With dreamy vocals evoking images of hills and homeland, the star and her husband together wove a new and more romantic version of Lebanon in the years before the civil war that feels very distant now
Fairuz turns 90 today, with close insiders confirming her birth date as 20 November 1934 (contrary to the frequently mistaken claim of 21 November 1934). Exact dates aside, no-one has bestowed upon Lebanon a more radiant, tender, or exalted image since the early 1950s.
Through her extraordinary voice, she touched the hearts of generations of Lebanese and Arabs, sharing them with the rest of the world, echoing the essence of ancient temple hymns. In the early 1960s, she sang of Lebanon: “In your name, I sang / In your name, I will sing / I knelt and prayed / And the heavens heard me (...) / Here, the sky is near / It listens to us, my beloved.”
With the softened dialect of Mount Lebanon’s villagers and imbued with the romantic nostalgia of a bygone era, she sang with a devotional tone. “Lead me to its beautiful hills / To the homeland that nurtured us / Let me lose myself amidst the vineyards and fig trees / Lay me upon the soil of our village / The ancient gates beckon me / And the rivers' whispers call the absent back home.”
These were prayerful pleas to return to a lost paradise of translucent hues, sung in a voice reverently honouring something now gone that can never return and perhaps never truly existed. This paradise is Lebanese nationalism.
Rural nationalism
The Lebanon that Fairuz sang of exists as a purely artistic and expressive metaphor, one conjured by her and her husband of three decades, Assi Rahbani. She said she dedicated her “voice, life, and death to its glory”.
Its creation reflects the social and cultural transformations tracing back to the latter half of the 19th century in Mount Lebanon and, later, Beirut. Emerging from a rural and Christian heritage, they laid the foundation for the establishment of the ‘Greater Lebanon’ state in 1920.
With the softened dialect of Mount Lebanon's villagers and imbued with the romantic nostalgia of a bygone era, she sang with a devotional tone
The birth of this state, with Beirut as its capital, occurred within a framework of interaction between the city and Mount Lebanon, prompting a new wave of communication, exchange, relationships, emotions, and expressions. Paths began crossing, and coincidences began shaping destinies as groups and individuals from diverse origins and environments mixed, among them Rahbani and Fairuz, who met at Radio Beirut in the early 1950s.
In these interconnected circles, a rural Mount Lebanese nationalism was born, one rooted in Christian and Maronite heritage, memory, and sentiment, sharing similarities with the geographic and civilisational nature of Syrian nationalism.
Leaving then yearning
From the culture of these two national identities and nationalisms emerged what is known as Lebanese expatriate literature, most prominently embodied by Gibran Khalil Gibran. Said Akl, the Rahbani brothers, and Michel Trad employed the vernacular of Mount Lebanon as the medium for 'Fairuzian' artistic and poetic metaphors.
After their social and material detachment from the land, having left their rural homes, abandoned their agrarian lifestyles and embraced migration, education, professions, and industry, they articulated Lebanese nationalism morally, romantically, emotionally, sentimentally, and linguistically.
This revered rural life and the bonds with the land, urged against its abandonment, and upheld it as the ultimate sanctuary and steadfast national refuge. Lebanese folkloric art celebrated the ancestral homeland and its rural essence, extolling attachment to it and nurturing nostalgia for it.
It shaped the language and art of many modern Lebanese writers, poets, and painters, brimming with enchantment, reverence, and even worship of the homeland, portraying nature and the rural lifestyle as the essence of Lebanese national sentiment. Over time, this became imbued with quasi-religious and mystical undertones, with intense outpourings.
An area is dedicated to the Lebanese singer Fairuz, as part of the 'Divas' exhibition at the Arab World Institute (IMA)in Paris on August 19, 2021.
Fairuzian Lebanon
Fairuzian-Rahbani Lebanese nationalism became infused with emotions, sentiments, and sensitivities that resonated deeply with Lebanese and Arabs alike and far surpassed the cold and formal nationalism of the state as represented by institutions, national anthems, flags, Independence Day events, and Lebanon's governance framework that defines coexistence among its sectarian communities.
This formal nationalism is largely rhetorical and devoid of fervour or passion, although the Maronites are fonder, given that they see themselves as the state's founders. In contrast, 'Fairuzian' Lebanon inspires passion in all, for nature and a rural innocence, evoking the clarity and tranquillity of an idyllic countryside life.
With Fairuz now turning 90, the allure of her Lebanon—as seen on social media and popular culture—is still evident, yet it is also tinged with pain as current events take a toll on communities and the land she sang about. Indeed, the pain of today no longer feels unique.
Since 1975, Lebanon has become synonymous with tragedies. The term 'Lebanonisation' has even been coined to describe societies enduring war, political paralysis, social breakdown, and economic devastation. Lebanon has continued to fragment; a shattered humanity lost in the open. Yet the turbulence and fragility since its establishment in 1920 does not diminish the romantic allure of Fairuzian Lebanon in the imagination of the people, both in Lebanon and abroad.
A star is born
Its evocation came from Fairuz's voice, which Assi Rahbani and his brother Mansour trained. They refined her tone and defined her expressive range, carefully shaping her stardom. In this, Assi played a bigger role than Mansour.
Born Nihad Haddad into a Maronite family, she was a shy and modest girl, both socially and economically. Her father was born on the Syrian-Turkish border and came to Lebanon to flee genocide. Her mother was from Mount Lebanon, and the family moved to Beirut, where a well-known composer picked out Nihad from a school performance.
