CAIRO - Imbaba, a large slum in Giza, is no stranger to social, economic and religious ills, including a huge population and huge piles of garbage everywhere. Imbaba is also overcrowded with microbuses and tok-toks, which blow their horns deafeningly for no reason. In addition to the incongruous high-rises, constructed in defiance of Egypt's building regulations, this district's curious topography includes many mosques and churches, small and large, which have sprung up all over the place. Perhaps they'll soon outnumber the worshippers. These places of worship appear to be involved in a heated competition over identity. The slum was the scene of tragic sectarian incidents earlier this month, in which 12 people ��" Muslims and Copts ��" were killed and two churches ransacked and torched. Tens of stores owned by Copts in the area were looted and set ablaze by Salafists (die-hard Muslim fundamentalists), villains and criminals allegedly loyal to the formerly ruling National Democratic Party. The two main streets in Imbaba, Al-Oksour Street and Al-Mashrou Street, are crowded with all sorts of environmental inconveniences. These inconveniences include drug dealers; loudspeakers touting the wares of big stores; cafés full of young unemployed men; supermarkets and restaurants, located near mountains of rubbish and pools of stagnant water; thugs lounging at street corners, ready to molest girls and women, especially if they're not wearing the hijab (headscarf); and frowning men sporting long beards and wearing bright white galabiyas. A sense of security in Imaba has been absent for decades, long before the recent sectarian clashes, which left 15 Muslims and christians dead. Its absence encouraged a fundamentalist named Sheikh Gaber to bring the district and its residents under his authority. Sheikh Gaber established his empire in the area in the late 1980s. A violent thug, propped up by even more violent thugs, he forced the mainstream Muslim community to follow his fundamentalist orders. Copts in the area had to hide in their homes and churches to avoid the wrath of this hardened sheikh, who was allegedly a drummer, an alcoholic and a womaniser. His fundamentalist mandate in Imbaba and his crimes were dramatised in the local film Dam el-Ghazal (The Blood of the Gazelle), directed by Marwan Hamed and starring superstar Nour el-Sherif. Sheikh Gaber's fundamentalist empire crumbled, when he was arrested after a seven-day street war between his toughs and the security authorities. Despite his demise, the problems continue in Imbaba, widely regarded as a bastion of die-hard fundamentalists.
