Demonstrations of affection

Processions aren't what they used to be. Pascale Ghazaleh finds the chaos at the heart
On the Great Night of Mulid Al-Nabi, celebrated last week, crowds of people gathered near the Mosque of Al-Hussein and prepared to cross what was once all there was to the city of Cairo, heading for the Citadel and the Mosque of Al- Rifa'i. Some were wearing special garments and carrying large banners to mark their membership in one or another of the Sufi orders. Many others were dressed in their everyday clothes, not because they do not belong but perhaps because such affiliation, to them, is a matter of the heart, and need not be worn on one's back as well. There were mounted police, but they were not trying to contain the crowds, because they were part of them. Besides, there was no need: even the horses were calm, despite the truly deafening music emanating from a shop a little way from the gathering point. The song -- in praise of the Prophet Mohamed -- was turned up so high that even on the street, with the buses rumbling by, it resonated in the bones. The bass was like a pulse in the entrails: so loud it was both outside and inside, omnipresent, utterly engulfing.
Apart from the wall of sound, this was a most orderly event, as tidy as it could be given the numbers of people participating in one way or another. Those preparing to march were men, in the vast majority; more men, but women and children too, lined the street that would soon be closed off to let the procession pass.
It was clearly a joyous occasion, unless one was terrified of crowds; one observer compared the mulid to a rave, a free-for-all to which one could bring whatever one wanted: piety, the children, food and drink. Those who had nothing to bring might find something there: inspiration, nourishment of various sorts, oblivion. Later, in the zikr tents, there would be music, and singing, and prayers of course, but one was more or less left to one's own devices. No one stopped those who felt that songs in praise of the prophet were appropriate background music for belly dancing.
The procession, though, was the set piece of the whole event, the most explicitly public demonstration of piety and rejoicing. It would last for several hours, and generate a transition in both place and time, leading from one mosque to another, but also from afternoon to evening prayers.
photo: Salah Ibrahim
Mulid Al-Nabi was not always celebrated in this way. A century or two ago, very different festivities would have impressed or titillated a visitor to Cairo like the 19th-century traveler Edward William Lane. An educated and curious man, apparently quite articulate in Arabic and fairly well acquainted with the manners and customs of the modern Egyptians he made the subject of his eponymous book, Lane was also unable to resist a good story. He knew his readers would take more pleasure in a peculiar anecdote or a salacious detail than in the dreary realisation that Egyptians were much like them. Still, he seems to have found ample material on which to embroider (if indeed he did), even on so solemn an occasion as the celebration of the prophet's birthday.
His eye-witness account of Mulid Al-Nabi in 1834 begins with a description of the general festivities (conjurers, buffoons and tellers of popular tales provided most of the entertainment that year since, the traveler noted with vexation bordering on petulance, "the Ghawazee have lately been compelled to vow repentance, and to relinquish their profession of dancing, etc... These girls used to be among the most attractive of all the performers." Nor did the expected rope dancers appear to divert the disconsolate Lane). He did have the opportunity to observe the dosa "or Treading," during which the sheikh of the Sa'diya order rode on horseback over a row of prostate devotees. "Not one of the men thus trampled upon by the horse seemed to be hurt," remarked the bemused bystander, adding a little bitterly: "No other ceremonies worthy of notice were performed..."
The dosa was eventually banned, and it is growing increasingly difficult to witness the other feats for which some of the orders were once renowned (eating live serpents, hot coals and crushed glass, as well as skewering oneself through the side or the cheek, were among the more spectacular manifestations of fervent piety). The entertainers, too, have faded away. And the procession? As popular and authentic as it may appear today, it may not even have been part of the festivities 100 years ago.
What, then, are the antecedents of the parade that follows the afternoon prayers on the eve of Mulid Al-Nabi? A procession implies movement, from one point to another. People -- large crowds of them -- say something by walking all together, at once. The procession takes emotion and formalises it: out of motion, feelings can arise, even if they are more than an individual body could bear to say.
Sometimes, too, this expression of emotion is necessary as a gesture -- just that, no more. By turning out en masse on various occasions, some of them elevated (or reduced) to official celebrations, the inhabitants of a city stopped at the landmarks of collective life as if to say: here we are. The ruler, the people, or a given community may have defined these landmarks. Whatever the case, once the parade was underway it was difficult to predict what it would become. It would almost certainly reach its destination, but along the way those roped in to show their loyalty could easily subvert the festivities and turn the occasion to their own ends. By marking their presence, they embodied that strange beast that is the urban agglomeration.
