Umm Kulthum parents: Meet Ibrahim El Beltagy, Fatma al-Maliji

Umm Kulthum was born on December 31, 1898, as Fatima Ibrahim es-Sayyid el-Beltagi, was a singer, composer, and film actress from Egypt. She was granted the honorific title “Kawkab el-charq” (‘Oriental Star’).  She is regarded as a national figure in Egypt, and has been dubbed “The Voice of Egypt,” “Lady of Arabic Song,” and “Egypt’s Fourth Pyramid.”

Umm Kulthum was born in the village of Tamay e-Zahayra, Dakahlia Governorate, in the Nile Delta to a devout family, as her father Ibrahim El-Sayyid El-Beltagi was an imam from the Egyptian countryside, while her mother Fatmah El-Maleegi was a housewife.

She began to sing by seeing her father instruct her older brother, Khalid. She displayed excellent singing talent from a young age.

Umm Kulthum parents: Meet Ibrahim El Beltagy, Fatma al-Maliji

Umm Kulthum hailed from a low-income family where her mother, Fatma al-maliji, cared for the children and the house, and her father, Al-Shaykh Ibrahim Al-Sayyid Al-Baltaji, was a local Imam in Tammay al-Zahayra.

Her father enrolled her in al-Kuttab, a religious school, when she was five years old to acquire Qur’anic recitation.

Umm Kalthoum’s father, Al-Baltaji, used to sing religious songs at weddings and festivities in adjacent villages, such as the Prophet’s birth and the Islamic New Year, to earn money.