The Great Sphinx of Giza

The Sphinx

The Great Sphinx of Giza (Arabic: أبو الهول‎‎ ) Abū al-Haul, English: The Terrifying One; literally: Father of Dread, commonly referred to as the Sphinx of Giza or just the Sphinx, is a limestone statue of a reclining sphinx, a mythical creature with the body of a lion and the head of a human. Facing directly from West to East, it stands on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile in Giza, Egypt. The face of the Sphinx is generally believed to represent the Pharaoh Khafre.

GENERAL VIEW OF THE SPHINX (Giza)

Cut from the bedrock, the original shape of the Sphinx has been restored with layers of blocks. It measures 238 feet (73 m) long from paw to tail, 66.3 ft (20.21 m) high from the base to the top of the head and 62.6 feet (19 m) wide at its rear haunches. It is the oldest known monumental sculpture in Egypt and is commonly believed to have been built by ancient Egyptians of the Old Kingdom during the reign of the Pharaoh Khafre (c. 2558–2532 BC).

Construction

The Sphinx is a monolith carved into the bedrock of the plateau, which also served as the quarry for the pyramids and other monuments in the area. The nummulitic limestone of the area consists of layers, which offer differing resistance to erosion (mostly caused by wind and windblown sand), leading to the uneven degradation apparent in the Sphinx's body. The lowest part of the body, including the legs, is solid rock. The body of the lion up to its neck is fashioned from softer layers that have suffered considerable disintegration. The layer in which the head was sculpted is much harder.

Origin and identity

The Great Sphinx is one of the world's largest and oldest statues, but basic facts about it are still subject to debate, such as when it was built, by whom and for what purpose. These questions have resulted in the popular idea of the "Riddle of the Sphinx.” alluding to the original Greek legend of the "Riddle of the Sphinx."

First century writer Pliny the Elder mentioned the Great Sphinx in his Natural History, commenting that the Egyptians looked upon the statue as a "divinity" that has been passed over in silence and "that King Harmais was buried in it."

Names of the Sphinx

1800's picture of the Sphinx

It is impossible to identify what name the creators called their statue, as the Great Sphinx does not appear in any known inscription of the Old Kingdom and there are no inscriptions anywhere describing its construction or its original purpose. In the New Kingdom, the Sphinx was called Hor-em-akhet (English: Horus of the Horizon; Hellenized: Harmachis), and the pharaoh Thutmose IV (1401–1391 or 1397–1388 BC) specifically referred to it as such in his "Dream Stele."

The commonly used name "Sphinx" was given to it in classical antiquity, about 2000 years after the commonly accepted date of its construction by reference to a Greek mythological beast with a lion's body, a woman's head and the wings of an eagle (although, like most Egyptian sphinxes, the Great Sphinx has a man's head and no wings) The English word sphinx comes from the ancient Greek Σφίγξ (transliterated: sphinx) apparently from the verb σφίγγω (transliterated: sphingo / English: to squeeze), after the Greek sphinx who strangled anyone who failed to answer her riddle.

The name may alternatively be a linguistic corruption of the phonetically different ancient Egyptian word Ssp-anx (in Manuel de Codage). This name is given to royal statues of the Fourth dynasty of ancient Egypt (2575–2467 BC) and later in the New Kingdom (c. 1570–1070 BC) to the Great Sphinx more specifically.

Medieval Arab writers, including al-Maqrīzī, call the Sphinx balhib and bilhaw, which suggest a Coptic influence. The modern Egyptian Arabic name is أبو الهول (Abū al Hūl, English: The Terrifying One).

Builder and timeframe

Profile of the Sphinx

Though there have been conflicting evidence and viewpoints over the years, the view held by modern Egyptology at large remains that the Great Sphinx was built in approximately 2500 BC for the pharaoh Khafra, the builder of the Second Pyramid at Giza.

Selim Hassan, writing in 1949 on recent excavations of the Sphinx enclosure, summed up the problem: Taking all things into consideration, it seems that we must give the credit of erecting this, the world's most wonderful statue, to Khafre, but always with this reservation: that there is not one single contemporary inscription which connects the Sphinx with Khafre; so, sound as it may appear, we must treat the evidence as circumstantial, until such time as a lucky turn of the spade of the excavator will reveal to the world a definite reference to the erection of the Sphinx.

The "circumstantial" evidence mentioned by Hassan includes the Sphinx's location in the context of the funerary complex surrounding the Second Pyramid, which is traditionally connected with Khafra. Apart from the Causeway, the Pyramid and the Sphinx, the complex also includes the Sphinx Temple and the Valley Temple, both of which display the same architectural style, with 200-tonne stone blocks quarried out of the Sphinx enclosure.

Napoleon in front of the Sphinx

A diorite statue of Khafre, which was discovered buried upside down along with other debris in the Valley Temple, is claimed as support for the Khafra theory.

The Dream Stele, erected much later by the pharaoh Thutmose IV (1401–1391 or 1397–1388 BC), associates the Sphinx with Khafra. When the stele was discovered, its lines of text were already damaged and incomplete, and only referred to Khaf, not Khafra. An extract was translated: which we bring for him: oxen ... and all the young vegetables; and we shall give praise to Wenofer ... Khaf ... the statue made for Atum-Hor-em-Akhet.

