The instructor, however, was not impressed with Farid’s inability to express feelings, despite his nice voice, and advised him to cry so that the listeners would feel the pain expressed in the chants. At his insistence, he was permitted to train with the school’s Christian choir. In the midst of this economically difficult life, Farid’s musical interest grew as he listened to his mother sing and play the oud at home. kusa, Arabic for zucchini, was the odd choice of names that brought Farid ridicule in the new school in Egypt, a French school, ironically, which waived the tuition of the “poor child.” Leaving her husband and wealth behind, the princess disguised herself and her children by taking a fake family name. Her fears were compounded when Farid almost died in a drowning accident in Beirut while playing with another child on a small boat, provoking his mother to lock him indoors when he was not in school.ĭue to the potential of French reprisal against his family, the Durze leader was compelled to send his family seeking refuge in Egypt. Princess Alia had lost two of her five children to disease at a young age and became highly concerned about the safety of the surviving ones. The Atrash children were raised under the watchful eyes of their parents, who moved frequently between the major cities of the Levant in their political struggle against the French. Farid and his sister Amal, along with their brother Fou’ad, belonged to the religious minority clan of their parents, Princess Alia and Prince Fahd al-Atrash. The leading family that spearheaded the rebellion against the French in Syria’s Druze Mountain after World War I was a family that produced two of the most renowned Arab artists of this century. By Sami Asmar (Published with his permission) – Reference website: