By Ingrid Wassmann THE SMALL bare room is covered with green plastic mats. Rice kernels from lunch have fallen through the cracks. Men are resting on the diwan pillows lining the walls, smoking and digesting their meal. An old tape player lets out Sufi chanting. On the top of the recorder lays a Quran and a wrinkled white head turban. Beside it is a bag of tapes with more religious music by other sheikhs, and an old water bottle filled with fresh mint. By the open window sits Abdel-Moheimen. He has been renting this same four-room flat behind the Al-Hussein Mosque for the past six years just for this annual moulid that ended on Tuesday with Al-Laila Al-Kebira, the Big Night. During the week-long Sufi celebration, Abdel-Moheimen and his friends spent their days as volunteers preparing and serving free meals. "Many of us also hold jobs," he said. "The most important thing about this is that we do it out of our love for the prophet and his family," explained Abdel-Moheimen, unwilling to divulge how many meals they offer per day out of humility. Like in numerous other flats and temporary tents around the Al-Hussein Mosque that offer free food as part of khidma, or service, Abdel-Moheimen would welcome men and women for breakfast, lunch and dinner. "The door is always open and we start serving breakfast after the dawn prayers," he added. "We offer meals to whoever comes, rich, poor, Christian, Jewish, foreign. Love is not racist, not white, not black." Every year thousands of Egyptians from all over the country travel to the capital, gathering around the Al-Hussein Mosque and its backstreets, to celebrate the birthday of Prophet Mohamed's grandson, Hussein. One such person is Rasmeya. For the past 35 years, she has been commuting from Mit Ghamr, in the governorate of Daqahliya, to attend the Al-Hussein moulid. "During the day, I sit here, prepare my meals here, drink tea here, but sleep and pray in the mosque," explained the 65-year-old, cross-legged on the sidewalk of Umm Al-Ghoulam Street, adding that she cannot afford to do omra or hajj in Mecca. Around the corner, Adli Abdel-Rahman is distributing water to those followers gathered in one of the temporary tents erected outside the Al-Hussein Mosque. "At lunch, we served rice and kofta," said Abdel-Rahman, dipping empty cups into a big plastic jug of water. "We prepare the food in Madinet Nasr and bring it here readymade," he added. Behind him, gathered in a circle on the matted floor of the tent, members of one small family clap their hands to a religious tune. A small boy, one arm in a cast, blows into a mizmar while his father sings into a rudimentary self-made microphone system. photos: Sherif Sonbol