The Egyptologist Thomas Young, finding the Khaf hieroglyphs in a damaged cartouche used to surround a royal name, inserted the glyph ra to complete Khafra's name. When the Stele was re-excavated in 1925, the lines of text referring to Khaf flaked off and were destroyed.

Early Egyptologists

Sphinx & Pyramids

Some of the early Egyptologists and excavators of the Giza pyramid complex believed the Great Sphinx and other structures in the Sphinx enclosure predated the traditionally given construction date of around 2500 BC in the reign of Khafre.

In 1857, Auguste Mariette, founder of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, unearthed the much later Inventory Stela (estimated Dynasty XXVI, c. 678–525 BC), which tells how Khufu came upon the Sphinx, already buried in sand. Although certain tracts on the Stela are considered good evidence, this passage is widely dismissed as Late Period historical revisionism, a purposeful fake, created by the local priests with the attempt to certify the contemporary Isis temple an ancient history it never had. Such an act became common when religious institutions such as temples, shrines and priest's domains were fighting for political attention and for financial and economic donations.

George Sandys drawing of
Sphinx (1615)

Gaston Maspero, the French Egyptologist and second director of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, conducted a survey of the Sphinx in 1886. He concluded that because the Dream stela showed the cartouche of Khafre in line thirteen, that it was he who was responsible for the excavation and that the Sphinx must therefore predate Khafre and his predecessors (i.e. Dynasty IV, c. 2575–2467 BC) English Egyptologist E. A. Wallis Budge agreed that the Sphinx predated Khafre's reign, writing in The Gods of the Egyptians (1914): "This marvelous object [the Great Sphinx] was in existence in the days of Khafre, or Khephren, and it is probable that it is a very great deal older than his reign and that it dates from the end of the archaic period [c. 2686 BC]."

Modern dissenting hypotheses

Rainer Stadelmann, former director of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo, examined the distinct iconography of the nemes (headdress) and the now-detached beard of the Sphinx and concluded that the style is more indicative of the Pharaoh Khufu (2589–2566 BC), builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza and Khafra's father. He supports this by suggesting that Khafra's Causeway was built to conform to a pre-existing structure, which, he concludes, given its location, could only have been the Sphinx.

Colin Reader, an English geologist who independently conducted a more recent survey of the enclosure, agrees that the various quarries on the site have been excavated around the Causeway. Because these quarries are known to have been used by Khufu, Reader concludes that the Causeway (and the temples on either end thereof) must predate Khufu, thereby casting doubt on the conventional Egyptian chronology.

Sphinx erosion 

Frank Domingo, a forensic scientist in the New York City Police Department and an expert forensic anthropologist, used detailed measurements of the Sphinx, forensic drawings and computer imaging to conclude that the face depicted on the Sphinx is not the same face as is depicted on a statue attributed to Khafra.

In 2004, Vassil Dobrev of the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale in Cairo announced that he had uncovered new evidence that the Great Sphinx may have been the work of the little-known Pharaoh Djedefre (2528–2520 BC), Khafra's half brother and a son of Khufu. Dobrev suggests that Djedefre built the Sphinx in the image of his father Khufu, identifying him with the sun god Ra in order to restore respect for their dynasty. Dobrev also notes, like Stadelmann and others, that the causeway connecting Khafre's pyramid to the temples was built around the Sphinx suggesting it was already in existence at the time.

The Great Sphinx as Anubis

Author Robert K. G. Temple proposes that the Sphinx was originally a statue of the Jackal-Dog Anubis, the God of the Necropolis, and that its face was recarved in the likeness of a Middle Kingdom pharaoh, Amenemhet II. Temple bases his identification on the style of the eye make-up and the style of the pleats on the head-dress.

Racial characteristics

Over the years several authors have commented on what they perceive as "Negroid" characteristics in the face of the Sphinx. This issue has become part of the Ancient Egyptian race controversy, with respect to the ancient population as a whole.

The face of the Sphinx has been damaged over the millennia.

Restoration

At some unknown time the Giza Necropolis was abandoned, and the Sphinx was eventually buried up to its shoulders in sand. The first documented attempt at an excavation dates to c. 1400 BC, when the young Thutmose IV (1401–1391 or 1397–1388 BC) gathered a team and, after much effort, managed to dig out the front paws, between which he placed a granite slab, known as the Dream Stele, inscribed with the following (an extract): ... the royal son, Thothmos, being arrived, while walking at midday and seating himself under the shadow of this mighty god, was overcome by slumber and slept at the very moment when Ra is at the summit [of heaven]. He found that the Majesty of this august god spoke to him with his own mouth, as a father speaks to his son, saying: Look upon me, contemplate me, O my son Thothmos; I am thy father, Harmakhis-Khopri-Ra-Tum; I bestow upon thee the sovereignty over my domain, the supremacy over the living ... Behold my actual condition that thou mayest protect all my perfect limbs. The sand of the desert whereon I am laid has covered me. Save me, causing all that is in my heart to be executed..

Sphinx Restoration efforts

Later, Ramses II the Great (1279–1213 BC) may have undertaken a second excavation.

Mark Lehner, an Egyptologist who has excavated and mapped the Giza plateau, originally asserted that there had been a far earlier renovation during the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2184 BC),[39] although he has subsequently recanted this "heretical" viewpoint.

