she was presented at the prestigious Cairo Opera House, in a concert setting, on the Columbia Records label,^[21][22] and she performed songs composed by her mentors^[3], composers Farid Ghosn, Dawood Hosni, Mohamed El Qasabgi and Zakariyya Ahmad. Her mentors gave her vocal training and music lessons. Hosni volunteered to teach Asmahan to play Oud; Qasabgi volunteered to teach her the maqams and how to transition between them; and Ahmad volunteered to teach her the principles of enunciation and singing.^[3] With their help, she was offered a contract with Columbia Records.^[23] At the age of sixteen, Asmahan was solicited by Columbia Records in Egypt to register her first album which featured her first song “Ya Nar Fouadi” by Farid Ghosn. Asmahan chose to drop out of school, but she had already joined one of the most prestigious music academies in Egypt.

To help support her mother and family^[24], she featured in the private celebrations of Egyptian elite and at Mary Mansour's night club alongside her brother Farid, though she hated these venues due to the demands of the audiences.^[21]

Egypt's influence

Asmahan's older brother, Fuad, and other Druze relatives considered a career in entertainment for a girl to be disgraceful.^[21] It was difficult for Asmahan's relatives to imagine a daughter, niece, or cousin feeling at home in the burgeoning, heterogeneous Egyptian social scene. The clearly-defined divisions, along religious lines, of the Syrian countryside did not operate in Egypt. During two bouts of marriage to her cousin and moving back to Syria, Asmahan's musical career would come to a complete halt, and when she ultimately rejected a return to "respectability" on her relatives’ terms, by returning to Egypt and her singing career, Asmahan was reviled by her relatives and Syrian society. When her first film, "Intisar al-Shabab," was released in Syria, one young Druze shot at the screen when the character played by Asmahan appeared.^[25]

Asmahan sang almost exclusively in the Egyptian Arabic dialect.^[26] When Asmahan was asked to sing of cultural patriotism and love, she sang of Egypt.^[24] The dependence on the Egyptian elite may have required Asmahan and other singers to sing songs of praise for the King and of national themes.^[27]

Culturally, Egypt was a planetary distance from the small villages of the Druze.^[23] Asmahan grew so accustomed to cosmopolitan^[28] life in Cairo that she would long for it, and would make "spending her winters in Cairo" one of her conditions to marrying her Druze cousin.^[29] Asmahan was regarded as "a sophisticated foreigner, a binational, or a trans-national" by her own clan,^[30] and when the marriage to her cousin failed, she returned immediately to Egypt, before she had divorce documents in hand.^[25]

According to author Sherifa Zuhur, Asmahan was proud of her background and she put her career to the side when she thought her help was needed by her people.^[27] She always mentioned her father and Sultan al-Atrash to clarify her lineage, once saying to a friend: "Don't you know who I am? Why I am the daughter of Fahd al Atrash and cousin to the Amir al Atrash (although she was in reality a third cousin, twice removed) and the Druze revolutionary hero Sultan al-Atrash."^[31] However, the other side of her patriotism belonged to Egypt.^[27] Asmahan's quest for her own happiness in Egypt may indeed have been more strongly motivated than the patriotism to her clan.^[24] In her final confrontation with her cousin at Mena House Hotel in Giza, she told him, "I stood with you for independence and liberation, I did. But, I was created for another purpose. I prefer the work of Farid, and the work of Umm Kulthum, and of art." He would divorce her immediately.^[32]

Voice characteristics

In spite of her modern, Western appearance and behavioral patterns, the largest portion of Asmahan’s actual singing remained firmly within the classical Arab musical genre, including compositions by musical innovators such as Mohamed al-Qasabgi and Riyad as-Sunbaty. Her success was partly based on her command of Arabic, her enunciation and emphasis of lyrics, which she had been taught by Zakariyya Ahmad, and her mastery of the maqam (modal) system, which had been taught to her by Mohamed al-Qasabgi. She gained stature through sensitive and successful emotional interpretation as well as musical delivery of various phrases—which often implied a deep understanding of emotional states.^[33]

Yet, Asmahan also utilized her own resources, such as her Eastern, Arab heritage and a special feeling for arranged folk melodies, to produce her unique sound. She sang a number of compositions whose melodies and lyrics were simple and closely related to the folk themes of both Syria and Egypt.^[34] She also used her vocal and sight-reading (solfeggio) capabilities necessary to produce the Western sounds typical of the romantic and experimental compositions of the late 1930s and early 1940s.^[35] Asmahan was producing work that could be described as "romantic", "populist", "neoclassical", and "modernist" all within 1941, and in her final performances and film appearance after her last return to Egypt.^[35]

She was able throughout her career to entrance audiences with a demonstration of vocal clarity, agility, and unusual strength and a reputation for serious delivery, and ability to convey emotional vulnerability.^[36]

