Abdulmunim Shakir: A Pan-Arab Political Activist and Educator Declares “I Am a Muslim” on a rare 78 RPM Record
Abdulmunim Shakir: A Pan-Arab Political Activist and Educator Declares “I Am a Muslim” on a rare 78 RPM Record Abdulmunim Shakir c. 1958. Courtesy iof Richard M. Breaux Collection. Few 78 rpm records have intrigued us as much as Dr. Abdulmunim Shakir’s “I Am a Muslim,” backed by “Related Passages from the Holy Quran." Released on a custom label in 1956, it reads for “Exclusive Domestic and Foreign Distribution of Record Through Copyright holder.” Most singers and musicians we’ve written about at Midwest Mahjar traced their ancestry to the so-called Levant but a few like Hana Rached and Mohammed el-Akkad trace their roots to North and northeast Africa. Abdulmunim Ahmed Shakir or Abdelmoneum Shaker was born to Ahmed Shakir and Nema Shadi on 19 May 1914 (some documents say 1924) in Atbara, Sudan, at the time under Anglo-Egyptian Condominium rule. Ahmed Shakir reportedly served as a brigadier general in the Egyptian military under King Fuad I. In reality, however, Great Britain m...