Fairuz Songs and Biography: The Voice of Lebanon

In much of the Middle East, the day starts with Fairuz. For decades, radio stations across the Arab world have opened their morning programs with her voice, and the habit has spread to kitchens, taxis and shops across the region. She is one of the most celebrated living singers in the Arab world, and her work with the Rahbani family turned Lebanese song into something new: short, melodic, poetic and modern, yet rooted in the maqam.

This guide to Fairuz's songs and life covers where she came from, the Rahbani brothers, her best songs, the maqams behind her music, and why Kurdish listeners search for her too.

Quick facts

• Birth name: Nouhad Wadie Haddad
• Born: November 1934 or 1935 (sources differ), Beirut, Lebanon
• Status: alive as of 2026; lives in Lebanon
• Stage name: Fairuz, Arabic for "turquoise"
• Genre: Lebanese and Arabic song, musical theatre, sacred hymns
• Husband: composer Assi Rahbani (married 1955; he died in 1986)
• Children: Ziad (1956–2025), Hali (1958–2026), Layal (1960–1988), Rima (born 1965)
• Known for: her work with the Rahbani brothers, the Baalbeck festival, "Wahdon", "Li Beirut", "Zahrat al-Mada'en"

Early life

Fairuz was born Nouhad Haddad into a modest family in Beirut. Her father, Wadie Haddad, was an Assyrian (Syriac) Christian born in Mardin, in today's southeastern Turkey, who fled the Sayfo, the mass killings of Assyrians during the First World War. Her mother, Lisa al-Boustani, came from Mount Lebanon.

As a schoolgirl she sang in the school choir. In 1950 the musician Mohammed Flayfel heard her at a school performance and helped bring her to the Lebanese national radio. There its head, Halim el Roumi, hired her as a chorus singer and gave her the stage name Fairuz.

Career

Meeting the Rahbani brothers

At the radio station Fairuz met the brothers Assi and Mansour Rahbani, composers and poets who wanted to create a new kind of Lebanese song. Their partnership with her became one of the most important in 20th-century Arabic music. Her early hit "Itab" (1952) made her name. In January 1955 she married Assi Rahbani.

The Rahbani style was different from the long Egyptian songs of Umm Kulthum. Their songs were short and compact. They mixed Levantine folk tunes and dance rhythms such as the dabke with Arabic maqams, Western orchestration and harmony, and even Latin and European melodies.

Baalbeck and the musical theatre

In the summer of 1957, Fairuz first performed at the Baalbeck International Festival, among the ancient Roman temples in the Bekaa valley. Baalbeck became the stage for the Rahbani "Lebanese nights", and later for large musical plays. The Rahbani brothers produced 25 musical plays over more than 30 years, 20 of them with Fairuz, and she also starred in films such as Biya' al-Khawatem (1964), Safar Barlik (1967) and Bint al-Haress (1968).

In 1967 she first sang "Zahrat al-Mada'en" ("The Flower of Cities"), written by the poet Said Akl and composed by the Rahbani brothers as a response to the loss of East Jerusalem that year. It remains one of the best-known songs about Jerusalem.

The civil war years

When civil war broke out in Lebanon in 1975, Fairuz never left the country to live abroad. According to Wikipedia, she gave no concerts in Lebanon during the war apart from one operetta performance in 1978, which helped her remain a figure that Lebanese on all sides could share. She did perform abroad, and her songs about Lebanon, above all "Li Beirut", became a source of comfort across the political divide.

Her husband Assi suffered a brain haemorrhage in September 1972. Surgery saved his life, but his health never fully recovered. He died in Beirut in June 1986. From the late 1970s her son Ziad Rahbani became her main composer, bringing jazz and a more personal, ironic voice into her music. His albums with her include Wahdon (1979) and Kifak Inta (1991).

Later years

Fairuz continued to record and perform into the 2000s and 2010s, but she has always been extremely private. In 1998 French president Jacques Chirac awarded her the Légion d'honneur, and in August 2020, after the Beirut port explosion, French president Emmanuel Macron visited her at home.

Recent years have been painful. Her daughter Layal died in 1988. Her son Ziad died in Beirut on 26 July 2025, at 69, and she made a rare public appearance at his funeral. Her son Hali, who had lived with severe disabilities all his life under her care, died in January 2026 at 68.