In AD 1817 the first modern archaeological dig, supervised by the Italian Giovanni Battista Caviglia, uncovered the Sphinx's chest completely. The entire Sphinx was finally excavated in 1925 to 1936, in digs led by Émile Baraize. In 1931 engineers of the Egyptian government repaired the head of the Sphinx. Part of its headdress had fallen off in 1926 due to erosion, which had also cut deeply into its neck.

The Sphinx profile in 2010

Limestone fragments of the Sphinx's beard in the British Museum, 14th Century BC

The one-metre-wide nose on the face is missing. Examination of the Sphinx's face shows that long rods or chisels were hammered into the nose, one down from the bridge and one beneath the nostril, then used to pry the nose off towards the south.

The Sphinx beard in 
London Museum

The Arab historian al-Maqrīzī, writing in the 15th century, attributes the loss of the nose to iconoclasm by Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr—a Sufi Muslim from the khanqah of Sa'id al-Su'ada—in AD 1378, upon finding the local peasants making offerings to the Sphinx in the hope of increasing their harvest. Enraged, he destroyed the nose, and was later hanged for vandalism. Al-Maqrīzī describes the Sphinx as the "talisman of the Nile" on which the locals believed the flood cycle depended.

There is also a story that the nose was broken off by a cannonball fired by Napoleon's soldiers. Other variants indict British troops, the Mamluks, and others. Sketches of the Sphinx by the Dane Frederic Louis Norden, made in 1738 and published in 1757, show the Sphinx missing its nose. This predates Napoleon's birth in 1769.

In addition to the lost nose, a ceremonial pharaonic beard is thought to have been attached, although this may have been added in later periods after the original construction. Egyptologist Vassil Dobrev has suggested that had the beard been an original part of the Sphinx, it would have damaged the chin of the statue upon falling. The lack of visible damage supports his theory that the beard was a later addition.

Residues of red pigment are visible on areas of the Sphinx's face. Traces of yellow and blue pigment have been found elsewhere on the Sphinx, leading Mark Lehner to suggest that the monument "was once decked out in gaudy comic book colors”.

Mythology

Colin Reader has proposed that the Sphinx was probably the focus of solar worship in the Early Dynastic Period, before the Giza Plateau became a necropolis in the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2134 BC). He ties this in with his conclusions that the Sphinx, the Sphinx temple, the Causeway and the Khafra mortuary temple are all part of a complex predating Dynasty IV (c. 2613–2494 BC). The lion has long been a symbol associated with the sun in ancient Near Eastern civilizations. Images depicting the Egyptian king in the form of a lion smiting his enemies date as far back as the Early Dynastic Period.

Sphinx in sands

In the New Kingdom, the Sphinx became more specifically associated with the god Hor-em-akhet (Hellenized: Harmachis) or "Horus-at-the-Horizon", which represented the pharaoh in his role as the Shesep-ankh (English: Living Image) of the god Atum. Pharaoh Amenhotep II (1427–1401 or 1397 BC) built a temple to the north east of the Sphinx nearly 1000 years after its construction, and dedicated it to the cult of Hor-em-akhet.

Over the centuries, writers and scholars have recorded their impressions and reactions upon seeing the Sphinx. The vast majority were concerned with a general description, often including a mixture of science, romance and mystique. John Lawson Stoddard made a typical description of the Sphinx by tourists and leisure travelers throughout the 19th and 20th century: It is the antiquity of the Sphinx, which thrills us as we look upon it, for in itself it has no charms. The desert's waves have risen to its breast, as if to wrap the monster in a winding-sheet of gold. Moslem fanatics have mutilated the face and head. The mouth, the beauty of whose lips was once admired, is now expressionless. Yet grand in its loneliness, – veiled in the mystery of unnamed ages, – the relic of Egyptian antiquity stands solemn and silent in the presence of the awful desert – symbol of eternity. Here it disputes with Time the empire of the past; forever gazing on and on into a future which will still be distant when we, like all who have preceded us and looked upon its face, have lived our little lives and disappeared.

Greek Mythology Sphinx

From the 16th century far into the 19th century, observers repeatedly noted that the Sphinx has the face, neck and breast of a woman. Examples included Johannes Helferich (1579), George Sandys (1615), Johann Michael Vansleb (1677), Benoît de Maillet (1735) and Elliot Warburton (1844).

Most early Western images were book illustrations in print form, elaborated by a professional engraver from either previous images available or some original drawing or sketch supplied by an author, and usually now lost. Seven years after visiting Giza, André Thévet (Cosmographie de Levant, 1556) described the Sphinx as "the head of a colossus, caused to be made by Isis, daughter of Inachus, then so beloved of Jupiter". He, or his artist and engraver, pictured it as a curly-haired monster with a grassy dog collar. Athanasius Kircher (who never visited Egypt) depicted the Sphinx as a Roman statue, reflecting his ability to conceptualize (Turris Babel, 1679). Johannes Helferich's (1579) Sphinx is a pinched-face, round-breasted woman with a straight haired wig; the only edge over Thevet is that the hair suggests the flaring lappets of the headdress. George Sandys stated that the Sphinx was a harlot; Balthasar de Monconys interpreted the headdress as a kind of hairnet, while François de La Boullaye-Le Gouz's Sphinx had a rounded hairdo with bulky collar.

