Riad Al Sunbati
Egyptian composer and musician
Riad Mohamed El Sunbati (Arabic: رياض محمد السنباطي), also written as Riad Sonbati or Riadh Sonbati (30 November 1906 – 10 September 1981) was a 20th-century Egyptian composer and musician who was considered an icon of Egyptian Music. He composed 539 works for the Egyptian Opera, operettas and Egyptian cinema. He also composed religious music and wrote lyrics for Arab singers, among them Umm Kulthum, Fairouz, Asmahan, Warda Al-Jazairia, Najat Al Saghira, Mounira El Mahdeya, Fayza Ahmed, Saleh Abdel Hai, and Aziza Galal.
Biography
Sunbati was the first born son after eight girls. The family was from Faraskur, Damietta Governorate, Egypt. His father was a singer who performed at mawlids, weddings and religious holidays in the nearby villages and towns. As a youngster, his father caught him playing the oud and singing Sayed Darwish instead of going to school. The father began to take him along as a wedding singer. When the family moved to Mansoura, Dakahlia, Riad was placed in a kuttab school.
When Sunbati was nine he was diagnosed with an eye disease that made it hard for him to read but his talent for music was obvious.
The public source identifies “Riad Al Sunbati” as egyptian composer and musician. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Riad, Sunbati and Egyptian.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2384166. VIAF identifies the subject as 12505172. The Library of Congress control number is n83127385. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1906 and 1981.
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This entry incorporates text from “Riad Al Sunbati” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.