The Fanus Lanterns of Ramadan: Folklore and Tradition

Cairo Fawanis Sellers, Early 20th Century

The rapid descent of the region into the lower circles of hell makes it easy to neglect the  social and cultural and historical mission we claim for this blog. I'm particularly remiss this year in Ramadan posts, a third of the way into the holy month.

The Fanus, (also Fanous or Fanoos, Arabic plural fawanis:   
فوانيس, فانوس رمضان ), while primarily Egyptian in its origins, has spread beyond the Valley of the Nile: it is a Ramadan lantern, usually lit by a candle, modeled loosely on a mosque lamp and used to light streets, mosques, balconies and homes during Ramadan.

The word itself is clearly from Greek phanos (φανός, a torch or lantern), perhaps directly or via Coptic which has many loan words from Greek.

Modern Fawanis

Inexpensive and cheaply-made fawanis are often made from scrap metal, and as a 2011 AP story noted, the traditional trade is dying in Egypt, replaced by an influx of Chinese copies:

As a symbol, the fanoos is somewhat similar to a Christmas tree or a menorah. It is hung on balconies during Ramadan and takes the center of dinner tables when families gather to break-fast together.

The history of the fanoos in Egypt stretches back to the Fatimid Empire, which ruled large swaths of the Muslim world from Cairo starting in the 10th century. But, after nearly a century, the future of the Egyptian fanoos is under threat.

Less than a dozen fanoos makers remain in Cairo, as cheap Chinese imports and decades of government corruption have made plying their trade nearly impossible.

“Our great-grandfathers did this work, but our kids won’t,” said Rida Ashour, who stopped making the fanoos about 10 years ago.

Also see this 2009 Al-Ahram Weekly  story, "Lights of Faith."

Mention of the fanus also gives me an excellent reason to refer to my own post from Ramadan 2012: "'Wahawi ya Wahawi Eyaha': Is it an Ancient Egyptian Chant?" This is a traditional chant sung while lighting the fanus lamps at sundown during Ramadan. As my post notes, traditions says this is an Ancient Egyptian chant, and it has no clear meaning in Arabic. In Ancient Egyptian snd Coptic it may mean something like "Welcome, Moon." "Eyaha" is suggestive: iah is "moon" in Coptic, which could be relevant to Ramadan, obviously, though older traditions associate it with the Pharaoh Ahmose ("born of the Moon").(And note the knowledgeable comment on the original post.)

It's interesting that the earlier quote on Fawanis attributes the modern tradition to the early Fatimids, though of course Ancient Egyptians had lanterns,while my link on Wahawi ya Wahawi also attributes the chant to the Fatimid era, despite suggesting Ancient Egyptian origin. Regular readers may recall that many folk etymologies of the ubiquitous Egyptian term أحا (aḥa, a7a), widely considered profane though no one knows why, also attribute its etymology (for various incompatible reasons) to the Fatimids. What is it about the Fatimids that attracts so much folkloric accreditation?

Yes, of course, they founded Cairo (the walled city with its current name), but Fustat and other town were already there. Why is Egypt's only Shi‘ite dynasty credited with so much folkloric tradition?

At times I wish The Middle East Journal wasn't devoted just to the post 1945 Middle East, but it is. Why are the Fatimids so popular as a folk origin for customs ranging from religious rites to profanity  (if أحا  is even profane)?  Comments and suggestions are welcome.

But if you haven't read my 2013 post you may have no idea what Wahawi ya Wahawi Eyaha sounds like. Here it is, from a modern song, embedded in Arabic: Wahawi is accented on the first syllable Unlikely in Arabic) .Eyaha tends to sound like Eyoha.:

 

An Expanded Version of an Older Christmas Post: The Coptic Folk Stories of the Flight Into Egypt

Since 2009, I have annually noted the rich Coptic traditions of the Holy Family's flight into Egypt, which expands the couple of verses in the Gospel of Matthew, by offering a detailed story of a three-year sojourn and visits up and down the Nile. This year I've added a map and some pictures, and fixed a few errors. As always, despite the obvious apocryphal nature of these tales, I intend to respect the charm of the stories while noting some of the improbabilities. My revised and illustrated version:

Since we're in between Western Christmas and Eastern Christmas, I thought it might be a useful time to call to your attention the extremely detailed traditions Egypt's Copts maintain about the Holy Family and the Flight into Egypt. There is hardly a Christian church in Egypt — and there are some mosques, too, since Jesus and Mary are highly venerated in Islam — that doesn't claim that Jesus, Mary and Joseph dropped by for a while. They must have been constantly on the move to have covered so much ground, but you can't build up a good pilgrimage trade if you don't stop frequently.

