By Youssef Rakha Granddaughter of the Prophet and age-old patron of the poor, Sayeda Zeinab is arguably Egypt's most widely consecrated saint. Her shrine is a place of pilgrimage for millions, and her anniversary still triggers a week-long series of festivities manifested at both holy and not-so-holy levels of religious consciousness. Fire-eaters, street performers on pageant carts, dervishes, Upper Egyptian madih (singing in praise of the Prophet and his lineage), and the whole colourful paraphernalia of traditional folk ceremonies -- what could be further from the aura of austere intellectual sobriety often said to emanate from Arabic literary endeavour? Al-Hakim, who is associated in the public imagination with just such an aura of literary respectability, is one of a handful of cultural icons who have turned into household names. But as the man who first introduced drama into the Arabic canon, and a pioneer (if notoriously vacillating) thinker of the twentieth century, it is Al-Hakim's contribution to Egyptian and Arab secular consciousness that is something to be reckoned with. Secular icon and sacred idol: what could bring the two together? Few people will have noted that Al-Hakim's Usfour min Al-Sharq (Bird from the East), an early autobiographical novel recounting his love story with the now famous Paris ticket vendor, is actually dedicated to "my unsullied guardian, Al-Sayeda Zeinab". In Usfour min Al-Sharq Mohsen, Al-Hakim's sentimental stand-in, who always seems to have his head in the clouds, tries to imagine what his guardian might look like. He believes that every good thing that ever happens to him is a function of her protection, every infelicity a failure on his part to make contact with her, to remember his "ally in heaven", or simply her prophetic way of preventing a greater misfortune. Even on the brink of despair, it is the memory of her mosque's interior, and the comforting, heavenly serenity exuding from its walls, that gives Mohsen the strength to cope with unreciprocated love. He finally appears to relent. What is the use of such risky encounters with the West, be they emotional or intellectual, if they threaten to rob the Eastern bird of his spiritual dimension? The moulid is hardly mentioned. But the Sayeda emerges as something more than Mohsen's guardian angel. In all her heavenly majesty, she appears to be an essential part of Al-Hakim's definition of what it is to be a bird from the East -- that is, a sensitive and exotic being who, out of touch with an increasingly automated and materialistic West, hankers after the spiritual wisdom of his native land and, as in Al-Hakim's first published novel, Awdat Al-Ruh (Return of the Spirit), prophesies its renascence. What kind of light could Usfour min Al-Sharq throw on our perception of the moulid today, 60 years after the first edition was published? One thing is certain. Both the book and the saint's anniversary are as relevant to ongoing cultural debate today as they were 60 years ago. Both raise questions about the meaning and value of the East in a world dominated by a more or less indifferent West. Both encapsulate the efforts of a weary and vulnerable culture to reassert itself in the face of existence. It is much later in Al-Hakim's career, in his frequently quoted memoir, Sijn Al-Umr (The Prison of Life), that we get a glimpse of what the events awaiting us in the next few days might have meant for him. (Coincidentally, moulid Sidi Ibrahim El-Dessouqi, the one he describes so vividly in Sijn Al-Umr, also took place very recently this year.) This is one of Al-Hakim's earliest encounters with a mode of existence or state of mind which he very generally terms "art" but might as well have called "theatre". To paraphrase: "Later on I came to sense art in another of its aspects... the procession that used to pass beneath our windows, the Caliph astride his steed, wielding his sword, surrounded by flags, banners and banderoles in every imaginable colour, huge drums and reed-pipes that came in all shapes and sizes, and then the numerous carts, one after the other, in a line so long it never ended, drawn by every kind of beast of burden: horses, mules, donkeys, cows, water buffalo and oxen. Each cart represented a trade, along with all its equipment and practitioners: the blacksmiths on top of their cart with their forges and anvils in front of them, gesticulating, hammer in hand, to represent their work; then the carpenters with their saws; the masons with their trowels; the potters displaying the urns and pitchers they'd made; the tinkers holding their wares, Ramadan lanterns among them. They were all playing their parts in real life. Even the fruit sellers had their cart where apples and oranges hung from tree branches. A sort of naive carnival whose effect on me at that age was nonetheless astonishing, indescribable." Evidently this moulid, different as it is from present-day saints' anniversaries, was an early theatrical awakening for Al-Hakim. Although he would later renounce his involvement with the less respectable theatres of the 1930s, opting instead for "more serious" models adopted from the West, Al-Hakim's depiction of moulid Sidi Ibrahim El-Dessouqi remains an homage to the compelling fascination of street performances in Egypt. Taken together with Mohsen's avowal of a spiritual dependency on Sayeda Zeinab, it signals the importance of the next few days in a fresh light. One can safely assume that the marching Sufis and whirling tannouras will be there. Is it at all conceivable that there will also be, almost perceptible beyond the constant shifting and noise, a bird hovering over the moulid?
