“I’m not jealous,” Zeinab assured him, “if you want her, you can take her.” “She may have her own views about that.” “Are you taking her to the Moulid?…Have you ever been to a Moulid?” “Not this one.” “Ah. Then you must take her..” “Perhaps I will.”…“Some of its features, notably the phallic ones, have crept into the Moulid…” “A bit of a mixture, eh?” “Like Cairo, like Egypt.”
-The Mamur Zapt and the Night of the Dog, Michael Pearce
He found Cairo an inexhaustible treasure house of interest and delight, and when alone wandered for hours exploring till utterly lost, knowing that any arbugy, donkey boy or person could take him or explain the way to some well known spot …the post of Mamur Zapt necessitated frequent access to the interiors of palaces and huts, even at times the penetralia of harems.
-The Moulids of Egypt, J.W. McPherson, writing about himself
J. W. McPherson was the Mamur Zapt. He policed all of Cairo’s Moulids, Birthday Celebrations of Sufi Saints, and wrote a book about them. Who might he have arrested at a Moulid? Hash dealers, whores, pickpockets, Effendis (according to Wehr, Gentlemen in Western Clothes Wearing the Tarboosh) acting badly. Hādir! Present!, a waiter at a Cairo restaurant might say when he came to your table. I was Hādir at many Moulids too but never arrested.