The Sphinx before Photography 

Richard Pococke's Sphinx was an adoption of Cornelis de Bruijn's drawing of 1698, featuring only minor changes, but is closer to the actual appearance of the Sphinx than anything previous. The print versions of Norden's careful drawings for his Voyage d'Egypte et de Nubie, 1755 are the first to clearly show that the nose was missing. However, from the time of the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt onwards, a number of accurate images were widely available in Europe, and copied by others.

⏳ CLICK BELLOW TO WATCH THE SPHINX

NOTE:  In my previous post the reference to the documentary was somehow 

difficult to notice and therefore was missed by most readers

Collected from various Internet Sources. 

Farid Al-Atrash

فريد الأطرش‎‎ 

Farid, (October 19, 1910 – December 26, 1974), was a Syrian/Egyptian composer, singer, virtuoso Oud player. Having immigrated to Egypt at the age of nine with his Family.

Al-Atrash was born in al-Suwayda, in southern Syria to the Druze Al-Atrash family who fought the French colonial army. His father a Syrian, married a Lebanese and later immigrated to Egypt with his wife, Farid, Asmahan and Fouad. They immediately naturalized as Egyptian citizens.

Farid, Asmahan & Fouad with Mother

 Interesting to note that Farid's mother an artist sang and played the Oud, which spurred his musical interest at an early age.

As a child and young boy, Al-Atrash sang mostly in school events. He later studied music at the conservatory and became an apprentice of the renowned composer Riyad as-Sunbaty. In the 1930s, Al-Atrash began his professional singing career by working for privately owned Egyptian radio stations. Eventually, he was hired as an Oud player for the national radio station and later as a singer.

Farid and his sister Asmahan

His sister, Asmahan, was a very talented singer, she became one of the most popular female vocalists and cinema stars in the late 1930s and early 1940s, In 1941, Asmahan and Farid  starred in their first successful movie Intisar al-Shabab The Triumph of Youth, in which Farid himself composed all the music. Asmahan life was cut short due to an automobile accident in 1944.

Link to original song  -  Asmahan : Ya habibi taala

Musical career

FARID AL-ATRASH

Al-Atrash had a long and colourful music career lasting four decades. He composed musically diverse songs, and was a highly regarded composer, singer and instrumentalist. Al-Atrash maintained that although some of his music had western musical influence, he always stayed true to Arab music principles. Although the majority of his compositions were romantic love songs, he also composed several patriotic and religious songs.

One of Al-Atrash's most unusual and distinguishable traits was his voice. High and mellow at the start of his career, it evolved into a wider, deeper sound. A person not familiar with his work would find it hard to believe the singer in "Ya Reitni Tir" (1930s) and "Adnaytani Bil Hajr" (1960s) was the same singer. His singing style was deeply passionate.

In many of his songs, and nearly all of his concerts, Al-Atrash would sing a mawal, which is a slow voice improvisation of a few poetic lines. These improvisations sometimes lasted up to 15 minutes. The mawal was a favorite of his fans. Some of the most famous songs include "Rabeeh" (Spring), "Awal Hamsa" (first whisper), "Hekayat Gharami" (story of my love), "Albi Wa Moftaho" (my heart and its key), "Gamil Gamal", "Wayak", "Ya Zahratan Fi Khayali" (Flower of my imagination), "Bisat Ir Rih" (flying carpet), "Ya Gamil Ya Gamil", "Ya Habaybi Ya Ghaybeen", "Eish Anta", and "saa fi korb el habib" (an hour in company of the beloved).

Al-Atrash starred in 31 Egyptian musical films from 1941 to 1974. His last movie, Nagham Fi Hayati (Songs in my life) was released after his death. All his films except the last two were black and white. They ranged from comedies to dramas, or a combination. He composed all the songs in his movies including the songs sung by other singers, and instrumentals (usually belly dance routines). His earlier films would include approximately ten songs, but overall the films would average about five songs each. Some of Al-Atrash's well-known movies include Intisar al-Shabab (The Triumph of Youth, 1941), Yom Bila Ghad, Ahd el-Hawa, and Lahn al-KholOud ( "Eternal Lyric", 1952).

 

Al-Atrash shaking hands with Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, February 1955

Samia Gamal and Farid Al-Atrash

Quick success brought the young man a lifestyle of nightclubs, love affairs, and gambling. Soon Farid was in debt and found himself abandoned by his disapproving mother. During this difficult period of his life, he also endured the death of his sister and fellow performer Asmahan. Farid found comfort in a relationship with the belly dancer Samia Gamal, for whom he was motivated to risk all he owned. In 1947 he produced and co-starred in a movie with Samia directed by Henri Barakat; Habib al-'Oumr ("The love of my life," 1947), which became a huge success. After this came Afrita Hanem ("Madame la diablesse," 1949). Five films later, the unmarried couple broke up. Farid continued to work with other film stars in numerous successful movies in which he always had the romantic lead role of a sad singer. He even repeatedly chose his character's name to be "Wahid" meaning lonely.

Queen Nariman & Farid Al-Atrash

 Al-Atrash refused to get married, claiming that marriage kills art. In his films, the audience remembered his leading ladies and his beautiful songs more than the story lines.

