Mohamed Abdel Wahab 

Known as "Generations Musician" ..or "Musiqar El-Agial", the one who orchestrated the national 
anthemes of Egypt and United Arab Emirates and lives in the hearts and minds of the Egyptian 
and all Arab people since the beginning of the last century ... 

Born in "Bab El She'eria" ...an old place in Cairo, a young poor thin kid ... totally in love 
with music and singing, started singing for the top hits at this time like Salama Hegazy, Yousef 
El-Manyalawy and Abdo El-Hamooly; Been adopted since a very young age by a very famous Egyptian 
poet Ahmed Shawky, who was famously known as"The Prince of Poets" or "Ameer ElShou'ara'a", 
the one who taught him many things about language and poetry. 

Started out as a singer and he was used to be known as "singer of Kings" as he used to sing to 
Egyptian and Arab kings in this era of history, quit singing and been only composing for the 
famous singers at this time, adopted a new voice who became a legend in the Egyptian singing 
history Abdel Halim Hafez, he came back to singing only with his song "Men Ghair Laih" 1989, 
he didn't make any appearance till the history of his death 4th of May 1991, at the age of 84, 
after composing more than 1800 songs for himself and many other singers.

Addendum:

Mohammed Abdel Wahab was the most prolific Arabic composer of his time, responsible for more than
a thousand songs. He personally sang hundreds. For his orchestration of the Egyptian national 
anthem, Anwar Sadat awarded him the rank of General. Abdel Wahab was born in 1907 in Cairo. He 
made his first recording at the age of 13. In 1924 he was taken under the wing of Ahmed Shawky, 
and then known as the Prince of Poets. 
In 1926, it fell to Abdel Wahab to complete a musical left unfinished by the late Said Darwish, 
a great composer of the previous generation. The musical centered on Anthony and Cleopatra, and 
Abdel Wahab himself played Anthony to great acclaim. After visiting Paris and familiarizing 
himself with French musical presentations, Abdel Wahab invented the Arabic film musical. Of his 
movies "Rossassah Fil Qalb", 1944, with actress Raqiah Ibrahim and "Mamnou'o Elhobb", 1942, with 
singer and actress Raga'a Abdoh.

In the 1950s Abdel Wahab left film and concentrated on his last recordings as a singer, assuming 
a new and more serious musical style. In the 1960s he stopped singing, but he continued composing 
for other singers. It was in 1964 that after years of rivalry at the top of their profession 
Omm Kulthoum released a record of his "Enta Omry" written for her to a text by the poet Ahmad 
Shafeeq Galal. 
Perhaps partly because of its timing-- coinciding with the flowering of Nasserism-- the recording 
became Egypt's all-time best-seller. 
For many years Abdel Wahab appeared very little in public, but his popularity never faded. 
In 1988, at the age of 81, he made a surprise return to the studio, singing a new composition, 
and despite lyrics that seemed unacceptably iconoclastic to some radicals; the disk sold two 
million copies.  The song was written for Abdel Ahalim Hafez who passed away in 1977 and perhaps 
because of this destiny dictated to Abdel Wahab to sing it. [From Anthony Coussa, a personal 
friend of Abdel Wahab who is still in NY, USA, February 7, 2005]

URL for Abdel Wahab is:

http://www.AbdelWahab.com  which links to
http://perth.mit.edu/saad/abdelwahab/