Songs
مصر تتحدث عن نفسها Misr Tatahaddath An Nafsiha (Egypt Speaks of Herself)
- Year
- 1951
- Lyricist
- Hafez Ibrahim
- Composer
- Riad Al-Sunbati
- Maqam
- Rast
Lines marked with a gold ornament carry a note — select one to read it.
وَقَفَ الخَلقُ يَنظُرونَ جَميعًا — كَيفَ أَبني قَواعِدَ المَجدِ وَحدي
Waqafa l-khalqu yanzuruna jami'an — kayfa abni qawa'ida l-majdi wahdi
All creation stood and watched together — how I build the foundations of glory alone
The device that gives the poem its title: prosopopoeia. Egypt herself speaks, in the feminine, with all creation assembled as her audience — a tableau Hafez Ibrahim stages in a single opening line. Sunbati matches the theater with the grandest introduction he ever wrote for her: timpani strokes, a march, three orchestral movements blending maqam Rast with a Western-major brightness, ceremony before a syllable is sung.
وَبُناةُ الأَهرامِ في سالِفِ الدَهرِ — كَفَوني الكَلامَ عِندَ التَحَدّي
Wa-bunatu l-ahrami fi salifi d-dahri — kafawni l-kalama 'inda t-tahaddi
And the builders of the Pyramids, in time long past — spared me the need of speech when I am challenged
The Pyramids "spared me the need of speech at the moment of challenge" — the monument itself as argument, a signature move of nahda-era nationalism. The paradox is elegant: a poem in which Egypt speaks opens by insisting she has never needed to. Hafez wrote the qasida, fifty-seven verses in the khafif meter, for a public tribute to the statesman Adly Yakan Pasha, and published it in his 1927 diwan under the plain title "Misr"; the sung version selects seventeen verses.
أَنا تاجُ العَلاءِ في مَفرِقِ الشَرقِ — وَدُرّاتُهُ فَرائِدُ عِقدي
Ana taju l-'ala'i fi mafriqi sh-sharqi — wa-durratuhu fara'idu 'iqdi
I am the crown of eminence on the brow of the East — and its pearls are the matchless jewels of my necklace
إِنَّ مَجدي في الأولَياتِ عَريقٌ — مَن لَهُ مِثلُ أولَياتي وَمَجدي
Inna majdi fi l-ulayati 'ariqun — man lahu mithlu ulayati wa-majdi
My glory among the firsts of history runs deep — who else has firsts, and glory, such as mine?
أَنا إِن قَدَّرَ الإِلَهُ مَماتي — لا تَرى الشَرقَ يَرفَعُ الرَأسَ بَعدي
Ana in qaddara l-ilahu mamati — la tara sh-sharqa yarfa'u r-ra'sa ba'di
If God should ever decree my death — you will not see the East lift its head again
The poem's most quoted and most audacious claim: if Egypt dies, the East never lifts its head again. Sunbati marks the verse with a shift into Hijazkar — the most emotionally charged station of the setting — and Umm Kulthum's delivery of the following hemistich, "the care of God has been my army," became one of the performance's summits, the long vowels opened like banners.
ما رَماني رامٍ وَراحَ سَليمًا — مِن قَديمٍ عِنايَةُ اللَهِ جُندي
Ma ramani ramin wa-raha saliman — min qadimin 'inayatu llahi jundi
No archer ever aimed at me and walked away unharmed — since oldest time the care of God has been my army
كَم بَغَت دَولَةٌ عَلَيَّ وَجارَت — ثُمَّ زالَت وَتِلكَ عُقبى التَعَدّي
Kam baghat dawlatun 'alayya wa-jarat — thumma zalat wa-tilka 'uqba t-ta'addi
How many a power wronged and oppressed me — then vanished: such is the end of all aggression
إِنَّني حُرَّةٌ كَسَرتُ قُيودي — رَغمَ أَنفِ العِدا وَقَطَّعتُ قَيدي
Innani hurratun kasartu quyudi — raghma anfi l-'ida wa-qatta'tu qaydi
I am a free woman: I have broken my shackles — despite my enemies, and torn my chains apart
"I am a free woman: I have broken my shackles." Written under British occupation decades earlier, the line detonated in 1951, the year Egypt abrogated the 1936 treaty and the Canal Zone slid toward open confrontation. A verse of poetic bravado hardened, within eighteen months, into something closer to reportage — the revolution of July 1952 found its anthem already recorded and waiting.