Signature works

• "Zahrat al-Mada'en" (1967): the Jerusalem song, by Said Akl and the Rahbani brothers.
• "Aatini al-Nay": set to a poem from Khalil Gibran's The Procession, first sung at the end of the 1960s.
• "Wahdon" (1979): by Ziad Rahbani and Talal Haidar, a haunting song about absence and loss.
• "Li Beirut": an adaptation by Ziad Rahbani of the Adagio from Joaquín Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, with lyrics by Joseph Harb, recorded in the mid-1980s.
• The Rahbani musical plays: two decades of Lebanese musical theatre built around her voice.

Fairuz's best songs

1. Wahdon ("On Their Own")
2. Li Beirut ("To Beirut")
3. Zahrat al-Mada'en ("Flower of Cities")
4. Aatini al-Nay ("Give Me the Ney")
5. Nassam Alayna el Hawa ("The Breeze Blew Upon Us")
6. Kifak Inta ("How Are You?")
7. Shadi
8. Habaytak bi Sayf ("I Loved You in Summer")
9. Bint el Shalabiya
10. Itab (her early hit, 1952)

For the famous morning habit, try "Nassam Alayna el Hawa" or "Habaytak bi Sayf" with your first coffee.

The maqam behind the songs

Fairuz's songs sound light and simple, but they are built on the same modal system that shapes Kurdish, Turkish and Persian music: the maqam. Rahbani songs move between maqams such as Bayati, Hijaz and Kurd, the mode that carries the Kurdish name, often coloured by Western harmony that the older tradition did not use.

This is where her voice shines. She rarely shows off. She places each note clearly, respects the character of the mode and lets the melody breathe. For a singer learning maqam, listening to how Fairuz handles the neutral "half-flat" notes of Bayati is a lesson in itself. If maqams are new to you, read our beginner's guide, what is a maqam?.

Legacy

Fairuz, together with the Rahbani family, created a musical picture of Lebanon: its mountain villages, its seasons, its longing and its pride. For many Lebanese of every religion and region, her voice is the country itself.

Her influence also goes far beyond Lebanon. With sales often estimated at over 150 million records and around 1,500 songs recorded, she is among the most popular singers the Arab world has produced. She is often mentioned alongside Umm Kulthum, whose long Cairo concerts belonged to the night, while Fairuz's short songs belonged to the morning.

The Kurdish connection

Fairuz is not Kurdish, and we found no evidence that she sang in Kurdish. The connections that can be verified are these:

• Kurdish listeners search for her. In our research, Sorani Google autocomplete for her name included کوردی (Kurdish) and گۆرانی (songs). Sorani-speaking listeners are clearly looking for her songs in a Kurdish context. Autocomplete also suggested صباح (morning), which matches the morning-listening habit described above.
• Mardin. Her father was born in Mardin, a city whose population has for centuries included Kurds, Arabs, Assyrians and Armenians. He was Assyrian, not Kurdish, and we make no claim beyond the shared homeland.
• Shared modes and instruments. Her songs use the same maqams Kurdish musicians play every day, and the instruments of the Rahbani orchestra include the oud and the ney, both central to Kurdish ensembles. The song "Aatini al-Nay" is even named after the ney.
• Music as shelter in war. Like Kurdish singers who kept singing through bans and exile, Fairuz became a symbol of shared identity during war. Our article on music and revolutionary movements looks at that power of song.

Where to start listening

1. "Wahdon". The song people search for most, and Ziad Rahbani at his best.
2. "Li Beirut". If you know the Concierto de Aranjuez, you will hear it transformed.
3. "Zahrat al-Mada'en". The Rahbani brothers' big orchestral style.
4. "Aatini al-Nay". Gibran's poetry and the sound of the ney.
5. A morning playlist. "Nassam Alayna el Hawa", "Habaytak bi Sayf" and "Shadi", with coffee, the way millions listen to her.

Sources

• Fairuz – Wikipedia
• Zahrat al-Mada'en – Wikipedia
• Ziad Rahbani, pioneering Lebanese musician and composer, dies at 69 – Al Jazeera
• Fairuz's youngest son Hali dies months after brother Ziad – The National
• Fairuz's second son, Hali, dies at age 68 – L'Orient Today
• The tragic tale behind Fairuz's hit song Wahdon – Scene Noise
• Good Morning Fairuz – Arab America

Fairuz's songs live in the maqam. Explore the modes on our maqam Bayati page, meet the oud, or try a Kurdish melody in the same spirit from our free sheet music.