Ismael Ahmed, Aliya Ogdie Hassen, and the Little-Known Story of the Cairo Record Company and the Middle East Record & Film Company

Elie Younes, "Take Me With You in Your Car," #151. Courtesy of Richard M. Breaux collection. 
https://youtu.be/gS_NWD6eR7E

My intention to write this post began in a wholly different place than it ended. I bought a Nour al-Hoda 78  record on the Middle East Record Co. label back in December 2020 as a part of a package deal. The seller listed and offered a lot of three 78s, two by Hanan on a different label and one by Nour al-Hoda. I had previously written about Hanan, had the fortune of meeting her sister in 2018, and continue to listen to Hanan’s music. Because I rarely sell discs(I often trade), I never gave the Middle East Record Co. disc much thought, so it went into my general record stash until a month later. I searched online databases, including Discogs, with hopes of finding something about the Middle East Record Co. label; I came up empty handed. 

Via Brooklyn’s Caravan newspaper, an Arab American periodical published from 1952-1961, I found one mention of the Middle East Record Company. A person named Ismael Ahmed in Detroit, Michigan, owned it in 1956. There was nothing else to go on but within a few days, I came across mention of an unnamed record store in Detroit’s Greektown neighborhood that sold Egyptian music. Information for the former ACCESS Executive Director and the Associate Provost for Integrated Learning and Community Partnerships at the University of Michigan-Dearborn appeared in my results. His name was also Ismael Ahmed. He often went by Ish Ahmed.

Was it possible that this Ish Ahmed and the record label owner, Ismael Ahmed, were one and the same or connected in some way? Turns out…they were connected. 

In 2021, I quickly and excitedly sent an email off to Mr. Ish Ahmed. I waited and waited but received no reply. After exhausting a few more channels, I moved on to write dozens more blog posts profiling scores of Arab American musicians and Arab American record sellers and label owners. I found bits and pieces of information about the Middle East Record Company and its label but recently the story became even more complicated. Here's what I learned.

Cairo Record Company and Middle East Record Company owner Ismael Ahmed immigrated to the United States around 1924 or 1928 at age 10 as an undocumented child arrival. This was either the same year, or four years after, Congress passed the Johnson-Reed Act limiting the number of Syrian and Lebanese immigrants to the United States to 100 per year. The quota for Egyptian emigrants to the United States, too, was 100 per year.

Immigration restrictions made coming and going more difficult for documented and undocumented families, but commercial ships enjoyed more leeway docking and departing at US ports than passenger vessels. This meant merchant marines enjoyed a fluidity of travel vacationers, tourists, and immigrants did not. Besides, much of the nation’s attention remained on unemployment, disastrous economic conditions, and the depression. Those expressing nativist sentiments witnessed Mexican nationals and even many Mexican Americans being rounded up with the implementation of repatriation policies. Focus on Mexican nationals did not mean that Lebanese and Syrian immigrants did not attract attention from immigration officials. Historians Chris Graitien and Sam Dolbee’s Ottoman History Podcast episode on “Syrians in Sioux Falls” demonstrates that people from Greater Syria, including Hassan Nasser, routinely faced deportation in the 1930s.

The relationship between United States immigration policy, war, veterans and the merchant marines is a complicated one going back to the War of 1812, however by the time the United States entered World War II several pieces of legislation including 1942 Second War Powers Act, the 1942 Statute 58 State 885, and the 1950 Lodge Act expedited naturalization, eliminated fees, residency, and lawful entry requirements for non-citizens who served in any branch of the armed services and the merchant marines meant that approximately 100,000 non-citizens received naturalized US citizenship as a result of their labor and service in World War II. Ismael Ahmed likely benefited from this although his future business partner Mohamed Moneim did not.

Historical records pick up Ismael Ahmed on 30 June 1940 on the Greek-operated S.S. Constantinos Louloudis. He signed on to be a seaman as Ismael Ahmed Abdulla, a 26 year old Egyptian boarding at the Port of New York. He was one of four replacing three previous workers who died or were hospitalized as merchant marines and another who deserted. To be sure, one quarter of merchants died or were killed while on the job. The S.S. Constantinos Louloudis soon sailed for Yokohama, Japan. 

