Wallah Zaman, Ya Silahi

The story

"Wallah Zaman, Ya Silahi" was first a nationalist song, written by Salah Jahin, set by Kamal Al Taweel and sung by Umm Kulthum during the Suez Crisis of 1956, known in Egypt and the Arab world as the Tripartite Aggression, when Egypt was invaded by the United Kingdom, France and Israel. Its words evoke national resistance, and during the war Egyptian radio played it often, at times every ten minutes.

Its popularity made it the national anthem of the United Arab Republic, the union of Egypt and Syria, in 1960, two years after the union was founded. It replaced the anthems adopted after the Egyptian revolution of 1952 and the end of the monarchy: the former royal anthem "Salam Afandina", composed by Giuseppe Pugioli, and "Nashid al-Huriyya", composed and sung by Mohammed Abdel Wahab, as well as Syria's former anthem. The union broke up in 1961, but Egypt kept the name United Arab Republic until 1971 and the anthem until 1979; the Arabic article ties its official use to the years of Gamal Abdel Nasser. Iraq used it as its national anthem from 1963 to 1981, without words from 1965, and the Arabic article adds that Libya used it from 1969 to 1977. The words are usually sung in Egyptian Arabic rather than Modern Standard Arabic.

In 1979, during the peace negotiations with Israel, President Anwar Sadat replaced it with the less militant "Bilady, Bilady, Bilady", which remains Egypt's national anthem.

What it says

A patriotic war song of national resistance, written for Egypt under invasion; martial and stirring.

The words

The words of this song are still in copyright, so they are not printed here. “What it says” above gives their theme in our own words, and the performance below lets you hear them.