Alirza Quluncu, Voice of America, February 11, 2013
Fatma Ghannadi, the first performer of the famous songs Ayrılıq and Sizə Salam Gətirmişəm, passed away on February 4 at the age of 93. The Azerbaijani musician’s body was laid to rest in Tabriz beside her husband, Ali Salimi, the composer of these songs.
Fatma Khanim was born in 1920 in the city of Tbilisi. Her father, an Azerbaijani Turk from the city of Shabestar in Southern Azerbaijan, had moved to Tbilisi and worked as a confectioner, while her mother was of Armenian descent from Tbilisi.
Her husband, Ali Salimi, composed the song Ayrılıq using the lyrics of Ardabili poet Farhad Ibrahimi, and Fatma Ghannadi performed it for the first time on Tehran Radio in 1958.
In an interview with Piruz Khanli, the song’s composer, the renowned musician and tar player Ali Salimi, spoke about how the song was created:
“I had been searching for suitable lyrics for a long time to compose a song about Ayrılıq (Separation), a theme that brought pain and sorrow to the lives of many Azerbaijanis. For many of us, separation meant being apart from family members, loved ones, relatives, and our native villages and cities beyond the Araz River. At that time, neither the Soviet nor the Shah’s regime allowed us to meet with those on the other side. One day, a young poet named Farhad brought me a poem. At first, I wasn’t very interested, but after reading it, I said, ‘This is exactly what I have been looking for.’”
According to Azerbaijani websites, before being broadcast on the radio, the song was rehearsed with different lyrics:
For years, I have been far from my homeland
A nightingale, fallen from my beloved flower
Forced apart from my sweet language
Separation, separation, cruel separation
Of all sorrows, separation is the worst…
However, since the lyrics were politically sensitive, they were censored and did not pass approval. Therefore, poet Farhad Ibrahimi altered the lyrics, transforming them into the love poem we know today.
In 1963, during Rashid Behbudov’s visit to Tehran, he heard Fatma Ghannadi’s performance of the song and told Ali Salimi that he loved it and wanted to perform it himself. After Rashid Behbudov’s rendition, the song gained immense popularity beyond borders.
Many consider Ayrılıq not only one of the most famous Azerbaijani songs but also one of the most renowned songs in the entire Turkic world.
Over the years, numerous artists have performed Ayrılıq, including Azerbaijani singers such as Fatma Ghannadi, Rashid Behbudov, Flora Karimova, Yaghub Zurufchi, and Javid Tabrizli. Additionally, Iranian singers primarily known for Persian songs, such as Dariush Eghbali, Googoosh (Faegheh Atashin), and Mansour Mamaghani, as well as famous Turkish artists like Barış Manço, Selda Bağcan, Zeki Müren, Emel Sayın, Fatih Kısaparmak, Müslüm Gürses, and others, have also performed it.
Sami Yusuf, a world-famous British singer and musician of Iranian Azerbaijani origin, sang Ayrılıq both in the original Turkish version and in English under the title My Love Azerbaijan.
Another song composed by Ali Salimi and first performed by Fatma Ghannadi, Sizə Salam Gətirmişəm, has also been covered by many singers from Azerbaijan and Turkey.
Fatma Khanim’s husband, Ali Salimi, passed away 16 years ago.
Link to the original text in Turkish on the Azerbaijani section of Voice of America:
“Ayrılıq” mahnısının ilk ifaçısı vəfat edib