On September 14, 1946, Ismael Ahmed married twenty-year old, Detroit-born Amelia Ann Kadoura. Amina Amelia Kadoura was the daughter of divorced parents Nigabe Kadoura and Aliya Ogdie. Later in life, Aliya Ogdie Hassen gained well-deserved recognition as an Arab American muslim feminist, organizer, activist, and intellectual.  According to historian Thomas Simsarian Dolan, Aliya Ogdie Hassen and her new husband Ali Hassen protested Britain's occupation of Egypt and Sudan and its refusal to withdraw troops from the Suez Canal Zone at the United Nations building in Manhattan in 1947.  As one of the protest’s organizers, the New York Times took note of Aliya’s visibility. The Hassens also co-founded the Egyptian Arab American’s Seaman’s Society in 1948 as an educational advocacy organization for Eastern Muslim religious and labor rights. The Hassen’s Court Street Apartment also became a regular meeting, discussion, and organizing space for Muslim students enrolled at Columbia; it’s likely here or through one of the above mentioned groups that Aliya and Ali met Abdulmonim Shakir. A film, music, and performing arts  lover, Aliya appeared in The Tragedy of Palestine at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for an American Middle East Relief Benefit.

By August 1949, Ismael Ahmed, Mohamed Monem, and Aliya Ogdie Hassen partnered up to establish the Cairo Record Company and Cairo Film Company at 240 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. In the first year, the business used 203 Clinton for an address. This was also the Ahmed’s residence. The companies imported Egyptian movies and records and screened movies at theaters in Arab American communities around the country. Ismael served as company president, Mohamed as vice president, and Aliya as business manager. The company’s trademark logo was “a composite picture of the Sphinx and the Statue of Liberty.” It imported movies like “Ward Shah” and “The Woman is a Devil.”  The company both imported records and recorded Arab American singers and musicians including Elias Younes and Abdel Hai Youssef. Music included atabah, rumbas, and tangos. The Cairo Film and Record Company screened movies as far away as Jacksonville, Florida, and hoped to entertain and inform the approximately 1000 Egyptians and 60,000 Arabic speakers in Brooklyn. We don’t know if the Company ever printed a catalogue but they printed advertisement in Mirrat Al-Gharb (Mirror of the West) and As-Sameer (The Entertainer) in 1950 and 1951.

Elie Younes, "I Sing for You Love," #154. Courtesy of Richard M. Breaux collection.
https://youtu.be/c-la5Pzcz1w

1950 Ad for Cario Records Co. & Cairo Film Co. Mirrat Al-Gharb
24 July 1950 Courtesy of Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC.

Beyond our collection, the only other Cairo Records disc we're aware of is cataloged on the Internet Archive. The actual disc is housed in a collection at Bowling Green State University approximately twenty-six miles from Toledo, Ohio. There are likely others dispersed among 78 rpm record collectors.

Like Ahmed and Aliya’s new husband Ali, Mohamed Monem had been a merchant mariner.  Mohamed Abdel Monem was born January 15, 1912 in Egypt. He had been employed as a merchant mariner for thirteen years and was supposed to remain in New York for twenty-nine days, as was customary for crew from Europe, Africa, or Asia. Like many during World War II, he parlayed his visit and years of service into a path toward United States citizenship. He, too, was a member of the Egyptian Arab American Seaman Society and co-founded Cairo Film Company and Cairo Record Company. We don’t know much about Mohamed but he continued working on commercial vessels while holding his position as company vice president and became a naturalized citizen on 26 July 1954. He died in February 1967.

