Fahd Ballan (; 22 March 1933 – 24 December 1997) was a
Syrian
Syrians () are the majority inhabitants of Syria, indigenous to the Levant, most of whom have Arabic, especially its Levantine and Mesopotamian dialects, as a mother tongue. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend ...
singer
and actor, known for performing "Mountain songs" ().
Fahd Ballan traveled to
Egypt
Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
and worked with
Farid al-Atrash
Farid al-Atrash (; October 19, 1910 – December 26, 1974), also spelled Farid El-Atrache, was a Syrian-Egyptian singer, oudist, composer, and actor. Although born in Syria, he immigrated to Egypt at the age of nine with his mother and siblings, ...
. He married actress
Mariam Fakhr Eddine
Mariam Mohamed Fakhr Eddine (, 8 September 1933 – 3 November 2014) was an Egyptian film and television actress, and was the second wife of prominent filmmaker Mahmoud Zulfikar (1914 – 1970). She was nicknamed the "Belle of the Screen" (). Be ...
and had an acting career. Most of his songs are performed in a
Hourani dialect typical of Southern Syria and Northern
Jordan
Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...
. In addition to his songs in the Hourani dialect, he has also sung in the Egyptian dialect as well as in Classical Arabic.
Early life
Fahd Ballan was born in 1933 in the village of
Al-Kafr in
Suwayda, Syria to a
Druze
The Druze ( ; , ' or ', , '), who Endonym and exonym, call themselves al-Muwaḥḥidūn (), are an Arabs, Arab Eastern esotericism, esoteric Religious denomination, religious group from West Asia who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic ...
family. His father, “Hamoud bin Ahmed Ballan,” farmer turned gendarme, had an affinity for music and was skilled at playing the
rebab
''Rebab'' (, ''rabāba'', variously spelled ''rebap'', ''rubob'', ''rebeb'', ''rababa'', ''rabeba'', ''robab'', ''rubab'', ''rebob'', etc) is the name of several related string instruments that independently spread via Islamic trading rout ...
instrument, which he taught to Ballan.
His parents divorced when he was around 10 years old.
In the 1950s, he sang in weddings and festivals in Suwayda.
Beginnings in Damascus
He moved to Damascus in the late 1950s to work in the Syrian Radio choir. In 1958, he sang his first song ''Ya batal al-ahrar'' ("O Hero of the Free") composed by Suhail Arafa in celebration of the
unification of Syria and Egypt.
In the early sixties, Ballan began a collaboration with artist Shaker Barikhan after the two met while working at Aleppo Radio. Barikhan would go on to compose for Ballan numerous songs including Aah Ya Gleby ("Oh, my heart"), a duetto with singer Sahar.
He collaborated with Syrian composer Abdel Fattah Sukkar, a collaboration which produced his most successful work, notably ''Washrah laha'' ("And Explain to Her") and ''Larkab Haddak Yal Motor'' ("I'll Ride Next to The Engine").
See also
*
List of Druze
References
Bibliography
Zuhur, Sherifa (2000) ''Asmahan's secrets: woman, war and song'', University of Texas Press
1933 births
1997 deaths
Syrian Druze people
20th-century Syrian male singers
People from as-Suwayda
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