Unknown Past: Layla Murad, The Jewish-Muslim Star of Egypt by Hanan Hammad (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Unknown Past: Layla Murad, The Jewish-Muslim Star of Egypt by Hanan Hammad Chelsie May Hanan Hammad. Unknown Past: Layla Murad, The Jewish-Muslim Star of Egypt. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2022. 328 pp. Hanan Hammad’s Unknown Past: Layla Murad, The Jewish-Muslim Star of Egypt delicately theorizes that to examine the sensational actress-singer by way of an isolated identity factor, such as Jewishness, is to merely isolate her further. Murad (1918–1995) appeared in roughly twenty-seven films and was declared the “Cinderella of Egyptian Cinema” in the mid-twentieth century when Egyptian cinema was approaching its zenith as a dominant cultural force locally and in other Arabic-speaking countries. For the biographer, her life is a story with numerous possible opening scenes. Amplifying Murad as a renowned woman in Egyptian society is one potential starting point. A focus on her success as an actress-singer from a Jewish family in the modern Middle East is yet another. However, attempting to reveal something about Murad as primarily a woman or primarily a Jew denies the lessons born of intersectionality. Hammad insists, “Layla Murad’s case demonstrates the importance of using the concept of intersectionality, developed by queer and feminist theorists to discuss the experiences of American minority women, to study women in Egypt and beyond” (230). Indeed, [End Page 489] the intersectionality of Black feminists would make visible Murad’s structural identity—power structures that capriciously made her at times famous, infamous, and invisible. The case of Murad’s celebrated life is the subject of this meticulously curated biography by Hammad, a social and cultural historian of the modern Middle East. Since Murad lived such a rich life, there is irony that she could be isolated once more by those eager to understand her. Hammad draws attention to the extent she was rendered separate, variously, on the grounds of being a girl, woman, Jew, actress, wife, convert, and single mother, all of which was perpetuated by patriarchal family and society structures, the entertainment industry, gossip, the Egyptian state, body image standards, the Free Officers, Zionist propaganda, and intimate partners. Murad was often reduced to something singular, a trap that arguably produced many of the curiosities and rumors that characterized her long public-facing life. Taking Murad’s “scandals” as seriously as she takes a set of primary sources that are often dismissed—celebrity gossip/entertainment print media—Hammad unspools an empathetic and complex treatment of the entertainer and woman that need not reify her, but also never leaves her languishing as an enigma. The intricate and sensitive assessments of Murad that Hammad returns to at the close of each chapter are intriguing conclusions that should be left for readers to experience. In these chapters, Murad comes of age, gains notoriety, marries, becomes a mother, asserts herself as an artist, navigates a challenging life with aplomb, passes away and is canonized, and serves as a bellwether of how Egyptian society could treat a woman whose privileges did not dissuade her detractors. Murad, as Egyptian and Arab history’s “most important singing actress,” theoretically had the repertoire to elude her sundry unrelenting rumors (36). Their shadow, however, proved inescapable. Did Murad come from humble or calculated beginnings? Why, in 1945, did she convert while marrying Anwar Wagdi shortly after starring in his film Layla, Daughter of the Poor, and how committed was she to Islam? What is the multifaceted story behind her affair with Free Officer Wagih Abaza (which began in 1952), a partnership that, with all of its layers, led to an unplanned child and years (perhaps forcibly) spent away from the limelight? In a thorough yet readable and organized biographical account, Hammad provides context, interpretation, and answers to these burning questions. With a careful touch, Murad’s image remains sensational but never sensationalized. Grasping the ruinous effects innuendo had on Murad’s life, Hammad unflinchingly treats the fabricated spark that engulfed Murad’s life and career—the erroneous accusation by the Syrian government that she donated money to Israel in the early 1950s, which led to her blacklisting in Syria. Not only did this lie prove unquenchable—it was inflamed. While only stoked by...