أَتُراني وَقَد طَوَيتُ حَياتي — في مِراسٍ لَم أَبلُغِ اليَومَ رُشدي
Aturani wa-qad tawaytu hayati — fi mirasin lam ablughi l-yawma rushdi
Do you suppose that I, who have spent a lifetime — in hard schooling, have not come of age today?
أَمِنَ العَدلِ أَنَّهُم يَرِدونَ الماءَ — صَفوًا وَأَن يُكَدَّرَ وِردي
A-mina l-'adli annahum yariduna l-ma'a — safwan wa-an yukaddara wirdi
Is it justice that they come down to drink the water — pure, while my own drinking-place is muddied?
The pair of indignant questions — their water pure while my drinking-place is muddied, their lions loose while mine are chained — is the poem's plainest image of colonial double standard, drawn from the oldest vocabulary of Arabic poetry, the desert watering-hole. The setting turns here into Hijazkar Kurd over the same tonic, darkening the color without leaving home ground.
أَمِنَ الحَقِّ أَنَّهُم يُطلِقونَ الأُسدَ — مِنهُم وَأَن تُقَيَّدَ أُسدي
A-mina l-haqqi annahum yutliquna l-usda — minhum wa-an tuqayyada usdi
Is it right that they turn loose — their lions, while my lions are kept in chains?
نَظَرَ اللَهُ لي فَأَرشَدَ أَبنائي — فَشَدّوا إِلى العُلا أَيَّ شَدِّ
Nazara llahu li fa-arshada abna'i — fa-shaddu ila l-'ula ayya shaddi
God looked upon me and guided my children — and they pulled toward the heights with all their strength
إِنَّما الحَقُّ قُوَّةٌ مِن قُوى الدَيّانِ — أَمضى مِن كُلِّ أَبيَضَ هِندي
Innama l-haqqu quwwatun min quwa d-dayyani — amda min kulli abyada hindi
For truth is a power among the powers of the Judge — keener than any white blade of India
"Truth is a power among the powers of the Judge, keener than any white blade of India" — abyad hindi, the Indian steel of legendary swords. Hafez arms justice itself: the theological name al-Dayyan, God as ultimate arbiter, guarantees that right outlasts force, the moral spine of the whole qasida.
قَد وَعَدتُ العُلا بِكُلِّ أَبِيٍّ — مِن رِجالي فَأَنجِزوا اليَومَ وَعدي
Qad wa'adtu l-'ula bi-kulli abiyyin — min rijali fa-anjizu l-yawma wa'di
I have promised the heights every proud-souled man — among my sons: so fulfill my promise today
وَارفَعوا دَولَتي عَلى العِلمِ وَالأَخلاقِ — فَالعِلمُ وَحدَهُ لَيسَ يُجدي
Wa-rfa'u dawlati 'ala l-'ilmi wa-l-akhlaqi — fa-l-'ilmu wahdahu laysa yujdi
And raise my nation upon knowledge and character — for knowledge on its own will not avail
"Raise my nation upon knowledge and character, for knowledge alone will not avail" — pure Hafez Ibrahim. The People's Poet spent his career arguing that schooling without ethics builds nothing, and championing education — including women's education — as the real war of liberation. Egyptian teachers set the line as copywork for generations.
