Banging his drum in the early hours of the morning during Ramadan to wake people before the daily fast, the mesaharati has been disappearing from Egypt's towns and villages in recent years. Ahmed Abu Ghazala talks to one man keeping the tradition alive It has become very rare to hear a real mesaharati, the man who traditionally wakes people up before sunrise during Ramadan in order to eat before fasting starts. Indeed, the mesaharati has become something of a dying profession, even though it has been practised since the early days of Islam. The first mesaharati is believed to have been Bilal Ibn Rabah, one of the Prophet Mohamed's companions, who was well known for his harmonious voice. Since Ibn Rabah's time, however, a harmonious voice has not always sufficed, and later the mesaharati used a small drum, calling out people's names in order to wake them for sohour, the last meal before sunrise in Ramadan. Later still, it sometimes became difficult even to walk in the city streets, what with the noise and the traffic. Happily, people today have other wake-up calls to choose from, with televisions, mobiles and alarm clocks all at hand. All this has contributed to the decline of the mesaharati 's trade, even though many people still love to hear one. One mesaharati who continues in the ancient ways is 48-year-old Rabea Hussein, who walks through the streets of Nasr City every night in Ramadan from half past one in the morning until quarter past three, banging his drum and calling on people to wake. His nightly round starts in Abu Dawoud Al-Dhaheri Street, moving to the Hadiqat Al-Tifl (the children's park) and the Institute of Social Services in Ahmed Fakhri Street, before returning to Hassan Al-Maamoun Street to finish. Hussein wears the traditional clothing of turban, galabiya and scarf, and he has worked in the district for 13 years as an employee of the local mosque, though this Ramadan is the first time he has been employed as a mesaharati. Hussein first entered the profession by helping a friend, the mesaharati of his hometown, the village of Abbad Sharona in Minya in Upper Egypt. "Ahmed Saleh, head of the Wa Islamah Association, proposed that I work in Nasr City as mesaharati this Ramadan. I liked the idea, so they provided me with a drum and I started working," Hussein comments. Wa Islamah, a charitable association, carries out activities in seven Egyptian governorates, among them finding foster parents for orphaned children, running educational programmes, distributing clothes to the needy, helping to cover the medical costs of those not able to afford them, and helping school pupils and women to memorise the Quran. The association has many supporters from the field of business and sport, including football stars Sayed Abdel-Hafiz and Ahmed Koshari. Hussein says that because he is responsible for a fairly large area, he likes to start early, at half past one rather than three in the morning. "I myself barely have time to eat before beginning to fast again during Ramadan. One day I couldn't find the time to eat anything at all, as I was late on my round," he says. When he worked as mesaharati in his village, he used to sing religious songs and call people by their names. This is not possible in the different circumstances of Nasr City, Hussein says, because of the district's size and the number of people living there. "However, if I do know someone, then I call him by his name. The children also ask me to call them by their names," he says. Hussein loves the work, which he sees both as a way of drawing closer to God and as a way of helping people. "Many people wake up as soon as they hear my drum. Two days ago, I didn't go along Mahmoud Ghoneim Street as usual, and people were quite upset because their children had been waiting for me. A few days ago some Arab tourists in Egypt asked me if they could have their photographs taken with me, saying that they liked to spend Ramadan in Egypt because of the presence of the mesaharati." As Hussein does his rounds at night, many children and some adults can be seen watching him from their balconies. Sometimes children clap along with him as he passes. According to Hani Abdel-Ghani, a member of Wa Islamah and a Nasr City resident, Hussein's round was small at the beginning, but when residents expressed their plaudits for his work the association decided to expand it. For 11-year-old Louay Khaled, who lives in an 11th-floor flat in the area, it is important to stay awake during Ramadan to see the mesaharati pass by. "It is better to have a mesaharati in Ramadan than not to have one, and I very much enjoy seeing him," he said. However, while the children and many adult residents of the district like the idea of having a traditional mesaharati during Ramadan, others see another side. One resident, a student at the Faculty of Commerce at Ain Shams University, thinks that a mesaharati should work in traditional areas, where he knows the residents, rather than in middle-class areas where he does not. However, despite such criticisms, Ahmed Saleh, head of Wa Islamah, insists that having a mesaharati in areas like Nasr City is important because it can contribute to reviving and strengthening religious traditions. "We weren't sure that the idea would work when we started it, and we were even half expecting it to fail. But to our pleasure and surprise people liked it," Saleh said.