Elie Younes, "Ashar Mahaki," #152. Courtesy of Richard M. Breaux collection.
https://youtu.be/5KeCA0iLADk

Elie Younes, "I Have Something to Explain," #153. Courtesy of Richard M. Breaux collection.
https://youtu.be/x-46Zj8p1r0

Ismael, Amelia, and their two children Ismael [Ish] and Ali remained in Brooklyn until about 1953, then set out for Detroit and Dearborn. By this time, competition by rival record and film businesses had cut into Cairo Film and Record Company’s customer base. There was, of course, Alamphon Records which started in lower Manhattan and moved to 123 Court Street. A few doors down and across the street was George N. Gorayeb and his Arabphon and Sunset Film Company which had moved from Third Avenue to 100 Court Street to 155 Court Street. Rashid Sales, owned by Albert Rashid, relocated from Detroit to 32 E. 28th Street in Manhattan and 191 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. Hussein Aly and Hafez A. Rahim operated the Middle East Film Corporation from 116 Cleveland Street in Orange, New Jersey. Also in 1953, the Middle East Film Corporation closed and sold its inventory to Albert Rashid. Leaving their closest family in New York, the Ahmeds headed off for Detroit where Ismael had his sights on creating a similar film and record distribution company there. He’d call it the Middle East Record & Film Company.

.

Ad for Ismael Ahmed's Middle East Record & Film Co. at 532 Monroe Ave in Detroit's Greektown. 1955 Nahdat al-Arab. Courtesy of Emily Dumsta, PhD. 

The Motor City symbolized new beginnings for Ismael but Detroit is where Amelia had been born. Lebanese and Syrian Americans celebrated long histories in Dearborn’s Southend and Highland Park had been home to one of the nation’s first purposefully built mosques in 1921. Saint Maron Maronite took shape by 1916 and immigrants established Our Lady of Redemption Melkite Church by 1924. Chaldeans settled and grew to a sizable part of the Arabic-speaking   populations in the metropolitan area. By 1950, the Detroit metropolitan had 40,000 to 50,000 Syrian and Lebanese residens. Ismael opened his record and film shop at 532 Monroe Street in the heart of the city’s Greektown between Beaubien and St. Antoine in 1954. Other businesses on the same street at the time included the Athens Book and Music Store at 520 Monroe, Stemma Confectionary at 514 Monroe, Omeros Cafe at 573 Monroe, the Likon Cafe at 569 Monroe, and Delmar’s Market at 501 Monroe. In Detroit, like in Brooklyn, Arabs, Armenians, Greeks, and Mizrahi Jews musicians played in the same groups and frequented each other's night clubs and businesses.

Nour el-Hoda "Baladi Wiblaro," on Middle East Record Co. Courtesy of Richard M. Breaux.

On Detroit’s southwest side, in one of its Latino enclaves, Ismael operated a small china shop and at 532 Monroe the Middle East Record & Film Company specializing in Egyptian and Syrian music and film. From either, one might hear Ismael playing the music of Umm Kulthum or Mohammed Abdel Wahab so loudly the sound poured out onto the streets.  Although Ismael hoped to make his fortune via Egyptian film distribution,  movie screening, and record sales, the enterprise proved to be unsuccessful. On rare occasion, a 78 rpm Middle East Record Company label or 78 rpm record sleeve resurfaces among collectors but few people bothered to pursue the history of the company or its owner. 

Ismael Ahmed's rubber stamp reads "The Best Assortment of Records in the Americas. Middle East Record Co. Lebanese, Syrian, a & Egyptian, 532 Monroe Ave., Detroit MI. Tel"

When torrential storms in December 1955 caused flooding which destroyed over 60 homes, 500 businesses, and left over 120 people dead and over 2000 homeless in Tripoli, Lebanon, Arab Detroit responded with a charity concert and film screening. Film proceeds went to flood victims. Featured musicians at the event included Fadwa Abeid, Jalil Azzouz, Sana and Amer Kadaj, Naif Agby, John Fayad, and George and Clovis Berberi. Ismael Ahmed also donated use of the film “Camelia”. 