Only people -- large crowds of them -- can make a procession. Other things are necessary too: special garments, music (preferably produced by horns and drums, although today CD players will do as well), certain words of praise. It is the people, though, that count: the people proceeding, and those watching them. Who, then, is the procession for?
Not all processions were spontaneous manifestations of popular approval. They did not occur just anywhere, anytime; they were, in fact, quite rigorously coded, although it is difficult, today, to crack that code. Abdel-Rahman El-Gabarti, who lived at the turn of the 19th century and recorded many keen observations of the often turbulent political and social events that marked his times, describes one such procession in his chronicle Aga'ib Al-Athar fil- Taragim wal-Akhbar (Marvelous traces in biographies and reports). In December 1813, the governor of Egypt, Mohamed Ali, was celebrating his son's wedding. Cairo's artisans were instructed to make floats representing their various professions; as the chronicler noted reprovingly, "everyone tempted by the devil to create something did so." The decorated wagons must have offered quite a spectacle: some "featured sherbet dealers, druggists, silk makers, haberdashers -- both local and Greek -- oil vendors, blacksmiths, carpenters, tailors, silk merchants, weavers, and sawyers who were sawing with suspended saws, millers, bakers baking in an oven, pastry makers, butchers surrounded by mutton or water buffalo, meat roasters, entrails vendors, friers of cheese and fish, lime and plaster makers with an ox on the wagon which turned a grindstone, masons, tile setters, copper tinners, painters and tinsmiths. There was a total of 91 wagons, including a large Nile boat, complete with boatman, sails, and tackle, mounted on wheels behind four wagons, reserved for the bride."
The parade lasted from early morning until after sunset on the wedding day; but certain small details (invisible to the enthralled observers) may have marred its magnificence. The artisans' finery, notes El-Gabarti, was borrowed; as for the money distributed to the guild heads, it "had not been assigned on the basis of specified persons or predetermined numbers but arbitrarily, on the basis of influence and connections."
The procession, then, is one way the city stands up to be counted. It is a throwback, archaic, mediaeval, not least because it incorporated protest into a framework of apparent assent: its modern forms could be the student demonstration, protest march or solidarity sit-in, but these are only one aspect of what it was. Rarely do people walk together today to express joy, even on command. Perhaps it is no longer important, although rulers once found it so. Perhaps democracy makes it unnecessary to display allegiance. Why, though? Has self-service made banquets obsolete?
The departure of the caravan of pilgrims on their way to Mecca and Medina was one occasion for Cairo's inhabitants to come out of their homes and wave good-bye. Throngs lined the streets to watch as the palanquin began its journey across the desert, and to bid loved ones farewell. Modern transport, one could think, has made that "unnecessary," although the families flocking to Cairo Airport every pilgrimage season would not say so. The procession, anyway, was never a matter of necessity. It may have been in some ways: the ruler may have needed to see his subjects filing by in orderly fashion, to reassure himself that chaos was still being kept at bay; the subjects, in turn, may have needed to participate in events that mattered to them, even on terms entirely different from those the ruler dictated.
So order and disorder have something to do with the procession. Order and disorder, in fact, are the main reasons why today's procession, organised for the mulid, is so different from what it was 50 or 40 years ago. Back then, for example, the Sufis were just one component of the pageant, which included artisans and merchants as well. The merchants had nothing to show off but their finery, while the artisans could display their skills by going through the motions of their profession, elevated above the crowd on carts specially constructed for the occasion. Today, these practices are forbidden. While authorities cite safety as their motive -- bystanders were crushed in the throng more than once -- it seems that more specific security considerations have also come into play. Crowds may not always be dangerous, although 19th- century social reformers believed they were; they are, however, difficult to control.
El-Gabarti describes another wedding, held in January 1814, that illustrates the potential chaos at the heart of the best-laid plans; his account would strike terror into the hearts of security officials and wedding organisers alike. The procession was especially large and elaborate and, two days before the ceremony, government agents measured the streets and tore down any potential obstacles on its path, destroying stone benches but also whole buildings. When the procession reached the middle of the city, however, torrents of rain began to fall. Those marching and watching were all drenched; "infuriated, they gave way to evil thoughts while their clothes were being ruined..." The water even penetrated the brocade hangings covering the wagons and soaked "the lovely songstresses within." The chronicler appended a sagacious moral to this tale: "No stratagem, no plan, will ward off God's judgement! The bride did not reach her house until shortly before sunset, whereupon the atmosphere lifted and the evening star appeared."
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Au revoir dear friend 31 May - 6 June 2001
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