Cinema and personal life

In 1937,^[37] Asmahan's cousin, Prince Hassan al-Atrash, came to Cairo^{[citation needed]} and asked for her hand in marriage. So, she moved to Syria, at which time she was nineteen. Hassan's only condition was for Asmahan to abandon her musical career. Asmahan agreed to the marriage proposal on three conditions of her own: to live in Damascus as opposed to the Druze mountain (the Jabal); to not be forced to don the veil (hijab); and to spend her winters in Cairo.^[38][39] Hassan had acquired the title, Amir (or prince), and it was then that Egyptian press dubbed Asmahan as "The Princess of the Mountain". Asmahan lived, initially in Damascus then, foresaking her marriage conditions to support her husband's responsibilities to his people, later in the Jabal. She lived in Suwayda,^[40] and gave birth to a daughter, Camellia. However, Asmahan didn't take well to the hardships of Druze life in the Jabal,^[41] and began to despise married life.^[38][39] She longed for her life in Cairo and her musical career.^[42] Following a confrontation with Hassan's sisters, Asmahan set-off to Cairo, exuberant but terrified by her own scheme to try and end her pregnancy.^[43]

In 1939,^[44] Asmahan and Hassan divorced after three years of marriage^[37] and she returned to Cairo with her daughter and resumed her singing career. She met Mohammed Abdel Wahab, Egypt's most distinguished singer and composer, and she starred with him in his Magnun Layla (Besotted with Layla) operette.^[37] For the following two years, her private life may have been too public. Journalists wallowed in her racy conduct in Cairo, Jerusalem, and Beirut. There were alleged affairs with a succession of prominent Egyptian men, including journalist Muhammad al-Tabaʿi, banker Talaat Pasha Harb, and royal aide Ahmed Pasha Hassanein. Her brothers, Fuad and Farid, were no longer able to chaperon her.^[9] She was, in many respects, her own worst enemy. Her habits of smoking, drinking, and staying up late nights had a detrimental effect on her voice.^[45]

In 1941, Asmahan's first film, Intissar al-Shabab (Triumph of the Youth), was released, and in the process of making this film, she fell in love with and married the film director, Egyptian Ahmed Badrakhan. The marriage was to last only forty days due to Asmahan's family objections because Badrakhan was not Druze. Asmahan's family claimed that she had not been legally divorced from Hassan; she had not remained in Syria long enough to obtain divorce documents before returning to Egypt, although she insisted that Hassan had divorced her.^[46] Intissar al-Shabab and Asmahan's appearance on screen were not well received by her relatives and the Druze community in Syria. However, in the same year, Asmahan returned to Jabal-al-Druze and remarried her cousin, Hassan, arguably as a cover to espionage activity on behalf of the Allies, which did little to enhance her popularity.^[45] This marriage, too, was short-lived, perhaps because Asmahan wanted financial freedom. On her way back to Egypt by land, Asmahan met Egyptian film director Ahmed Salem in Jerusalem and they were married and together they returned to Egypt. By remarrying Hassan, Asmahan had regained Syrian citizenship, and it was alleged that on these grounds, the Egyptian government wished to strip her of her Egyptian citizenship^[47][48], but the real reason could have been Asmahan’s earlier failed attempts to contact the Nazis or jealousy by Egyptian Queen Nazli for her lover, Ahmed Pasha Hassanein.^[49] It was also alleged that Asmahan entered into the marriage with Salem to maintain her Egyptian citizenship.^[50] This marriage, too, was turbulent. Two weeks before her death, a shooting incident occurred during a domestic dispute and Salem was hospitalized with a gun wound to the lung.^[9]

In 1944, Asmahan featured in her second and last film, Gharam wa Intiqam (Love and Revenge), with Egyptian actor and director Youssef Wahbi. The film contained Asmahan's trademark song,^[51][52] the waltz, Layaly al-Ons fi Vienna.^[53][54]

Role in World War II

Death

On 14 July 1944, a car carrying Asmahan and a female friend of hers crashed into the Nile River after the driver lost control. Without a door on their side both ladies got stuck and drowned. Nevertheless, the driver managed to escape.^{[citation needed]}

These suspicious circumstances gave rise to many rumors and much controversy. Tabloids were rife with conspiracy theories. Among those accused were British intelligence – after many reports claiming she was working with them – of getting rid of her after she handed over some military information to the Germans. The German Gestapo was also accused of killing her for helping the British.^{[citation needed]}

Asmahan was buried in Egypt in accordance with her wishes^[58] alongside her two brothers, Fuad and Farid al-Atrash,^[59] in the Fustat plain in Cairo, which she and brother Farid, along with Egyptian crooner^[60] Abdel Halim Hafez, had restored to some of its former glory.^[61]

Legacy

The Egyptian Media Production City and a private investor jointly produced a television series depicting the life (and death) of Asmahan.^[62] The Arabic series debuted during the month of Ramadan in 2008. Asmahan was played by Syrian actress Sulaf Fawakherji.^[63]

Discography

Filmography

• Intissar al-Shabab (Triumph of the Youth), 1941
• Gharam wa Intiqam (Love and Revenge), 1944

References

Sources

• Zuhur, Sherifa (1998), Images of enchantment: visual and performing arts of the Middle East, American University in Cairo Press, ISBN 9774244672
• Zuhur, Sherifa (2000), Asmahan's Secrets: Woman, War, and Song, University of Texas Press, ISBN 9780292798076{{citation}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Zuhur, Sherifa (2001). Colors of enchantment: theater, dance, music and the visual arts of the Middle East. American University in Cairo Press. ISBN 9774246071.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)

External links

• Asmahan at IMDb
• Asmahan Fan site
• Introduction to Asmahan's Secrets, a biography (ISBN 978-0-292-79807-6)

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