Umm Kulthum
Umm Kulthum's exact date of birth is not known. According to birth records of the Daqahliyaa Province, it is thought to be on 4 May 1904, . She had a sister and a brother. Her sister was named Sayyida. She was ten years older than Umm. Her brother was named Khalid. He was one year older than Umm. Umm Kulthum came from a very humble background. Her mother, Fatma al-maliji, took care of the children and the house. Her father - Al-Shaykh Ibrahim Al-Sayyid Al-Baltaji- was a local Imam in the village of Tammay al-Zahayra. When she was five years old, her father sent her to a religious school - al-Kuttab- to learn to recite the Qur'an. Umm Kalthoum's father Al-Baltaji, used to sing religious songs in weddings and ceremonies - such as the Prophet's birth and the Islamic New Year-  in neighboring villages as a way of generating income. Commemorating such events by reciting the Qur'an was part and parcel of the peasant society where Umm Kulthum grew in. To listen to a good Qur'anic chanter was "one of the few means at the "fallah's" (peasant) disposal which was not censored, punished, taxed or confiscated, unlike everything else he owned". Al-Baltaji, first discovered Umm Kulthum's voice when she recited the songs he taught to his son Khalid. Afterwards, Umm Kulthum started tagging along her father's trips and became part of the ensemble. In the beginning, and due to the conservative society where they were living, her father dressed her up like a boy while preforming together on stage. However, her father was compelled to accept the idea of his daughter singing in front of an audience because the family needed the money. Umm Kulthum recounted: "at first, I was like a parrot. What my father sang, I sang" and shortly after became known as "the little girl with the powerful voice". The daughter of the Egyptian village "bint il-rif" moved with her family to Cairo in the 1920's in pursuit of a better life. With their move to Cairo, they noticed that religious songs were not cherished as before while nightclubs and cabarets were becoming more and more popular. Umm Kulthum noted: "when I first came to Cairo, religious songs had declined in popularity. British soldiers crowded the nightclubs that grew up to accommodate them. ... Singers held a low-esteem but the most famous ones had great influence even with members of the Government".