نَحنُ نَجتازُ مَوقِفًا تَعثُرُ الآراءُ — فيهِ وَعَثرَةُ الرَأيِ تُردي
Nahnu najtazu mawqifan ta'thuru l-ara'u — fihi wa-'athratu r-ra'yi turdi
We are crossing a pass where judgments stumble — and a stumble of judgment here is fatal
فَقِفوا فيهِ وِقفَةَ الحَزمِ وَارموا — جانِبَيهِ بِعَزمَةِ المُستَعِدِّ
Fa-qifu fihi wiqfata l-hazmi wa-rmu — janibayhi bi-'azmati l-musta'iddi
So stand in it the stand of resolve, and strike — at both its flanks with the vigor of the prepared
The closing command — stand the stand of resolve — was first recorded for radio in 1951, after a performance at Cairo's Cinema Radio in December 1950. From the first hours after the Free Officers' communiqué of July 23, 1952, Cairo radio played the song as the revolution's unofficial anthem, and Umm Kulthum sang it at the new republic's gala celebrations. The irony was not small: her repertoire was briefly blacklisted as old-regime music until, as the story goes, Nasser asked whether the Pyramids should be demolished for the same offense.
What this song means
In 1951 Umm Kulthum turned to a poet who had been dead for nineteen years and recorded what would become, within a year and a half, the unofficial anthem of a revolution. “Misr Tatahaddath An Nafsiha” — Egypt Speaks of Herself — sets seventeen verses by Hafez Ibrahim, the “Poet of the Nile,” in which the country itself takes the stage, speaks in the first person feminine, and delivers its own case to the assembled world: I built glory alone; the Pyramids answer every challenge for me; I am a free woman who has broken her chains.
The poem is older than the song by a generation. Hafez Ibrahim — Ahmed Shawqi’s great friend and rival, the scrappy, self-made “People’s Poet” to Shawqi’s laureate of the palace — wrote the qasida in fifty-seven verses of the khafif meter for a tribute to the statesman Adly Yakan Pasha, and published it in the 1927 edition of his diwan under the simple title “Misr.” Its central device, prosopopoeia, was a favorite weapon of nahda nationalism: rather than praise Egypt, the poet vacates the podium and lets Egypt speak. The selection Umm Kulthum sang compresses the argument to its essentials — ancient primacy, divine protection, the injustice of the occupier’s double standard, and a closing charge to the country’s sons to finish the work, raising the nation “upon knowledge and character, for knowledge alone will not avail,” the most Hafezian line in the poem.
Riad al-Sunbati clothed the verses in maqam Rast, the mode of clarity and proud equilibrium, and gave the piece the most ceremonial opening he ever composed for her: timpani strokes and a three-movement orchestral introduction that folds a Western-major brightness into the Rast, a small national pageant before the voice enters. The setting then moves station by station — into Hijazkar for the poem’s most audacious boast (“if God decrees my death, the East will not lift its head again”), through Bayati and a darkened Hijazkar Kurd for the verses of grievance, back to triumphant Rast for the final exhortation. Her delivery of “the care of God has been my army” became one of the era’s celebrated vocal moments, and the closing verses return like a procession reaching its reviewing stand.
The timing proved uncanny. Recorded for radio in 1951 — after a December 1950 performance at Cairo’s Cinema Radio — the song caught the exact temperature of a country that had just abrogated the 1936 treaty and was sliding toward open confrontation in the Canal Zone. When the Free Officers moved on July 23, 1952, Cairo radio reached for the record within hours of the first communiqué, and a poem written under the monarchy became the soundtrack of its abolition. Umm Kulthum sang it at the young republic’s gala celebrations; the famous story that her repertoire was briefly banned as old-regime music, until Nasser asked whether the Pyramids should be demolished on the same logic, only confirmed how completely song and state had fused.
“Misr Tatahaddath An Nafsiha” opened the great sequence of her nationalist repertoire, and it remains the noblest of the line precisely because it predates the politics it came to serve. Hafez Ibrahim wrote a country’s self-portrait; Sunbati framed it; Umm Kulthum hung it where the whole nation could see it — and when history caught up with the poem, the poem was simply there, waiting, in her voice.
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From the wiki
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The Art of the Qasida
The qasida — the classical Arabic ode — was the most prestigious form Umm Kulthum sang. A guide through Salou Qalbi, Al-Atlal, the Rubaiyat, and Nahj al-Burda.