The words to “Qassaman” were written in 1956 in Serkaji-Barberousse Prison in Algiers, where the author Moufdi Zakaria was incarcerated by the French colonial forces. The poem was put into music, first by Mohamed Triki in 1956, then by the Egyptian composer Mohamed Fawzi and became the national anthem upon independence on July 5th, 1962. The anti-French sentiments of the third verse result in this verse occasionally being left out of performances, however the verse remains an official part of the text.