Now, the Flight into Egypt gets only a couple of verses in the Bible and is only mentioned in one Gospel, Matthew, (Matthew 2, 13-14 and 19) so the extremely detailed accounts of the Coptic stories have more to do with pious elaboration — or pilgrimage tourism — than history, but the stories can be quite charming. Some are based on an apocryphal Armenian infancy gospel, some on local traditions, etc. The Coptic traditions hold that the Holy Family spent three years in Egypt.

I am shamelessly cribbing this from Chapter XXXI of the late Otto Meinardus' Christian Egypt Ancient and Modern, (Cairo: AUC Press, 1965; Revised Edition 1977). Meinardus was a major figure in Coptic studies; German-born, he wrote mostly in English or French, taught at the American University in Cairo, and was an ordained Lutheran pastor. (Judge for yourself what Martin Luther would have thought of some of these stories.) He died in 2005. But I have to condense all the details considerably; his chapter runs over 40 pages. There's also a detailed online site, with pictures (text approved personally by Coptic Pope Shenouda, they say), for those interested. And tours are available;this site also offers a travelogue.

It seems the Holy Family traveled with a midwife named Salome who isn't mentioned in the Gospel but plays a role in the Coptic stories. Instead of heading straight to Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod, they seem to have zigzagged to the Plain of Jericho, then Ashkelon, then Hebron (at least according to the various churches and monasteries situated in those places), then proceeded to enter Egypt via the Land of Goshen, en route to the town of Bilbays. Along the way they had an encounter with a dragon in a cave, and were approached by wild lions, but of course they all bowed down to the Baby Jesus. At Bilbays they rested under a large tree, which was venerated in the Middle Ages by both Muslims and Christians as the Virgin's Tree, which stood until 1850. Then they headed to Samannud, where there is a church on the site of a well blessed by Jesus. (Early Christian apocryphal infancy Gospels, as well as the Qur'an, have Jesus talking while still in the cradle.) Then they detoured northward to the Mediterranean coast at Burollos, stopping there according to the monks of the place. Then, perhaps at Basus or Sakha in Gharbiyya (Meinardus speculates on the place), Jesus left his footprint on a stone.

Needless to say, they could not ignore the Wadi Natrun, the Coptic version of Mount Athos, where the four great monasteries of the Desert Fathers still stand (but of course didn't then as Christianity hadn't been founded yet), though why they were wandering in the desert instead of the delta in those days isn't explained. Passing by from a distance, Jesus said to his mother, "Know O my Mother, that in this desert there shall live many monks, ascetes and spiritual fighters, and they shall serve God like angels." (Apparently Mary would have known what a "monk" was, though it's hard to know why.) Anyway, you can ask the monks if you doubt any of this.

Even though Cairo wasn't there yet, you know Cairo isn't going to let all these other towns have a claim and not find some of its own, don't you? First they went to On, the ancient Heliopolis, not on the site of the modern suburb of that name but on the site of Matariyya. There Jesus took Joseph's staff, dug a well, and planted the staff, which grew into a tree which became a goal of pilgrimage and was venerated by Muslims as well as Christians. (The Qur'an has a story of Mary resting under a palm tree, and this and the Matariyya tree became conflated in later folklore. The Matariyya tree is a sycamore.) The present tree, still venerated,  is alleged to be grown from the shoot of an older tree:

The Virgin's Tree, Matariyya

Harat Zuwaila Church of the Virgin

From there, the Holy Family went to a site where, centuries later, the Harat Zuwaila quarter of Cairo would rise; the Church of the Virgin there is one of the oldest in Cairo proper, and the convent has a well blessed by Jesus.

(If you're wondering why I haven't mentioned their stop in the Fortress of Babylon, in a church many tourists visit today, it's because they stopped there only after their tour of Upper Egypt. Trust me, it's coming.)

Next they went to Ma‘adi, today an elite southern suburb of Cairo, and attended a synagogue. Joseph got to know some Nile boatmen, who offered to take them to Upper Egypt. (You're wondering how an exiled carpenter and family fleeing from King Herod can afford all this Grand Tour? Don't be so cynical: the legend has it covered: using the gold, frankincense and myrrh brought by the Magi.)

I'm going to condense a bit here since every Church of St. Mary up the Nile seems to mark a site where the boat stopped and they visited a well or a palm tree. But since Upper Egypt remains one of the more Christian parts of the country, they couldn't skip such Christian centers as Sammalout, Asyut, al-‘Ashnmunein, or the great monastery known as Deir al-Muharraq.

One of the legendary sub-stories here deserves telling, though. Up near al-‘Ashmunein, two brigands who had been pursuing the Holy Family since Matariyya (must be the gold, frankincense and myrrh again) tried to rob them. They grabbed Jesus and Mary cried, and one of the robbers repented, and they left them. And — as any folklorist should have figured out by now — these were the same two thieves, including the same Good Thief, who would be crucified alongside Jesus! How could it be otherwise?

