Today the people of the Mit Damsees village in Daqahleya begin celebrating moulid of Sheikh Mohamed Abu Bakr el-Seddik and Mar Girgis (Saint George) for five days, after the governor reduced the number of days from eight. The governor is imposing rules, he says, can possibly prevent the spread of H1N1 virus and bird flu, such as banning pork and live birds. Doctors will be available during the celebration.Did you catch it? Yes, the sheikh and Saint George seem to share a mulid. That's actually pretty common in parts of Egypt and North Africa where there are Christian and Muslim communities in the same town: sometimes they each celebrate a saint of their own on the date of the other community's mulid, or Muslims venerate the Christian saint and vice versa. Islamists and Christian hierarchs, of course, don't approve, but then, Islam and Christianity as practiced at the village level find their own ways of accommodating. Think of the Teutonic pagan Christmas trees and mistletoe (or Easter eggs) and you realize that syncretism is an old, old habit.
Showing posts with label mulids. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mulids. Show all posts
Friday, August 21, 2009
The Sheikh and the Saint
An odd little aside here from yet another article about Egypt's controversial ban on mulids, the public celebrations of saints' days, due to swine flu, which I previously blogged about here: the issue is apparently continuing, and this English language report from Al-Masry al-Youm updates the story and, in passing remarks:
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Can Egypt Successfully Ban Mulids Over Swine Flu? We're About to Find Out
An interesting article on the English site of Al-Misry Al-Youm on Egyptian resentment of the government's efforts to cancel the Mulid Sayyida Zaynab, one of the major festivals of the Egyptian year when the Sufi orders celebrate one of the patronesses of Cairo. Not surprisingly people resent the ban on public celebrations, and tonight would be the big night for the mulid. Can fear of the flu stop one of the biggest popular festivals in Egypt? We're about to find out.
Oh, I don't expect the revolution to begin tonight or anything. But when for any reason (even public health) you start cracking down on public celebrations, you're playing with explosive materials. This particular celebration is particularly interesting because it is traditionally one of Cairo's biggest, brings lots of money into a relatively underprivileged neighborhood, and is particularly popular with women. A little background is in order.
I've not commented much on the swine flu controversy in Egypt lately, though it got a lot of coverage from me earlier, collected here; what changed is that swine flu actually reached Egypt, and thus the overreactions were a little less absurd than when there hadn't been a single case in the whole Middle East.
But one of the government's reactions was to ban the traditional mulids, (mawlids in Classical Arabic), the holy days honoring saints (literally "birthdays" because that's usually the date chosen). The mulids are major popular festivals in Egypt, not just in Cairo but in many provincial towns, each of which has its own traditional saint or saints. Cairo has several. The biggest may be Imam al-Shaf‘i, who is buried in the sprawling southern cemetery known as the City of the Dead; there's an irony in that one because Imam al-Shaf‘i, founder of one of the four Sunni legal schools, didn't like the veneration of saints very much. And now he is one.
But alongside Imam al-Shaf‘i, there are several other patron saints of Cairo, among whom are Sayyidna Hussein, the Prophet's Grandson, whose shrine mosque near al-Azhar is also the scene of a major mulid right in the Khan al-Khalili quarter. Along with Hussein (who is mostly buried in Karbala, Iraq, though Cairo claims some part of him, I think his head), there are two other venerated saints usually more venerated by the Shi‘a than the Sunni: Sayyida Zaynab, granddaughter of the Prophet, and Sayyida Nafisa, a later descendant of the Prophet, great-granddaughter of Imam Hasan.
The point here is that Egypt had its Shi‘ite era: when the Isma‘ili dynasty known as the Fatimids ruled the country. During that time veneration of the Prophet's descendants buried in Cairo became very popular, and continued so when Egypt returned to its Sunni roots.
Sayyida Zaynab and Sayyida Nafisa ("sayyida" tends to become "sitt" in colloquial) are also popular saints among women, because they are women, in the Prophet's line.
The Sufi orders — the tariqas — are very influential in Egypt, and they come out in strength during the mulids. An extremely important expression of popular piety, they have been somewhat eclipsed by political Islamists (who tend to be very anti-Sufi), but they are still a major element in pious religious expression at the grass roots.
The link above to the newspaper account notes the resentments about the cancellation and the intentions of some to try to celebrate anyway. It also notes the fact that some people are going to lose money over the cancellations.
I'm not sure this will work. Popular religious piety tends to override government decrees, in Egypt as elsewhere. This is an unpopular move by all accounts. Cancelling Sayyida Zaynab is like the Grinch stealing Christmas.
I don't think there'll be some huge political result, not immediately and perhaps not ever, but it's still something worth flagging, I think.
Oh, I don't expect the revolution to begin tonight or anything. But when for any reason (even public health) you start cracking down on public celebrations, you're playing with explosive materials. This particular celebration is particularly interesting because it is traditionally one of Cairo's biggest, brings lots of money into a relatively underprivileged neighborhood, and is particularly popular with women. A little background is in order.
I've not commented much on the swine flu controversy in Egypt lately, though it got a lot of coverage from me earlier, collected here; what changed is that swine flu actually reached Egypt, and thus the overreactions were a little less absurd than when there hadn't been a single case in the whole Middle East.
But one of the government's reactions was to ban the traditional mulids, (mawlids in Classical Arabic), the holy days honoring saints (literally "birthdays" because that's usually the date chosen). The mulids are major popular festivals in Egypt, not just in Cairo but in many provincial towns, each of which has its own traditional saint or saints. Cairo has several. The biggest may be Imam al-Shaf‘i, who is buried in the sprawling southern cemetery known as the City of the Dead; there's an irony in that one because Imam al-Shaf‘i, founder of one of the four Sunni legal schools, didn't like the veneration of saints very much. And now he is one.
But alongside Imam al-Shaf‘i, there are several other patron saints of Cairo, among whom are Sayyidna Hussein, the Prophet's Grandson, whose shrine mosque near al-Azhar is also the scene of a major mulid right in the Khan al-Khalili quarter. Along with Hussein (who is mostly buried in Karbala, Iraq, though Cairo claims some part of him, I think his head), there are two other venerated saints usually more venerated by the Shi‘a than the Sunni: Sayyida Zaynab, granddaughter of the Prophet, and Sayyida Nafisa, a later descendant of the Prophet, great-granddaughter of Imam Hasan.
The point here is that Egypt had its Shi‘ite era: when the Isma‘ili dynasty known as the Fatimids ruled the country. During that time veneration of the Prophet's descendants buried in Cairo became very popular, and continued so when Egypt returned to its Sunni roots.
Sayyida Zaynab and Sayyida Nafisa ("sayyida" tends to become "sitt" in colloquial) are also popular saints among women, because they are women, in the Prophet's line.
The Sufi orders — the tariqas — are very influential in Egypt, and they come out in strength during the mulids. An extremely important expression of popular piety, they have been somewhat eclipsed by political Islamists (who tend to be very anti-Sufi), but they are still a major element in pious religious expression at the grass roots.
The link above to the newspaper account notes the resentments about the cancellation and the intentions of some to try to celebrate anyway. It also notes the fact that some people are going to lose money over the cancellations.
I'm not sure this will work. Popular religious piety tends to override government decrees, in Egypt as elsewhere. This is an unpopular move by all accounts. Cancelling Sayyida Zaynab is like the Grinch stealing Christmas.
I don't think there'll be some huge political result, not immediately and perhaps not ever, but it's still something worth flagging, I think.
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