Egyptian Soul III - Asmahan and Life Between Two Fires
Samuel Owers
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
‘Egyptian Soul’ is a reflection on music and history in 20th century Egypt. In a series of four articles, Samuel Owers examines key developments in the Arab cultural scene through three key artists: Sayyed Darwish, Leila Mourad, and Asmahan. Through their stories, he explores the past and present of Egyptian society, with all its contradictions and complexities. He touches on the clash of competing identities and allegiances (political, ethnic, religious) the role of women and marginalized groups, and the vast social changes that affected Egypt in this period, all through the medium of music.
I was shocked when I discovered she wasn’t Egyptian. Aside from the power of her voice and her obvious technical skill, I had always noticed her clear intonation when she sang in the Egyptian dialect, pronouncing each syllable precisely, so that I could understand what she was saying despite the crackle of the old recordings. In her films, she waltzed around Cairo and Alexandria like any other member of Egyptian high society, and her name – Asmahan – is still synonymous with the elegance of the capital in the 1930s and 40s, conjuring up pictures of pashas and princesses in exclusive clubs, recalling a golden age in music and film. A rose-tinted snapshot of a complex period this may be, but a quintessentially Egyptian scene nonetheless, which binds the singer into the collective memory of a nation.
Yet Asmahan was not born in Egypt, nor could she claim a connection to the country by descent. Amal al-Atrash, as she was known to her family, was born into the Druze religious community of Syria. The Druze, concentrated in the isolated mountainous regions of the Levant, are heirs to an ancient and esoteric tradition, which descends from the Ismaili sect of Islam but combines elements of Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Sufi mysticism and Gnostic philosophy. Historically, the community has been secretive regarding its religious teachings, refusing to divulge their revelations to outsiders and rejecting intermarriage. As a member of this community: Amal’s life was preordained. She was expected to marry her cousin, Hassan al-Atrash, and to live a quiet, rural existence in the highlands of Jabal al-Druze, following the traditions of her sect.
Druze women carrying water. Jabal al-Druze, 1938 (Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Alongside their socially conservative tendencies, however, the Druze have long shown a commitment to revolutionary ideals, playing a key role in the Arab independence movement. The Atrash clan into which Amal was born were leaders in the struggle to free Syria, first from the Ottoman empire and later from French colonial forces. Her relative, Sultan al-Atrash, would go down in history as a founder of the modern Syrian state. Whether she liked it or not, Amal was born into a life of patriotic struggle – quite literally. In 1912, her father, Fahd al-Atrash, had been dismissed from his post as an Ottoman governor for his Arab nationalist tendencies, and was forced to leave Turkey by sea with his pregnant wife at short notice. His daughter Amal was born aboard a steamship from Izmir to Beirut, and spent the first moments of her life in no man’s land. It was a place she would have to get used to.
When the French mandate replaced Ottoman rule in Syria following the First World War, Fahd al-Atrash became a direct target for colonial aggression. In 1922, the family home was shelled by French forces and Fahd’s wife, Alia, was forced to travel to Egypt with her young children, abandoning the idyllic mountain home in which Amal had spent the first ten years of her life. In Cairo, the Atrash family joined a large community of Syrian and Lebanese emigres who had flocked to Egypt around the same time, seeking a better future in the Arab world’s largest economy. Conditions were often harsh for migrants, and the family fell quickly from aristocracy to poverty. When Amal went to school, her mother registered her under the surname kusa, ‘courgette’, to claim free tuition, since no one would believe that children of the Atrash clan could require handouts. Alia worked several jobs to support her children, sewing, cleaning and washing laundry from her modest apartment. When money was especially tight, she would even sing and play the ‘oud (an eleven-stringed instrument similar to the lute) for money. This was a display of real financial desperation, as it was a major faux-pas at the time for a married woman to sing in public, let alone the wife of a prominent public figure.
Alia and her children (Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
But the musical atmosphere must have rubbed off on Alia’s children, as Amal’s brother Farid began to show a talent for composition and performance, and in his teens embarked on a career which would see him become one of the most talented ‘oud players of all time. As Amal al-Atrash was getting used to life as a schoolgirl in a new city, her brother Farid was mingling with Egypt’s top musicians and composers, frequenting nightclubs and cafes where he would stay until the early hours. One evening, in the mid-1920s, he brought a famous composer, Dawoud Hosni, to the family home. Amal was sent to her bedroom as the men chatted together, but when Hosni overheard her singing, he demanded to see her. Amal al-Atrash, he quickly realised, had an astonishing voice, which must be harnessed at once!
Dawoud Hosni taught Amal how to play the ‘oud and gave her a new name: ‘Asmahan’. He told the child that this was the name of another girl he had tutored, ‘just as beautiful as you, and with just as lovely a voice’, who had died before her potential could be realised. It seemed a shame to Hosni that the Asmahan brand should go to waste, and so the thirteen-year-old was saddled with the name of a dead girl, which she would carry with her for the rest of her life. In hindsight, this episode stands out as a grim omen of what was to come for Amal, but for the time being, the legacy of her unlucky namesake was swept away in the thrill of the present. Within a year, she was performing at the national opera house, with a debut album released under her new name.
