Transcript:

“On a frigid December night, a shaggy looking man comes into the cafe. A horse carriage driver, a Arbagy. You could not distinguish the man from his horse. They had the same brown long face, and they even smelled the same, manure. The man was holding in his hands an unfeathered slaughtered duck. He stood in the middle of the cafe and asked for Sheikh Sayed. We all laughed at once. Everyone sitting in this cafe was waiting for Sheikh Sayed.”

“He's famous now. He used to sing for tips in this cafe years ago before Sheikh Salama Hegazy discovered him. It's good for business, though. Everyone knows that he sits here because it's close to his home. So they wait for him, wait for a handshake. Or maybe, if he had a good day, he'd take out his Oud and sing for them for free.”

“So, this man sits in a corner chair for hours. He doesn't order anything, not even a cup of tea. I don't usually let scum take places that paying customers could use, but I felt sorry for the guy. I approach him and ask him why he is waiting for Sheikh Sayed. And why he's stinking my cafe with his duck.”

“The guy tells me that Sheikh Sayed had performed for his son's Sobo' yesterday, the celebration for a new baby. You, Englishmen, probably don't do that. Of course, I don't believe the man. An impersonator must have scammed him or something. Then he tells me that Sheikh Sayed didn't take any money for the performance. And that he, as a proper Sa'idi, wouldn't accept that. So he came here with the duck as a gift for Sheikh Sayed.”

“Around two in the morning, Sheikh Sayed arrives. He sees the man sitting in the corner and goes directly to him. He hugs him and keeps telling him that he shouldn't have done that, he shouldn't have gotten him that gift. And after the man swears on his mother's grave, Sheikh Sayed takes the duck.”

“It turns out; Sheikh Sayed was riding with this man in his carriage. The man didn't recognise him in his Effendi suit, instead of the normal Azhari Jalabiya and headwear. They pass another horse carriage driver, and the man tells him not to forget about his son's Sobo' tonight. The other driver laughs at him and says 'Why is it so important? Is Sheikh Sayed performing?'. Sheikh Sayed, angry at the other man, sneakily asked the carriage driver where does he live, then surprised him and sang for 3 hours straight in the Sobo'."

I have this conversation with an old, fat, and, frankly, a dishonest looking Egyptian cafe owner in Alexandria's Kom El-Dekka neighbourhood. His cafe was once called something else that doesn't matter, like The Pearl of Kom El-Dekka Cafe or something of that sorts. Now, it's called The Sayed Darwish Cafe. Sayed Darwish, a phenomenon that swept across all of Alexandria and Egypt, not just that ragged cafe with its old wooden chairs and sawdust laden floors.

I head to Alexandria on the twenty-sixth of August, where this story, like many other stories, begins. I was tasked to write a story about Saad Zaghloul's life and how he became a national hero in the eyes of the locals. The avid reader of The Manchester Guardian Weekly would know Zaghloul, the former member of The Egyptian Legislative Assembly, who had led the Egyptian Delegation to The Paris Peace Conference four years ago to appeal for more Egyptian independence from the British Protectorate. He was exiled to Malta first, then returned to Egypt to negotiate with the British High Commissioner after civil unrest broke out in 1919. After those negotiations broke down as well, he was exiled again to The Seychelles.

Now, he returns. Egyptians planned a grand celebration for his return; when the ship that has him on board docks in Alexandria. The ceremony was a golden opportunity for us to bring you, our readers, a comprehensive report on Zaghloul's life. And a chance to also bring you a story that I wanted to write for quite some time now. The story of the singing Sheikh, Sayed Darwish.

Darwish is a thirty-one year old Alexandrian. The singer and composer has risen to fame over the past six years, to become the most sought over Egyptian singer. It is widely accepted that in his short tenure, he had transformed the face of Egyptian and Arabic music, bringing it to the twentieth century.

"Yes, I used to work with him". The cafe owner referred me to a man sitting outside, enjoying his cup of tea and water pipe under the pleasant Alexandrian autumn night sky.

Abdelaziz, the man narrating, is a firm looking man from the south of the country. With an accent so thick, I couldn't understand most of his Arabic and had to resort to the local police officer accompanying me for translation. He, like many others, had fled rural Egypt to the cities. Disease ridden poor villages that had lost their source of income gradually when American cotton flooded the global markets after the end of The American Civil War. They fled their homes to find Alexandria suffering the same economic strides that impacted the countryside, with the remaining job opportunities contested by Alexandrians and non-Alexandrians alike.

In those conditions, Darwish was born in Alexandria's Kom ElDekka, a few yards from the cafe we were sitting in. He enrolled in religious school as a child, then went on to study in Al-Azhar, the most prestigious Islamic university.

