Source: National Archives & Historic Records of Lebanon
Music • Historical Archive • 🇱🇧 Lebanon • 0 views

Zaki Nassif 🇱🇧

زكي ناصيف (Known as "Nassif")
Pioneering Modern Folk Composer, Vocalist, Ethnomusicologist
Born 4 July 1916 🇱🇧 Mashghara, Lebanon
Passed Away 11 March 2004 Beirut, Lebanon
Lifespan 87 years old
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"Our folk songs are not simple tunes; they are the bedrock of our identity, carved from the soil and watered by the sun."

Archival Overview

Foundational pioneer of modern Lebanese music whose iconic folk compositions, including 'Raji Yit'ammar Lubnan', became national anthems of hope.

Biographical Record

Zaki Nassif was born in Mashghara in the western Bekaa Valley and studied music at the American University of Beirut. In the early 1950s, he co-founded the League of Five (Usbat al-Khamsah) with the Rahbani Brothers and Halim El Roumi, dedicated to creating an authentic modern Lebanese musical aesthetic rooted in village dabke rhythms and folk melodies.

Nassif composed hundreds of enduring classics for himself, Wadih El Safi, and Fairuz, including 'Ya Ashiqata al-Wardi' and 'Ahwak'. During the darkest years of the Lebanese Civil War, his defiant composition 'Raji Yit'ammar Lubnan' (Lebanon Will Be Rebuilt) became an unofficial national anthem of hope, resilience, and reconstruction.

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Final Resting Place

Perpetual Memorial
Mashghara Municipal Cemetery
Mashghara, Lebanon
GPS: 33.5200, 35.6500
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