Prior to the 1952 military coup d'état against King Farouk I, Al-Atrash became friends with Farouk's consort, Queen Nariman, a relationship that continued after the Queen's divorce and the coup that cost Farouk his throne. The former queen's family did not accept Al-Atrash, and the separation from Nariman sent the singer into a long depression, the start of health problems that worsened from that point on until his death.

Farid Al-Atrash lived in a building called “Dar El Hana” in Zamalek, a block away from the villa of Um Kalthoum. He later build a hi-riser on the Nile in Giza and moved to the roof garden.

Om Kalthoum  & Farid Al-Atrash

As Al-Atrash became older, he reconsidered his opinion of marriage and proposed to Egyptian singer named Shadia, but at the last minute he backed out. By now his health was poor, and he feared that he would leave her a young widow. He often played out that scenario and sang about it in his romance movies.

"He remained a bachelor throughout his life and constructed himself with references to the authentic post of Arab tradition and in a fairly idealized version of modernity. Tales of his love affairs were wildly popular during his lifetime and were seemingly merged with the lyrics of his love songs."

Al-Atrash suffered heart problems throughout his last 30 years. In the last few years of his life, he became physically thinner, and his singing voice became raspy as his sickness intensified. Although he was struggling with his health, he continued to produce movies and perform in concerts until his death.

Shortly after arriving from London to Lebanon he was admitted to the Al Hayek hospital in Beirut. On Monday December 24, 1974 the hospital doctors told Al-Atrash that he could leave after a couple of days to go home, as they noticed that Farid did not like his stay in the hospital and hated their food. On December 26, 1974, Al-Atrash died in the hospital he never left.

Al-Atrash was buried in Cairo, Egypt alongside his sisters and brother.

Over his lifetime, Al-Atrash starred in 31 movies and recorded approximately 350 songs. He composed songs for top Arab singers, foremost his own sister, Asmahan, as well as Wadih El-Safi, Shadia, Warda, and Sabah. He is widely considered to be one of the four 'greats' of Egyptian and Arabic music, along with Abdel Halim Hafez, Mohammed Abdel Wahab and Oum Kalthoum. The Notable Egyptian instrumental guitarist Omar Khorshid covered Farid Al-Atrash's songs in a tribute album.

Link to Original Song:  Farid El Atrash: Gamil Gamal

Sayed Darwish

  سيد درويش

Sheikh Sayed Darwish

Sayed Darwish was born in Kôm el-Dikka Alexandria on 17 March 1892. During his childhood his family could not afford to pay for his education, so he was sent to a religious school where he mastered the cantillating of the Quran. After graduating from the religious school and gaining the title "Sheikh Sayed Darwish", he studied for two years at al-Azhar, one of the most renowned religious universities in the world. He left his studies to devote his life to music composition and singing, then entered a music school where his music teacher, Sami Efendi, admired his talents and encouraged Darwish to press onward in the music field.

DARWISH The MUSICIAN

Darwish at that time was also trained to be a munshid (cantor). He worked as a bricklayer in order to support his family, and it so happened that the manager of a theatrical troupe, the Syrian Attalah Brothers, overheard him singing for his fellows and hired him on the spot. While touring in Syria, he had the opportunity to gain a musical education, short of finding success. He returned to Egypt before the start of the Great War, and won limited recognition by singing in the cafés and on various stages while he learned repertoire of the great composers of the 19th century, to which he added ”adwār” (musical modes) and “muwashshaḥāt” (Arabic poetic-form compositions) of his own. In spite of the cleverness of his compositions, he was not to find public acclaim, disadvantaged by his mediocre stage presence in comparison with such stars of his time as Saleh 'Abd al-Hayy or Zaki Murad.

After too many failures in singing cafés, he decided in 1918 to follow the path of Shaykh Salama Higazi, the pioneer of Arabic lyric theater and launched into an operatic career. He settled in Cairo and got acquainted with the main companies, particularly Nagib al-Rihani's (1891–1949), for whom he composed seven operettas that  the gifted comedian had invented, with the playwright and poet Badie Khayri, the laughable character of Kish Kish Bey, a rich provincial mayor squandering his fortune in Cairo with ill-reputed women... The apparition of social matters and the allusions to the political situation of colonial Egypt (the 1919 "revolution") were to boost the success of the trio's operettas, such as "al-'Ashara al-Tayyiba" (The Ten of Diamonds, 1920) a nationalistic adaptation of “Bluebeard".

Musical instrument Oud

Sayed also worked for Rihani's rival troupe, 'Ali al-Kassar's, and eventually collaborated with the Queen of Stages, singer and actress Munira al-Mahdiyya (1884–1965), for whom he composed comic operettas such as "kullaha yawmayn" ("All of two days", 1920) and started an opera, "Cleopatra and Mark Anthony", which was to be played in 1927 with Muhammad 'Abd al-Wahab in the leading role. In the early twenties, all the companies sought his help. He then decided to start his own company, acting at last on stage in a lead part. His two creations ("Shahrazad' and "al-Barooka", 1921) were not as successful as planned, and he was again forced to compose for other companies from 1922 until his premature death on 15 September 1923.

