After working in Cairo for the Egyptian national railways, he changed direction and began to study music at the Cairo University, and later continued his studies at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. He also studied in Ibrahim Shafiq's Institute of Music and the King Fouad Institute for Middle Eastern Music, and traveled in Egypt on a government grant, collecting folksongs. El Din played the oud, an Arabic instrument that had replaced the Nubian tanbūra lyre, as well as traditional percussion, and accompanied his compositions singing both in local Arabic and his native Nobiin language..