Ya Laylat al-Eid

The song was written by poet Ahmed Rami and composed by Riyad al-Sunbati for the 1940 Egyptian musical film Dananir, directed by Ahmed Badrakhan and starring Umm Kulthum. According to an anecdote that has been circulated by newspapers, Umm Kulthum first heard a street vendor uttering the words "" () outside Radio Cairo in 1937. Then, reportedly, poet Bayram al-Tunisi began writing lyrics starting with these words but did not complete them, and they would subsequently be completed by Rami. According to the Egyptian writer and film critic Tarek El Shennawi, this origin story is fabricated and especially improbable when it is considered that the two poets were in tense relations. For radio and record release, Rami rewrote the final stanza, replacing references to the Tigris and Abbasid figures with an invocation of the Nile. == Composition ==

The song takes the form of a taqtuqa, a short-form Arabic composition comprising verses and a chorus, often featuring female lead vocals. The melody is constructed from simple phrases moving within different Arabic maqams (melodic mode), consisting of (similar to the minor scale) and the related , interspersed with (the Arabic analogue of the major scale) and , whereas the rhythm is , a 4-beat-based (rhythmic mode). == 1944 performance and 1952 censorship ==

On 17 September 1944, during an Eid al-Fitr concert at Al Ahly SC's Mokhtar El Tetsh Stadium in Cairo, King Farouk I unexpectedly arrived while Kulthum was performing. Kulthum spontaneously altered the lyrics to insert a mention of Farouk in his honour, after which he awarded her the Order of the Virtues (then a dynastic order, usually awarded to nobility, such as queens and princesses). After the Egyptian revolution of 1952, in which the country turned from a monarchy to a republic, broadcasts of songs praising King Farouk were briefly banned, affecting both Umm Kulthum and Mohammed Abdel Wahab, another popular singer and actor. Gamal Abdel Nasser subsequently reinstated their works on state radio, although the Farouk-specific stanza remained off air until Anwar Sadat's presidency. ==References==