OLD ARABIC TAKHT

Darwish's stage production is often clearly westernized: the traditional takht is replaced by a European ensemble, conducted by il Signore Casio, Darwish's maestro. Most of his operetta tunes use musical modes compatible with the piano, even if some vocal sections use other intervals, and the singing techniques employed in those compositions reveal a fascination for Italian opera, naively imitated in a cascade of oriental melismas. The light ditties of the comic plays are, from the modern point of view, much more interesting than the great opera-style arias. A number of those light melodies originally composed for al-Rihani or al-Kassar are now part of the Egyptian folklore. Such songs as "Salma ya Salama”, "Zuruni koll-e sana marra” or “EI helwa di qamet " are known by all Middle-Easterners and have been sung by modern singers, as the Lebanese Fayruz or Syrian Sabah Fakhri, in re-orchestrated versions. Aside from this light production, Sayed Darwish didn't neglect the learned repertoire; he composed about twenty muwashshahat, often played by modern conservatories and sung by Fayruz. But his major contribution to the turn-of-the-century learned music is better understood through the ten adwar (long metric composition in colloquial Arabic) he composed.

CAFE DARWISH

Whereas in the traditional aesthetics defined in the second part of the 19th century, the "dor" was built as a semi-composition, a canvas upon which a creative interpreter had to develop a personal rendition, Darwish was the first Egyptian composer to reduce drastically the extemporizing task left to the singer and the instrumental cast. Even the "ahat", this traditionally improvised section of sighs, were composed by Darwish in an interesting attempt of figuralism. Anecdotic arpeggios and chromaticism were for his contemporaries a token of modernism, but could be more severely judged nowadays.

Sayed Darwish was personally recorded by three companies: Mechian, a small local record company founded by an Armenian immigrant, which engraved the Shaykh's voice between 1914 and 1920; Odeon, the German company, which recorded extensively his light theatrical repertoire in 1922; Baidaphon, which recorded three adwâr around 1922. His works sung by other voices are to be found on numerous records made by all the companies operating in early 20th-century Egypt.

Musical instrument Kanoon

Darwish believed that genuine art must be derived from people's aspirations and feelings. In his music and songs, he truly expressed the yearnings and moods of the masses, as well as recording the events that took place during his lifetime. He dealt with the aroused national feeling against the British occupiers, the passion of the people, and social justice, and he often criticized the negative aspects of Egyptian society.

Gramophne 78 disc Record (1925) Cairo

His works, blending Western instruments and harmony with classical Arab forms and Egyptian folklore, gained immense popularity due to their social and patriotic subjects. Darwish's many nationalistic melodies reflect his close ties to the national leaders who were guiding the struggle against the British occupiers. 
His music and songs knew no class and were enjoyed by both the poor and the affluent.

In his musical plays, catchy music and popular themes were combined in an attractive way. To some extent, Darwish liberated Arab music from its classical style, modernizing it and opening the door for future development.

Gazl El Banat original poster

Besides composing 260 songs, he wrote 26 operettas, replacing the slow, repetitive, and ornamented old style of classical Arab music with a new light and expressive flair. Some of Darwish's most popular works in this field were El Ashara'l Tayyiba, Shahrazad, and El-Barooka. These operettas, like Darwish's other compositions, were strongly reminiscent of Egyptian folk music and gained great popularity due to their social and patriotic themes.

Even though Darwish became a master of the new theater music, he remained an authority on the old forms. He composed 10 “dawr” and 21 “muwashshat” which became classics in the world of Arab music. His composition "Bilaadi! Bilaadi!" (My Country! My Country!), that became Egypt's national anthem, and many of his other works are as popular today as when he was alive. Sayed Darwish was highly influenced by his teacher, the great Iraqi musician and singer Othman Al-Mosuli (1854–1923), and it has been established that his most famous songs "Zuruni kul Sana Marra", "Talaat Ya Mahla Noura" and "Albint Alshalabiya" among many others were adaptations from well known works of Othman Al-Musoli's, who is considered to be the greatest musician and singer in the modern Middle East. This has cast serious doubt about "Biladi Biladi" in terms of origin as it has been suggested that Othman also composed it. It is well known that Sayed Darwish tried his best to show that everything he played was the result of his own creativity and never admitted to plagiarism.

Sayed Darwish died on 10 September 1923 at the age of 31. The cause of his death is unknown. Some say he was poisoned and died from cardiac arrest, others suggest a cocaine overdose. He now rests in the "Garden of the Immortals" in Alexandria.

Legacy

At the age of 30, Darwish was hailed as the father of the new Egyptian music and the hero of the renaissance of Arab music. He is still very much alive in his works. His belief that music was not merely for entertainment but an expression of human aspiration imparted meaning to life. He is a legendary composer remembered in street names, statues, a commemorative stamp, an Opera house, and a feature film. He dedicated his melodies to the Egyptian and pan-Arab struggle and, in the process, enriched Arab 

music in its entirety.

The Palestinian singer and musicologist, Reem Kelani, examined the role of Sayed Darwish and his songs in her program for BBC Radio Four entitled "Songs for Tahrir" about her experiences of music in the uprising in Egypt in 2011.

Sayed Darwish put music to the Egyptian national anthem, Bilady, Bilady, Bilady, the words of which were adapted from a famous speech by Mustafa Kamel.

Coincidentally, on the day of his death, the national Egyptian leader Saad Zaghloul returned from exile; the Egyptians sang Darwish's new song "Mesrona watanna Saaduha Amalna", another national song by Sayed Darwish that was attributed to "Saad" and made especially to celebrate his return.

