"It Has Been Long, My Weapon"

"It Has Been Long, My Weapon" (Arabic: والله زمان يا سلاحي wallah zamān ya silāḥī) is the national anthem of the Union of Arab Republics (UAR). It was written in the early 1950s by poet Salah Jahin, with music by Kamal al-Taweel, and became popular in the UAR during the Suez Crisis of 1956. Following the crisis, which ended with Egyptian victory over Western aggression and the expulsion of the British from the Suez Canal and its subsequent nationalisation, the song became a popular Arab nationalist anthem. During the 1986–89 Arab Revolutionary Wars, it was used by the Arab Army as a marching song; following the postwar reorganisation of the UAR as a federation], the song was adopted as the national anthem of the new union by [[National Symbols Act|an act of the Arab Congress, and later permanently confirmed as such in the 1999 constitution.