Inside Abdel Halim Hafez's Zamalek Apartment

Iconic Egyptian singer and actor Abdel Halim Hafez requested that his family preserve his apartment exactly as he left it when he died 48 years ago. For generations, they have fulfilled his wish. Now, his family is pushing for the home to be recognised as a UNESCO heritage site. To that end, they've reopened the flat to the public for visits, available five days a week by booking through their Facebook page. So we decided to go on a private tour of our own, where we met with Abdel Halim Hafez’s grand nephew, Nour El-Shennawy. On the balcony overlooking Zamalek’s Aquarium Grotto Garden, El-Shennawy pointed to the tree tops below. “Abdel Halim used to have breakfast here on the balcony," he told us. On some days, people would climb the trees, screaming: "'Abdel Halim, we love you and we want to take photos with you!'” Despite these occasional interruptions, breakfast on the balcony was where Abdel Halim Hafez most often found moments of peace in his whirlwind of a career - one that produced over 200 songs and 16 films before his death at 47 years old. He suffered for years from bilharzia, a parasitic disease that he contracted as a child. In his bedroom, a stain on the headboard serves as a reminder of his fatal sickness. There, Abdel Halim Hafez used to rest his head to avoid bleeding while he slept. A bedside cart holds his original telephone and radio, matching a photo of him on his night stand with eerie precision.  Millions of people attended the singer’s funeral, rivalling if not surpassing the attendance of President Gamal Abdel Nasser and Umm Kulthum’s memorials. Crowds were so large that it was said that people fainted and died in stampedes. Some claim that a few young women even took their lives out of grief.  Abdel Halim Hafez has remained a cultural icon, his following clear from the number of adoring notes written on the walls outside of his apartment door. Amongst them, Amr Diab and Tamer Hosny had written their names. The CairoScene crew had to add our own signatures on the way out.