Africa, Part 2
A French businessman asked Shafiqa, the exotic Egyptian, to perform in Paris. He also asked her to marry him. She accepted the performance invitation but declined the proposal. Because France was then hosting an international exhibition, Shafiqa’s fame expanded geographically. It was further enhanced when the French displayed her portrait on various products. The items were quickly snatched up worldwide.
Before Shafiqa returned home she accumulated a wardrobe of the latest French fashions. Her expensive elegance enticed upper-class Egyptian women to emulate her style. Despite being in demand by the rich and the royals, Shafiqa was generous to the struggling and the poor. For one man she paid overdue rent—and then some—and for another contributed enough money to prevent his bankruptcy. She never refused to dance at wedding receptions of those who couldn’t afford her rates; sometimes she not only danced for free but also provided honeymoon money for the couple. Shafiqa’s servants were also well treated: their clothes were made by famous tailors, and they were provided with a special train car to accompanying her on trips between cities.
Shafiqa indulged herself with three luxurious chariots, each with a team of four horses, two coachmen, and two servants who walked ahead to shout, “Clear the road.” This angered an Egyptian prince who initially mistook the entourage for royalty. Jealousy led him to convince the viceroy to forbid carriage owners the use of coachmen and footservants—unless they were royalty or the viceroy himself. Despite her excessive spending, Shafiqa accumulated many buildings and several palaces.
Shafiqa adopted a boy who later ruined himself with drugs and alcohol. She arranged an early wedding for him—a six-day gala affair—but soon thereafter he died of his addictions. Afterward, the grieving Shafiqa’s life went downhill. As she aged, her fans diminished, and her wealth evaporated as she tried to buy affection from greedy young men. Before her death in 1926 at age seventy-five, she had been reduced to begging in the streets. In 1963, nearly half a century later, she was immortalized in the film Shafiqa al-Qebtiya.
None of Egypt’s talented female dancers has ever quite risen to Shafiqa’s fame, but a subsequent dancer made it into the movies and didn’t die penniless: Bamba Kashar, nine years younger than Shafiqa, was born in 1860 into a rich and famous ancient family. She danced for kings and sultans. Her paternal grandfather was a sultan; her father a sheik; and her mother the granddaughter of a sultan. At nineteen Bamba developed her own troupe, which performed all over Egypt, and she continued her career through seven marriages. As Bamba’s demand grew, Shafiqa’s waned. When Bamba became the most famous awalim of Egypt, her rule was that no other dancer could compete at any venue she attended.
As Bamba danced with a trayful of money and gold on her head, she was flanked by bodyguards. Her fifth husband bought her a European carriage adorned with her initials in gold. When she rode in it, a group of men cleared the way.
In 1927, Bamba’s movie career was minimal when, at age sixty-seven, she portrayed Leyla’s mother for the silent film Leyla. Two years later she had a bit part in Daughter of the Nile. A year later, in 1930 she died. Though Bamba never starred in a movie, her dramatic life was depicted in one. In 1974 the name Bamba Kashar was emblazoned in neon lights on the marquees of Egyptian theatres.
Zakiyya Husayn Mansur, twenty-five years younger than Bamba Kashar, was born in 1885 in either Alexandria or Zagazig. Orphaned early on, she came under her sister’s care. Zakiyya was educated by French nuns, but frequently missed classes. Due to her odd articulation of literary Arabic words, it was rumored that she was illiterate. Regardless, she sang with so much feeling that her strange accent was overlooked. After she left school, she sang in local night clubs, and changed her name to Munira al-Mahdiyya. By 1905, at twenty, she moved to Cairo, which offered more lucrative opportunities.
Between 1914 and 1916, Munira joined the successful theatre of Aziz Eid. There she learned acting techniques to add to her vocal ability. In 1917, when the renowned Salama Higazi became ill, Munira dressed as a man and sang his role. She later performed the male roles of Romeo and Mark Antony.
Munira made her first recording under the name of Sitt Munira (Lady Munira), and earned the nickname The Sultana as Egypt’s leading singer—the first Egyptian woman to have songs recorded on cylinder discs. Between 1919 and 1922 she performed concerts in other North African countries and in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and Turkey.
Munira developed her own company and had new roles written especially for her, including Arabic adaptations of Tosca, Carmen, and Madame Butterfly. She became Egypt’s first notable female director, and discovered and mentored many great stars, so to join her troupe was an honor.
Munira was an Egyptian patriot—and a powerful one! Her support was instrumental in the Egyptian Revolution of 1919. The British, having occupied Egypt since 1882, had forbidden people to utter the lead resister’s name, Saad Zaghloul. Munira defied them by singing his name along with songs that expressed a yearning for independence, such as “There is an air of freedom in the theatre of Munira al-Mahdiyya.” She was so popular that the English feared a backlash if they silenced her as they had done with some cafés and theaters.
Also an early feminist, Munira was among the first to publicly advocate for women’s rights, and appeared on the cover of the feminist magazine Al-Hessan. She declared that female artists and musicians should be treated equally in the male-dominated industry of theater and music, and was Egypt’s first songstress to perform onstage without a hijab or veil.
Many fans admired Munira’s eclectic repertoire of songs, and her eager multicultural audiences expanded after she starred in the 1935 film La Coquette. In 1936 she starred in the movie Ghandoura (Spoiled Woman). Over the years, she performed for and was honored by the king of Morocco, the president of Tunisia, and by Kemal Ataturk, the president of Turkey.
In 1926, at age forty-one, Munira won the Award of Excellence in a theatrical singing contest set up by the Ministry of Public Works for the revival of Arabic singing. In 1960, at age seventy-five, she won Egypt’s Medal of Merit First Class, and a year later, she achieved the First Class of the Egyptian National Award of Arts and Sciences.
In 1978, thirteen years after Munira’s fruitful eighty-year life ended, a film about her, Sultana al-Tarab, was released.