In an article written by the great artist Farid al-Atrash for the Egyptian magazine Al-Kawakeb, he mourned his sister Asmahan, who passed away in a car accident.
Farid al-Atrash said in his article:
My sister and I lived through years of misery and deprivation after we left our homeland in the Druze Mountains and came to Egypt with my mother, my brother Fouad, and my sister Amal, whose name was later changed to Asmahan.
Asmahan's childhood did not suggest that she would become a singer. She was a lover of Umm Kulthum's voice from a young age, to the point that she would sit for hours next to the phonograph listening to the poems of Umm Kulthum and other singers.
No one ever thought that Asmahan had a beautiful voice until one day, when an Egyptian family friend living in Helwan invited us for lunch. There, we listened to a record of Umm Kulthum's song (In Kuntu Asameh wa Ansa al-Assiya), and we were surprised by Asmahan singing the song in her rich voice... so much so that our host recorded the song in Asmahan's voice to play it again.
That was when we realized Asmahan had a beautiful voice, and subsequently, a conflict erupted in our family regarding traditions, which ended with Asmahan working as a singer, with the support of my mother and strong opposition from my brother Fouad, who saw singing as a disgrace for a former princess.
Asmahan was generous to the point of madness; her generosity caused her many crises to the point that she would give a beggar five Egyptian pounds in a single bill. She possessed a great deal of tenderness and compassion for the poor, so everyone loved her. However, she loved life and tried to live every minute of it after the life of deprivation we had lived.
As for Asmahan the singer, she adored music and singing and insisted on working as a singer regardless of the effort and family wars it cost her. The reason for this was that she had a delicate artistic sense and a strong ability to grasp a melody after hearing it once. The most wonderful of her characteristics as a singer—and I am speaking of her as a composer—is that she sang with feeling; she felt everything she said deeply and sincerely, and every drop of blood in her veins trembled with her emotions... That is why Asmahan was a singer the likes of whom time will never produce.
It is worth noting that Asmahan passed away on July 14, 1944, in an accident when her car fell into the Al-Sahel canal during her trip from Cairo to spend the weekend in the city of Ras El Bar in northern Egypt. She died instantly, writing a mysterious end for an artist with an angelic voice at the age of 32, and the beginning of a storm of rumors surrounding the accident of her death.
