That fancies such as these should exist in the minds of a people so ignorant as those who are the subject of these pages cannot reasonably excite our surprise. But the Egyptians pay a superstitious reverence not to imaginary beings alone; they extend to certain individuals of their own species...An idiot or a fool is vulgarly regarded by them as a being whose mind is in heaven, while his grosser part mingles among ordinary mortals…Most of the reputed saints of Egypt are either lunatics or idiots or imposters. Some of them go about perfectly naked…
…the [moulid] of the seyyid Ahmad El-Bedawee, at Tanta…The tomb of this saint attracts almost as many visitors at the time of the great annual festivals from the metropolis and from various parts of Lower Egypt as Mekkah does pilgrims from the whole of the Muslim World.
-Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (1833-1835), Edward Lane
…there are numerous public circumcision booths, and stalls for vending souvenirs and food, but no secular attractions unless tattooing be so regarded…I witnessed a queer sight at dawn of the last day, a sort of burlesque called locally zeffa al-Sharameet. It was a procession of gaily decorated carts bearing the prostitutes of the town with their admirers, with much music and song.
-The Moulids of Egypt, J.W. McPherson, 1941, on the moulid of Sayyid Ahmad al-Badawi in Tanta
I was sent to Tanta for the moulid of the Sayyid to audit the Ministry of Health’s family planning information booth for our evaluation project. I squeezed into a shared taxi from Cairo because I didn’t want to arrive in town attracting attention for riding in a US Embassy vehicle. Not long before there had been Islamist-inspired shootings over American contraceptives.
The Tanta moulid is a crazy place to spread government propaganda, even if the booth had been decorated with inflated neon condoms. But this was Egypt and the government was walking a knife edge. The booths on either side were selling cotton candy and gaudy ladies underclothes, and the Ministry had nothing better to offer passers-by. Whatever they were sellin’ in Tanta, the Tantawis weren’t buyin’.
So I shook hands all around and told them, Good job, Good job, and then took my own turns through Egypt’s biggest fun fair. But unlike the haj in Mecca, where you don’t find frilly panties sold within eyeshot of the Kaaba, at the Sayyid’s moulid you can stuff your belly with basbousa, break your neck on midway rides, save your soul touching his tomb, and then get back to Cairo by midnight, on the return trip writing my report in my head…”The Ministry’s booth was stocked with brochures, staffed with nurses and doctors, and well attended by married Tantawi couples of target age.“ No mention of the singing sharameet and naked holy men mingling their grosser parts among the merely mortal.