Click on this link  SALAM YA SALAMA  to hear the original song

Sung by Sayed Darwish

Article from various sources

Edited and presented by Mike

Badia Masabny

Star Maker of Cairo

BADIA MASABNY

In 1926 a woman of Levantine origin named Badia Masabny opened a nightclub in Cairo in the fashion of European cabarets. This nightclub, known as “Casino Badia”, and another club later established by Masabny, “Casino Opera”, was to have a profound influence on Middle Eastern Dance as we know it today. Many dancers have perhaps never even heard the name of this woman to whom we owe so much. Who was Badia Masabny?

According to her autobiography, which appeared in the book “Bauchtanz” by Dietlinde Karkutli, Badia Masabny was born in Damascus in 1894. At age of seven, Badia was raped by a cafe owner. After serving only 4 weeks in jail, the man’s life returned to normal. Badia's life, however, was changed forever, as she was no longer a virgin. To avoid the gossip and shame of it all, the Masabny family immigrated to Argentina. In school there, Badia was happy and discovered her love for acting, singing and dancing.

People 3000 years back already danced

The Masabny’s moved back to Syria when Badia was in her teens, and therefore of marriageable age, the events of the past were, however, not forgotten and the family had a hard time finding a husband for her. When Badia finally did get engaged, the neighbor informed the groom’s family about the rape and the groom broke off the engagement.

Feeling she had no chance in a place where everyone knew of her past, Badia decided to run away to Beirut. On the train, she met a nice woman who offered to take her in. Only in Beirut did Badia realize that this "nice woman" was the madam of a brothel! At this time, even women in the West had few opportunities for employment and so much the less in the Middle East. With no one to support her and no real skills, Badia tried to think of something she could do without having to sell her body. She turned to the two things she most loved: singing and dancing. When her mother arrived in Beirut to take her home, Badia persuaded her to accompany her to Cairo instead.

BADIA

Even then, Cairo was already famous for its culture, music and theatre. Badia found work playing small roles with the famous George Abiad Theatre Ensemble. She lied to her mother, telling her she had a night job as a seamstress. When the ensemble’s summer break arrived, Badia was offered a bigger role with a traveling theater troupe that was leaving for Said, Upper Egypt. When Badia’s mother learned the truth about her daughter’s employment, she insisted they return home to Syria. As the train that was to take them to Alexandria, where they would board a ship for Beirut, pulled into the station, Badia jumped to the other side of the tracks and ran away as fast as she could. She caught up with the traveling theater troupe just the day before they went on tour.

In 1914 Masabny went to Beirut to perform in the well-known theater of Madame Jeanette, a French woman who employed exclusively European artists to perform for a mostly upper-class Lebanese clientele. Badia convinced Madam Jeanette to let her sing and dance in Arabic. For her debut on September 14, 1914, accompanied by two Austrian women playing oud and qanoon, Badia performed a Syrian folksong, singing, dancing and playing cymbals all at the same time! At this time the female entertainers called Awalim were expected to be able to sing, dance, recite poetry and play musical instruments. Masabny continued this tradition and the audience was delighted. Badia was a big hit and became the feature act.

Summer Casino & Cabaret Badia

Masabny continued to work in Lebanon and Syria. While performing in Damascus, she was attacked and almost killed by her brother who believed he was defending the family honour. Badia eventually began working with the Egyptian comedian, actor, playwright and director, Nagib El Rihany, and his ensemble. Returning with them to Cairo in 1921, she became the star of the company. A passionate, but turbulent love story developed between Masabny and El Rihany and they eventually married. Although it was a troubled marriage, Badia was able to learn a lot about the theatre from her husband. After numerous breakups and reconciliations, Badia left him in 1926 and opened her own nightclub, called Casino Badia, on Emad El Din Street. (It should be noted that the term “cabaret” was never used in the Middle East except to describe a very low class establishment.  Nightclubs were at that time known as "sala".)

Naguib El Rihany

The nightclub was a huge success. Masabny created a program with both European and Arab artists performing short acts that appealed to European and upper class Egyptian tastes. Badia danced and sang several numbers herself. She and El Rihany got back together for a brief time, but then split again, this time for good. Badia moved her nightclub to a better location and named it "Casino Badia".

A diverse entertainment program featured local dancers, singers, musicians and comedians, as well as various European acts. There was even a matinee in the afternoon for women only. It was at this time that the traditional "Raqs Baladi" began to undergo significant changes.

The term Raqs Sharqi first came about when Egypt was occupied by foreign powers. "Raqs Sharqi", which actually translates as "Oriental Dance” or “Eastern Dance”, was used to distinguish the dance from European, or western, dances. ("Orient” as opposed to “occident”.) In the same way, “Raqs Baladi” was used to differentiate between "native" or "local" dance and foreign dances. At the time of Badia Masabny, the nightclub version of these dances was referred to as "Raqs El Hawanim" or "Dance of the Ladies". The late master instructor Nelly Mazloom once described “Raqs el Hawanim” as being the style that upper class women danced when amongst themselves at weddings and other gatherings.

She went on to describe how young girls sought the attention of potential mothers-in-law by dancing at weddings that were at that time still segregated. The girl sought to dance gracefully and elegantly while appearing refined and modest. Due to the fact that Masabny’s clientele were upper class Egyptians as well as foreigners, dancers deliberately tried to imitate the style of the upper class women. For this reason the dancing appears to be very restrained and subtle.

