Shams ad-Din Turan-Shah ibn Ayyub al-Malik al-Mu'azzam Shams ad-Dawla Fakhr ad-Din known simply as Turan-Shah (Arabic: توران شاه بن أيوب‎) (d. June 27, 1180) was the Ayyubid prince (emir) of Yemen (1174-1180), Baalbek (1179), Damascus (1176-1179) and finally Alexandria where he died in 1180. He is noted for strengthening the position of his younger brother, Saladin, in Egypt and playing the leading role in the Ayyubid conquests of both Nubia and Yemen. Like many of the Ayyubids, little is known of his early life before his arrival in Egypt.

Nur ad-Din Zangi, the Sultan of Syria at the time, allowed Turan-Shah to join Saladin in Egypt where he was vizier to the Fatimid caliph in 1171 when tensions between Nur al-Din and Saladin were rising. Nur al-Din empowered Turan-Shah to supervise Saladin, hoping to provoke dissension between the brothers. However, this attempt failed as Turan-Shah was immediately granted an immense amount of lands by Saladin who was in the process of reforming the power structure of the Fatimid state around him and his relatives. The iqta' or "fief" given to Turan-Shah composed of the major cities of Qus and Aswan in Upper Egypt as well as the Red Sea port of Aidab. Turan-Shah was the main force behind the deposition of a revolt staged in 1171 by the Black African garrisons of the Fatimid army in 1171.

Asha Bhosle (born September 8, 1933) is an Indian singer. She is best-known as a playback singer in Hindi cinema, although she has a wider repertoire. Bhosle's career started in 1943 and has spanned over six decades. She has done playback singing for over a thousand Bollywood movies. In addition, she has recorded several private albums and participated in numerous solo concerts in India and abroad. Bhosle is the sister of playback singer Lata Mangeshkar.

Renowned for her voice range and often credited for her versatility, Bhosle's work includes film music, pop, ghazals, bhajans, traditional Indian classical music, folk songs, qawwalis, and Rabindra Sangeets. Apart from Hindi, she has sung in over 20 Indian and foreign languages. In 2006, Asha Bhosle stated that she had sung over 12,000 songs, a figure repeated by several other sources. The World Records Academy, an international organization which certifies world records, recognised her as the "Most Recorded Artist" in the world, in September 2009. In 2011 she was officially acknowledged by the Guinness Book of World Records as the most recorded artist in music history. The Government of India honoured her with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2000 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2008.

Shamshad Begum (born April 14, 1919) is an Indian singer who was one of the first playback singers in the Hindi film industry.

Begum was born in Amritsar, Punjab. She was a big fan of K.L. Saigal and watched Devdas 14 times. She earned 15 rupees per song and was awarded 5,000 on the completion of the contract on Xenophone, a renowned music recording company.

Sometime back, a controversy erupted in the media, when several publications gave the false news of her death, before it was clarified that the Shamshad Begum who died in 1998 was Saira Banu's (Dilip Kumar's wife) grandmother with the same name. The singer has been living with her daughter Usha Ratra and son-in-law in Mumbai, ever since her husband Ganpat Lal Batto died in 1955. Recently, she celebrated her 89th birthday at her elder sister's house and now she stays at - Hiranandani Gardens, Powai, Mumbai She was conferred the Padma Bhushan in 2009.

Begum made her debut on radio on Peshawar Radio in Lahore on December 16, 1947, captivating the hearts of her listeners with the enchanting depth of her voice. Shamshad was very much conscious of her not so beautiful face and she never posed for any pictures and not many people saw her pictures anywhere. Until the end of the 1970s, nobody knew her face at all, though everybody could recognise her melodious voice as it was used by the great maestros like Naushad Ali and O. P. Nayyar. Even today, her songs from the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s are popular and continue to be remixed by music directors.

Talat Mahmood (Urdu: طلعت محمود) (February 24, 1924 – May 9, 1998) was a popular Indian playback singer and film actor. A recipient of the Padma Bhushan in 1992, he had a unique style of singing. He was famous for singing ghazals. He is considered to be one of the best Bollywood singers.

Talat Mahmood was born in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, to Manzoor Mahmood. Talat showed his musical leanings from a very young age and would enjoy sitting through all-night music soirees listening patiently to some of the biggest names in classical Indian music then.

Coming from a conservative Muslim background, singing was not encouraged. Talat had to choose between working in films and staying at home. Despite his parental objection he opted for the former, though his family accepted the fact only about a decade later when he gained respect in the industry.

Talat apprenticed classical music under Pandit S.C.R. Bhat at Morris Music College some time in the 30s. He started his career purely as a ghazal singer in 1939. Talat Mahmood began his singing career at the age of 16 in 1939 when he began singing the Ghazals of Daag, Mir, Jigar etc. on All India Radio, Lucknow. His voice had a quality distinct from all the other singers. HMV was quick to notice this and offered Talat his first disc in 1941 Sab din ek samaan nahin tha, Bun jaoon ga kya se kya main, Iska to kuch dhyan nahin tha.