By Mursi Saad El-Din Already Ramadan is drawing to an end barely a week or so, it might appear, before beginning. And it will be another year before it is upon us again, bringing with it the by- then long awaited resurgence of all those activities with which it is associated: fasting, praying and fun. For the month's holy status notwithstanding, entertainment, in its multiform guises, has become an essential aspect of the month. Ramadan is as much about fun as anything else. Edward Lane's account of the month takes stock of this paradoxical combination of spirituality and celebration. Of the several pages he devotes to his experience of the holy month one episode drew my attention: the vivacity of his description of post-Iftar gatherings during which night, Lane testifies, turned into day. What is interesting about this is that, if this were true in the 1860s, it has persisted till the present time. While walking across Qasr Al-Nil Bridge following a late-night show at the Opera House, the other day, I was struck by the large crowds milling about the pavement. Moving in different directions they were all heading towards perceptible sources of music. Egyptians gorge their eyes and ears on a veritable feast of entertainment during Ramadan, the work of television channels as well as the Opera House and cultural palaces and centres everywhere. The shows they are offered range from tannoura dancers to operatic arias and the religious chanting known as inshad. In the past, one remembers, it was only in popular neighbourhoods that Ramadan was celebrated. Now even the smartest districts are touched by the spirit of Ramadan. All through the night music echoes, crowds gather and festivity is in the air. So called Ramadan tents encapsulate the tendency to capitalise on traditional customs in a modern context, in which the normal gathering places of Lane's time become exotic settings where traditional zikr is replaced with contemporary pop. The tannoura dance provides an interesting example of the way in which the old has developed into the new. A virtual Egyptian ambassador at festivals and other cultural events, it is performed regularly in Wikalat Al-Ghouri. Though widely considered a folk dance it originated in the whirling motions of the Mevlevi Sufi order. Lane's description of the whirling dervishes of his time corresponds closely with the present-day practices of the Turkish performers of Qunya, as famous, in their own right, as the tannoura performers of Egypt. This would support the hypothesis that it was through interaction with the Egyptians' own sleight of hand that the present-day practice of swirling a piece of fabric while whirling emerged. In both cases the music has an almost hypnotic effect, yet while the Mevlevi order's dance remains to all intents and purposes a Sufi rite, an attempt to identify with the creator, the Egyptian dance is a largely secular form of acrobatic prowess. Today even the Mevlevi rites have been popularised and secularised, to be presented not as an example of religious ritual but as a performance intended for the entertainment of an audience. They form an essential part of the Turkish tourism industry, attracting a great many visitors annually. Yet the Turkish version of the holy month does not necessarily incorporate them. Such is the all-embracing festivity of the Egyptian perception of the holy month, by contrast, that even the most exclusively spiritual practice evolves into a complex and not altogether unreligious display of sleight of hand. And this is not to mention the countless other associations of Ramadan, as complex, each in its way, as the tannoura. It is hardly surprising, then, that many others besides myself -- and not necessarily the most religiously minded people -- experience a sense of loss when Ramadan thus draws to an end. Not only will they have to part with the fasting, the praying and other religious practices to which the month gives rise; they will also have to give up the many and varied forms of fun that go with it.