As Asmahan grew into womanhood, her voice matured, and she excelled in both Western and Eastern modes of singing, often combining the two as in her famous monologue Ya Toyour (‘O birds’), in which segments in contrasting styles are interspersed with uncanny imitations of birdsong. Yet her openness to new artistic forms never stopped her from engaging with her own heritage. Asmahan mastered the divergent traditions of the Arab world: alongside popular songs in the Egyptian dialect, she sang folk songs in the slow Syrian mawwal style, and poetry in classical Arabic. She went on to star opposite legendary singer and composer Mohamed Abdel Wahab in a theatre adaptation of Qais and Layla, the quintessential Arab love story, which predates Romeo and Juliet by centuries. There were rumours that the voice of Asmahan’s voice would one day rival that of Umm Kulthum, the legendary Egyptian singer who dominated the airwaves from the 1930s.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Offstage, however, Amal al-Atrash had bigger fish to fry. Her family’s insistence on a pre-arranged marriage to her cousin Hassan al-Atrash, now a nationalist activist, never waned as she came closer to the spotlight. It was seen that only a husband’s censure could put a stop to her singing, which was an affront to strict Druze morality and constituted an international scandal as far as the Atrash family was concerned. After months of ultimatums, Amal agreed to marry Hassan in 1933, giving up performance forever in exchange for a life of devotion to her husband and the national cause. In return for the loss of her independent livelihood, she made her cousin promise that the pair would split their time between Cairo and Damascus, rather than return to the family home in Jabal al-Druze. If these conditions were met, she was willing to relinquish the name of ‘Asmahan’ forever and live life as plain old Amal al-Atrash.
By the time the couple’s daughter Kamellia was born, however, Hassan had broken his promise and sent Amal back to the Druze homeland, far away from the cosmopolitan lifestyle of Cairo and Damascus which was all she could remember. Amal spent six years raising her daughter in the mountains as her husband absented himself in the name of patriotism, watching her prime years as a singer wither away before her eyes. By 1937, she could take it no longer and divorced Hassan, telling him: ‘I stood with you for independence and liberation. But I was created for another purpose. I prefer the work of Farid, and the work of Umm Kulthum, and of art.’ Amal moved back to Cairo at once, invigorated by a newfound self-confidence which would spur her on to new artistic directions.
Living as ‘Asmahan’ once more, she took the final plunge and entered the world of cinema, breaking the last taboo imposed on her by her family. When her first film, Intisar al-Shabab, was screened in Syria, a Druze boy shot at her face on the cinema screen in disgust - but in Cairo, the film was an instant success. The gamble paid off, as Asmahan’s stunning beauty and graceful stage presence made her a hit on the screen, where rivals like Umm Kulthum faltered. Cinema afforded her the perfect platform from which to relaunch her career as her voice was reaching its artistic peak. Her films generated catchy five-minute hits, composed by Farid, which could be reproduced on record or radio, winning her a wider audience at a time when mass media was exploding in the Arab world. Even Umm Kulthum herself was now admitting that Asmahan was her only contender. By the outbreak of the Second World War, it looked like her moment had finally come. And then calamity struck again.
Asmahan on the poster of film Gharam wa Intiqam in 1944, shortly before her death (Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
In 1941, the British, who had been occupying Egypt for half a century, sent Amal al-Atrash back to Syria. Her mission: to convince the Druze leadership, including ex-husband Hassan, to support the British and Free French armies in taking Syria from the Nazi-backed Vichy regime. In exchange for the Syrian people’s support, Britain would guarantee them an independent state. In a display of unshakeable loyalty to her people, Amal al-Atrash accepted her mission and traveled back to the country from which she had only recently escaped, despite the harsh treatment she had suffered from the Druze community. She even agreed to remarry cousin Hassan, a precondition for moving back to Jabal al-Druze. Again, Amal’s sacrifice was rewarded with betrayal as the British refused to keep their promises of independence, handing Syria back to French occupiers, and cutting off Amal’s income. She was left stranded in the mountains, cashless and at the mercy of her husband. Twice in this period, Amal attempted to kill herself, as the international press continued to produce inane articles speculating on the activities of the beautiful ‘mountain princess’. Despairing, she contacted the French and German intelligence services in hope of national and personal salvation. It was a move the British would not forget in a hurry.
British troops searching the ruins of the Temple of Ball, Syria, for any sniper's posts which were manned by local Arabs who were forced to act as snipers by the Vichy French, 12 July 1941 (Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Amal eventually made her way back to Cairo, where she carved out a life for herself as Asmahan once more, this time alongside a new husband, director Ahmed Salem. She was afforded three short years of personal and artistic freedom before finally meeting the fate of her unlucky namesake, at the age of thirty-one. In the Summer of 1944, as she was travelling with a friend near the town of Mansoura, her car swerved into a nearby irrigation canal. When the police arrived to investigate, they found the singer and her friend had been killed on impact, but the driver - a substitute for her usual chauffeur - had vanished into thin air. The strange circumstances of Asmahan’s death have prompted various theories over the last seventy-five years, including the tenuous claim, supported by armchair analysts on YouTube to this day, that Umm Kulthum had arranged the assassination of her rival in some elaborate musical conspiracy. More credible are suggestions that British or German intelligence was responsible, seeking revenge for Asmahan’s wartime activities, or the killing was part of a Palace drama involving King Farouq. Perhaps Hassan al-Atrash had chosen to take revenge on his rebellious wife, or could this be a plot by the Atrash clan to put a stop to her shameful behaviour? Maybe the dead girl whose name she had taken had come back to haunt her. In such a bizarre case as this, and with such little evidence, it is impossible to rule anything out.
What I am sure of, though, is that despite the many betrayals Amal al-Atrash suffered, she cannot help but resist the role of victim. She was a woman of remarkable strength, whose opposing qualities of fierce independence and loyalty to the common cause outshone even her musical talent. Throughout a meagre lifetime, she found herself torn between conflicting identities – artist, wife, mother, revolutionary - trapped between two names and two lives, neither of which she was allowed to enjoy. At every turn was another excruciating decision, placing Amal/Asmahan between a rock and a hard place, or ‘between two fires’, as the Arab saying goes. In the end, her ability to survive, resist, and rewrite history can be attributed to nothing but the red-hot intensity of her own willpower.