The birthday

Last Thursday was El Moulid El Nabawi, and man, was it something. Two friends invited me down to Islamic Cairo to watch the processions, and of course I agreed.

Also inevitably, we screwed up. My friend's assistant had told him that the processions started at noon, so we got there around 12:30. Nothing was going on. We asked a nearby policeman, who looked surprised and said, "5 o'clock. 5."

To kill time we went into the Khan El Khalili, the big tourist bazaar. I never get tired of the Khan, the sights, the smells (yes, even those), the activity ... the hilarity. The place is great, just great. We traipsed through the bazaar a bit (our second of the day, actually) and then settled ourselves at Fishawi for juice and shisha.

Suddenly it's terribly hot here. Today it's in the 90s. And Thursday I got dehydrated and overheated, just like it was back in August and I was fresh off the plane. Consistency, thy name is Egypt.


Around 4:30 we appropriated a table on the balcony of a dreadful cafe right next to the Al Hussein mosque. When the procession started, the bazaar cats had these hysterical looks on their faces, like "what the hell????"




The procession consisted of Sufi orders from all over the world marching around the square. They sang, they chanted, they clapped, they drummed, they shouted. They were all incredibly different from each other, but the overwhelming feeling I got was one of crowding. Check out all these people!


Large gatherings of people make me nervous. Large gatherings of people seeking religious ecstasy? Double nervous. But here, at any rate, everyone seemed to be having a good time. The women standing by the side of the procession made ululating cries that sounded incredibly ancient. I got this shot of a woman walking in the procession who seemed transformed by her prayer. But mostly what I saw was people enjoying the good weather, enjoying each other's company, and exhibiting pride in their identities, not only as Muslims, but in their regional and national affiliations as well.




A few groups got quite worked up, complete with music and gyrations of various sorts:




Slight anxiety aside, I was very glad to be out and about on a warm day, with friends, watching something I'd never seen before. And a year ago, I'd had no idea that that was how I'd be spending my next Holy Thursday.