At age 16, he offered her a place at the Lebanese Conservatory, a prestigious higher educational establishment for music, which trained her in poetic form and intonation. In an audition, the head of Lebanese radio, Halim El Roumi, heard her voice, hired her as a chorus singer, and gave her the name Fairuz (Arabic for 'turquoise').
Fairuz and Assi Rahbani in1955.
It was while working in radio that she met Assi, a composer, musician, song-writer, author, and dramatist. He composed her first song, Itab (Blame). Her slow transformation into a star was guided by his ethics, values, ambitions, and vision. He first made her a radio singing star, then propelled her to fame in folkloric theatre festivals across Lebanon, the Arab world, and beyond.
When she began appearing in films, this cemented her iconic status. She was able to convey a "longing steeped in innocence" imbued with mystical enchantment. Amidst the chaos and turbulence, it gave listeners solace and comfort.
Evolving and adapting
One reason for her distinction was that she distanced herself from the dominant musical tastes of the Levant of the 1950s, namely the 'Egyptian' and 'Bedouin' styles. Instead, Fairuz and Rahbani sought to draw upon the moral and aesthetic values of Lebanon's civilised countryside, rooting their works deeply in Lebanese identity.
The country's imminent collapse into civil war coincided with personal catastrophe. In 1973, Assi suffered a major stroke that profoundly affected his senses, memory, and artistic sensibilities. Eventually, he and Fairuz separated.
The crafting of a 'Fairuzian Lebanon' and the transformation of the modest and shy Nihad Haddad in some ways mirrors the transformation of Lebanese society, with changing lifestyles, values, fashions, modes of expression, and gender dynamics.
Fairuzian Lebanese nationalism became infused with emotions, sentiments, and sensitivities that resonate deeply with Lebanese and Arabs alike
Drawn to Rahbani and Fairuz were the Lebanese intellectuals of the day—including writers, poets, artists, and journalists, particularly those of Palestinian heritage. They supported and guided what they saw as an emerging phenomenon, fascinated with Fairuz's angelic voice, with its dreamy, lunar quality, tinged with sadness that was at once comforting and otherworldly, as shaped by the Rahbani brothers.
At the forefront of this intellectual circle was Said Akl, a poet obsessed with grandeur, heroism, and Lebanon's Phoenician civilisation. He once said he wanted to craft Fairuz's image to resemble that of the Virgin Mary.
Feminising Lebanon
Poet and writer Unsi Al-Hajj was another huge admirer of Fairuz during the 1960s, writing about her in An-Nahar newspaper titled I Love Her with Terror. Many others penned verses about her and her voice, which helped shape her image as an icon. In turn, this helped feminise Lebanon. Despite being grammatically masculine, some Arab countries—notably Egypt—began personifying Lebanon as feminine.
The Lebanese Christian community, led by the powerful Kataeb (Phalange) Party, adopted an anti-Muslim slogan in the early years of the civil wars—'Love it (Lebanon) or leave it'. Its founder, Pierre Gemayel, also adopted a mantra reflecting traditional cultural views of women: "Lebanon is strong in its weakness." This implicitly appealed to Arab states to spare fragile and vulnerable Lebanon from being dragged into their struggles and wars with Israel.
The image of Fairuzian Lebanon is that of a homeland marked by fragility and beauty, as captured in one of her songs: "Lebanon, oh green beauty on the hills / A tale of the heart and longing of the soul." In another, she sings: "We and the moon are neighbours / Its house behind our hills rises / Facing us, it hears the melodies."
This image is always fixed in time, like a magical, enchanting legend revolving around reverence, devotion, and worship. Said Akl helped shape it, writing: "I have a rock suspended in the stars, and I worship it—that is Lebanon." In another, he declares that he is "from a mountain that stands as a conversation between God and the earth". This concludes a poem praising the glory of Damascus, which Fairuz performed in the Syrian capital.
Fairuz performs at the Beiteddine Festival 2002.
Refining traditions
Fairuzian-Rahbani art and music developed and adopted in response to changing tastes and values, techniques and tools, instruments, and composition styles, leading to evolving vocal performances and audiovisuals that mirrored the changes in Lebanon.
Two of the primary social and cultural sources were both overlapping yet distinct. One was the rural, semi-urbanised society of Mount Lebanon. The other was the cosmopolitan, urban society of Beirut, whose elite had been shaped by Western modernisation and culture for decades.
In crafting the art and stardom of Fairuz, the Rahbani brothers helped refine Mount Lebanon's folk traditions, removing the conflict element and transforming its heritage into simple folkloric imagery, evoking the purity and serenity of rural life through the timelessness of Fairuz's voice.
Today, nostalgia for the rural Lebanon of Rahbani metaphor and Fairuzian voice is experienced differently by different generations. To illustrate the point, in a recent Facebook post, one woman wrote of Fairuz saturation: "Dear God, let the war end so we can stop the compulsive listening to Fairuz."
Those who grew up listening to Fairuz are now much older. An elderly Lebanese poet who has remained devoted to her since his youth describes her voice as "a miracle that halts time, like great poetry and great music".
Will it endure? In a Fairuz song from 1972, she asks what remains of the tale, the trees, the streets, the nights. "What remains of the love, the words, the laughter, the tears? Of the people who loved? Of the torment, of the boredom? What remains of the sea, of the summer, of what has passed? Of sadness, of contentment? What remains… what remains… what remains, my love? Tiny stories scattered by the wind."