Deir al-Muharraq Today

The constant travels were finally relieved when the Holy Family were taken in by a devout Jew and lived for six months (and ten days: I told you the stories are detailed) at the site of the Monastery of Deir al-Muharraq, south of al-Qusiya. The monks of the monastery say it was the first monastery in Egypt, built just after the arrival of Saint Mark as the Apostle of Egypt. If you doubt that, take it up with the monks, not me. Or with the monks at St. Anthony's in the Eastern Desert, which is usually seen as the earliest.)

Abu Sarga Church Crypt

Then the angel came to Joseph and told him it was safe to go back to Palestine. (That part actually is in the Gospel of Matthew, unlike everything else in this post.) They stopped at pretty much every Coptic village that would ever have a Church of the Virgin on their way back down the Nile, and feeling they had not yet done enough for future Cairo tourism, they stopped inside the Roman fortress known as Babylon and, perhaps having run out of gold and frankincense, stayed in a cave that is today the crypt of the church of Saint Sergius (Abu Sarga), conveniently adjacent to the Coptic Museum and included on many Cairo tours.

I hope I don't sound too cynical here: the stories are charming and are clearly a pious attempt to elaborate on a brief reference in the Gospel in order to make the Christian link to Egypt more tangible to believers. On the other hand, the sense that every Church of Saint Mary in Egypt actually sheltered the Virgin and Child seems a bit credulous.

I hope my Coptic friends recognize that I am helping spread knowledge of your tradition, even if I may not accept every detail as historically attested. I'd really like to know more about that dragon.

Two Tomb Discoveries (Maybe?) of Famous People

Some grave matters to discuss this morning: not all that serious, mind you, but involving tombs. Neither of these stories is as clear-cut as one might like, but both involve possible discoveries of the graves of people who are, in some circles at least, famous names. Even if both are wishful thinking, it seems to me worth noting.

Nasreddin Hodja

First, Nasreddin Hodja.  A rather brief article under "Archaeology" in the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet Daily News' website tells us, in its frustratingly brief entirety:

A stone coffin that was removed from an old graveyard many years ago in the central Anatolian province of Eskişehir’s Sivrihisar district during a construction and kept in the library of the Ulu Mosque since then was identified as the coffin of Nasreddin Hodja, a sufi believed to have lived in the 13th century.

Anadolu University Professor Erol Altınsapan said it was a big discovery for the Turkish world.

“We removed the bones of his daughter of Fatma Hatun, in 2003 from a graveyard in Sivrihisar and delivered them to a museum. An area 50 meters away from this grave was reorganized by the municipality years ago and this coffin was uncovered. Examinations showed that the coffin belonged to Nasreddin Hodja,” Altınsapan said. He said Akşehir was known as the birth and death place of Nasreddin Hodja but from now on Sivrihisar should be recorded as the place where he was born and died.

There are a lot of questions here: how was it identified? (Also, when? Apparently after 2003 but when exactly?) One question no Turk, and no one from the larger Turkic world would need to ask, though, is who Nasreddin Hodja (modern Turkish Nasreddin Hoja) was. The real 13th century Sufi whose bones may have been discovered long ago morphed into a folklore hero of the first order, a "wise fool" figure whose seemingly comical actions conceal wisdom or teach lessons. He has become both a vehicle for Sufi teaching and comical folktales from Turkey through Iran and up into Central Asia, and is sometimes considered the origin of the similar "wise fool" figure of Arab folklore, Juha (Joha, Goha). The latter is not normally portrayed as a Sufi, but the tales are similar.

It's like finding the grave of, I don't know, Robin Hood or somebody. I wish the article were a bit moire detailed.

La Rendicion de Granada: Boabdil (left), Ferdinand and Isabella

Second, "Boabdil." Sultan Muhammad XII of Granada, last of the Nasrid rulers of Granada and the last Muslim sovereign in aL-Andalus, was known as Abu ‘Abdullah, and is known in the Spanish-speaking tradition as "Boabdil." (Spaniards also know him as El Chico.) He surrendered his throne and his sultanate to Ferdinand and Isabella on January 2, 1492 at Granada, marking the completion of the Spanish reconquista and freeing up Ferdinand and Isabella's funds to sink a little venture capital in a visionary Genoese sailor's exploration later that year. (Some say Columbus was present at the surrender.)

As the ruler who marked the end of 482 years of Muslim rule in Spain, "Boabdil" has been usually seen as a tragic figure in both the Spanish and Muslim traditions. He crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and lived out his days in exile as a guest of the Marinid Sultan of Morocco. Though some think he died in Tetuan, there is a stronger tradition that he lived until 1533 and died in Fez. Now, as this article in Spain's El Pais notes (article in Spanish), archaeologist Francisco Etxeberria thinks he's found the tomb: in an area outside one of the gates of Fez. He's awaiting permission to dig, so this story, too, has a lot of loose ends.