For the time of its existence, Middle East Record & Film Company, Ismael and his children witnessed a slew of Arab and Arab American record stars visit the store. Amer and Sana Kadaj, Jalil Azzouz, Lila Stephan, and Toufic Barham all stopped by, as did radio personalities Joe and Josphine Faddol. The Faddols transitioned from singers to radio disc jockeys. They hosted Middle East Melodies Hour from 1949 to 1981.

Upon closing his Middle East Record & Film Company, Ahmed worked at a Detroit movie theater showing American films.  We’re not certain but we believe he may have worked at either the Rio Theater at 7714 Vernor or the Stratford Theater 4751 W Vernor and Dix. 

After approximately twelve years of marriage and a failed record and film distribution company, the elder Ismael packed up his belongings and returned to New York circa 1963. Once back in the city, Ahmed set up a clothing store  in the Arcade near New York City’s Chinatown. 

Aliya Ogdie Hassen remained in New York when her daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren moved to Detroit in 1954. There she worked as a private detective, became a member of the Federation of Islamic Associations in the United States and Canada, travelled to Egypt and met Gamal Abdel Nassar. Following an incident when she was initially turned away from a Nation of Islam event in New York, an intervention by Malcolm X led to a friendship between Malcom and Betty Shabazz and Aliya Hassen. Sources suggest Hassen served as one of Malcolm and Betty’s international contacts and facilitator of Malcolm and Betty’s respective Hajjs in 1964 and 1965. Aliya emerged as a prolific and dynamic feminist writer educating readers about Islam and the complexities of Muslim cultures in the United States and globally. Meanwhile, Detroit metro was fast becoming the US city with the largest concentration of Muslims of Arab descent in the country. In 1972, Aliya Ogdie Hassen returned to Detroit.

Aliya Ogdie Hassen. Courtesy of the Arab American National Museum Collection. Dearborn, MI. With Permission. 

While some sources count Aliya Ogdie Hassen among the founding members of Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS), other sources note Hassen’s arrival one year after the organization’s founding. Whatever the case, Hassen contributed significantly to the growth and expansion of ACCESS. She served on the organization’s board of directors for several years and worked as the group’s treasurer for a portion of that time. She died in 1990 but not before seeing her grandson, Ish, serve as Executive Director.

In the Motor City, Ish Ahmed, one of Ismael’s and Amelia’s sons, and one of Aliya’s grandsons, became one of several volunteers to found ACCESS. He worked in a Ford plant and joined the United Auto Workers Union while. earning a degree from the University of Michigan-Dearborn. As a young adult, Ish attended the 1979 Rock Against Racism movement concert series which stopped in Detroit. ACCESS hired him as its executive director in 1983. A seasoned and well-connected labor and community activist, Ish became a founding member of the Arab American National Museum in 2005 and he later held the position of Director of the Michigan Department of Human Services from 2007-2011 under Governor Jennifer Granholm.

Some Midwest Mahjar readers may be curious to know that in 1993, Ish combined his passion for Arabic music, Motown, and international music, with community organizing and launched the Concert of Colors Festival. This became a way for Ish to use music to bring the people of Detroit's metropolitan area together. Over time, the festival expanded from a one day to a three-day event in 2001 then to a nine-day festival in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to Concert of Colors,  Ish also hosted a radio program called This Island Earth for Wayne State University’s WDET for over twenty years. Most recently, in 2022, US President Joseph R. Biden appointed Ish to the National Council of the Arts. This honor recognized Ish’s dedication to creating and building community through the arts.

Sadly, while we were completing this profile, Ish Ahmed died Saturday, January 31, 2026. Friends, family, and dignitaries held a Celebration of Life in his honor on Sunday, February 8, 2026 at Dearborn's Ford Community & Performing Arts Center.

Photo of Ish Ahmed DJing. Courtesy of Ismael Ahmed.

Special thanks to Emily Dumsta, Edward E. Curtis IV, Sally Howell, and Thomas Simsarian Dolan.

Richard M. Breaux

© Midwest Mahjar