Old Casino Badia in Opera square - Cairo

Up to the 1920’s, dancers had performed mostly in private homes, in coffee houses or at outdoor religious festivals known as "mawalid" (plural of "mulid").Originally characterized by mostly hip and torso movements, the dance had usually been performed in small spaces. The dance, therefore, had to be adapted for the stage. Masabny employed western choreographers such as Isaac Dixon, Robbie Robinson and Christo, who added elements from other dance traditions, for example, the turns and traveling steps from western dance forms such as ballet and ballroom dance. The late master instructor and choreograph Ibrahim Akif, who also worked with Masabny, identified “shimmies”, undulating movements (including what we sometimes refer to as “camals”), circles and “eights”, as well as various hip thrusts and drops as being the original “Sharqi” or oriental movements. Ibrahim Akef also told me personally that, although the group dances were choreographed, most of the solo artists improvised. According to him, it was his first cousin, the dancer and actress Naima Akef, who was the first to completely choreograph her solo performances. As we all know, choreographing the opening number later on became a stand practice among the better-known Egyptian dancers.

The two-piece costume with beads and sequins, which we now associate inseparably with Oriental Dance, first appeared during this period, inspired by Hollywood films and European nightclubs such as the "Moulin Rouge". It might be added that the costumes were partially created to suit the tastes of European colonists, who didn’t find the original costumes revealing enough!

All went well, both professionally and privately, until Badia's nephew, Antoine, who had become her theater director and was married to her adoptive daughter, Julia, fell in love with Beba Azzadine, a dancer in Badia's ensemble. He and Beba left to open their own nightclub in the same style as "Casino Badia". In spite of this setback, Badia remained successful, constantly working to improve her program and always recruiting new talents.

Badia Masabny was a tough woman. According to Karin van Nieuwkerk in her book, "A Trade Like any Other", journalists wrote that Badia had no need for a bodyguard as she herself was one, even going so far as to threaten intrusive journalists with a gun. Perhaps her childhood had forced her to become tough.

Tahea Carrioca

In 1937 Masabny invested and lost all her money in a film project that flopped. She declared bankruptcy and left Cairo to tour Upper Egypt with her troupe. A young Tahia Carioca, still in her teens, was part of the entourage. In debt, Badia borrowed money to open up her biggest project yet: a nightclub with a movie theater, restaurant, cafe and an American-style bar. "Casino Opera" opened in 1940 and was extremely successful. World War II had broken out and the streets of Cairo were filled with English and French soldiers wanting to be entertained. This, of course, was a great opportunity for “Casino Opera" and the program was adapted to suit the soldiers’ tastes.

Due to the performance of a Hitler parody, however, Masabny was placed on Hitler's list of people to be executed once he took over Egypt. Fortunately, the Germans never made it to Cairo!

Farid El Atrash

The Egyptian film industry was flourishing at this time, producing countless musicals requiring singers and dancers. Many of the nightclub scenes in the films of this era were actually filmed in "Casino Opera" and many dancers were discovered there. The program in both "Casino Badia" and "Casino Opera" featured group dances. The more talented dancers were allowed to dance in front of the others and, if one of them went over well with the public, she earned the chance to be featured as a solo artist. Many dancers who started out as chorus girls ended up as soloists and many soloists ended up in films. Through exposure in these films, as well as in Masabny’s nightclubs, dancers achieved a celebrity status that could never have been achieved in the past.  

Naima Akef

The most famous of these dancers were Tahia Carioca and Samia Gamal, who became popular movie stars in Egypt, and Nadia Gamal, who later became a star in Lebanon. All these dancers and many others, including Ketty, Hoda Shamsadine, Hagar Hamdy and Naima Akef (although, according to Ibrahim Akef, Naima actually started in the nightclub of Masabny’s rival, Beba Azzadine), credited Masabny for helping them get started and for teaching them what they needed to know in the beginning of their careers. According to an interview with Nadia Gamal in Arabesque magazine, Masabny trained her dancers every afternoon at the Casino. She was an expert at "zaggat" (finger cymbals) and played them herself on stage. Not only dancers, but also many well-known singers and musicians, including Farid El Atrache and Mohamad Abdel Wahab, got their start with Masabny.

Nagwa Fouad

 Badia Masabny earned good money during the war years and Casino Opera continued to prosper after the war as well. In 1951 the Egyptian government demanded that Masabny pay £74,000 (Egyptian pounds) in back-taxes. It was impossible for her to come up with such a large sum of money without being ruined financially. She escaped from Egypt in a private jet and returned to Lebanon. There she bought a small farm in the north, where she, by her own account, lived the rest of her days in peace and tranquility. Badia Masabny passed away in 1975. Very similar details of her life are told in a 1975 film called “Badia Masabny”.

Samia Gamal

Samia Gamal While no one denies that Badia Masabny had a profound influence in the development of modern Raqs Sharqi, not everyone agrees if this influence was positive or negative. One school of thought maintains that her changes elevated the dance to a performing art for the stage. The other maintains that she degraded the original dance form by making the dance more sexually suggestive and by moving the dance into a nightclub setting to begin with. In any case, one can hardly imagine how the dance might have evolved without Badia Masabny!

Article written by Jalilah on Gilded Serpent.

 Edited and presented by Mike