"We used to work for the same construction crew", Abdelaziz continues. "He had just finished his religious studies and enrolled in a music school. He worked for some time as a wedding singer, but I guess he didn't earn a lot of money, so he started working in construction."

"He always used to sing while working; most of the time, it was labour songs to encourage us to work. He really did have an impact on us. The crew foreman noticed that, and instead of paying him to work, he started paying him to sing for us, to cheer us while working."

"One day we were laying some bricks in Labban when two Syrians barged on us. They were passing by and liked his singing. Two weeks later, he bid us farewell. They took him to Syria to learn more about music. I didn't see afterwards for some time, four years I think, when I heard him singing in this cafe here."

The two Syrians that Abdelaziz referred to were the Alexandria-born Lebanese Amin and Selim Atallah, two famous artists in Egypt. They took Darwish with them in 1909 on a trip to Syria as part of their music ensemble. There he learnt the basics of Middle Eastern music, a tradition spanning hundreds if not thousands of years. There, he also learnt the basics of the more sophisticated modern European music, blending it with the local traditional music to form his new style.

He came back to Egypt, the real stage, armed with what he had learnt in Syria. And he failed. He went back again to Syria, learnt more, tuned his music style to the audience, then returned to Egypt.

This time his musical style was more innovative, it gathered more and more attention from the famous artists of Alexandria and Cairo, but not of the audiences. Another legendary Sheikh, Salama Hegazy, heard of Darwish's new contemporary style and went to Alexandria to listen to his music. He was captivated with Darwish's music and offered him to join his theatre group, composing music for plays and even singing to audiences between acts.

Another aspect that begs for exploration in Darwish's life is what he has in common with Hegazi, being Sheikhs. Is there a connection between religious Islamic studies and music?

"Yes, of course. It's one of the most important things you learn", Sheikh Aly Mahmoud replies. Sheikh Mahmoud is a distinguished Qur'an reciter and religious singer in Egypt. He is the Imam of one of the biggest mosques in Cairo, by virtue of his enchanting voice when reciting the Qur'an. He sings Nasheeds, a form of Islamic songs that are typically accompanied only by percussion and relies heavily on the musical strength of the singer.

"Arabs are poets; they always have been. They were known for their eloquence and fascinating oration. God bestowed His prophet, Mohamed, with many miracles, but The Qur'an is the greatest of them all. It's a form of poetry that no man, however eloquent he was, could come up with."

"The Prophet said (Whoever does not recite Qur'an in a nice voice is not from us). He ordered us to try our best at reciting The Qur'an, so we learn and teach that."

Sheikh Mahmoud continues, "Arabic music is traditionally composed in one of eight different keys, Maqamat we call them. They are not the same keys that you use in Western music. We use those traditional keys when reciting The Qur'an. It's not singing. It's not just reading. It's reciting. And it's a science.”

"You harmonise your voice in a key that represents the verse you're reciting. You use the Rust key when you're reciting a verse talking about the glory of God, and you use the Nahawand key when you're reciting calm verses, promising faithful Muslims with the joys of heaven."

"You go between keys seamlessly. And, you repeat verses. You repeat verses to deliver the message that this verse conveys. You know. There's saying that The Qur'an was revealed in Mecca, it was written in Iraq, and it was read in Egypt."

"It's a basic science that we learn while young. We use it to recite The Qur'an, and we use it to compose music. In my case, I use it to sing Nasheeds, but what Sayed Darwish is doing is; it's different. He's using those Maqams in singing to convey the meaning of the song while composing his music with both Arabic and Western orchestral instruments. He took orchestral music from the royal courts, the Maqams from religious songs, the folk songs from the common people, and blending all that in one form of art."

To understand what he was doing differently, we need to talk to the man himself, Sheikh Sayed Darwish. After a week in Alexandria, we were able to reach Darwish who was busy heading the preparations for Sa'ad Zaghloul's return. He agreed to sit down with us on the sixteenth of September, one day after the celebrations. In the meantime, we sat down with his closest collaborators, Badee' Khairy and Naguib AlRehany.

End of Part 1 of 2

Music:

All the following music was originally composed / sung by Sayed Darwish.

• The Horse Carriage Drivers’ Song (La7n El3arbageya) - Alexandria Orchestra

• That’s What’s Happened (Aho Dah Elly Sar) - Andrew Wadid and Ramy Maged

• What’s The Reason (Eh El ‘Ebara) - Masar Band

• The Sa’idis’ Song [Oh My Cousin] (La7n El Sa’ayda [Ya Weld ‘Ammy]) - Iman ElBahr Darwish

• I Scream From Love (Mowasha7 Se7to Wajdan) - Beirut Oriental Ensemble

• The Painters’ Song (Yours Truly Was Stomped Upon) - Rabab Nagy

Link To Part 2 of 2

Link To Footnotes and Commentary