Omm Kolthoum's Death
The End Draws Near
Omm
Kolthoum's health problems worsened as she aged. Her serious kidney troubles
obliged her cancel four concerts in the years 1971 and 1972. During her fist
concert in the following season in December 1972, she felt faint during the
program but she refused to cancel the rest of the concert and sang it all
despite of her sickness. Unfortunately, it was her last. Her failing health did
not allow her to do any more concerts although she always planned to. Even her
later song "Hakam Alayna El-Hawa" was recorded with difficulty but
never performed for a live audience.
During her last illness,
crowds gathered round her house and later reporters from all over the Arab world
awaited any news about her at the hospital. Newspapers published daily bulletins
on her health.
Dying of heart failure on 3rd
February 1975, her funeral was even bigger than that of President Abd
El-Nasser's .
Her funeral was delayed for two days 
because of the huge number of mourners who
planned to come from outside Egypt to attend the funeral. Mourners, literally,
filled the
streets of Cairo. They took the body from the official bearers and carried it
themselves in turn.
A quarter of a century
has passed but yet the legend still lives. The legend of a simple villager from
a poor religious family who was able to carve her name in history, to secure her
place in the hearts of millions, to give pleasure to thousands, to gather
families around the radio awaiting her concert on the first Thursday of every
month, to have manners as wonderful as a voice, to become the "Lady of the
Arab Song", " The Star of the East" and " The Voice and Face
of Egypt" and more than that to become the beloved Omm Kolthoum.
