Come nightfall on Tuesday the superb illuminations are sparkling. Crowds form around the mast in the center of the tented camp. There are small family groups who have come from Cairo or even villages further afield in Middle Egypt, brought by a sense of personal devotion. They are not tied to any particular sheikh or specific brotherhood: the cult of the saint has long since gone beyond the realms of organized Sufism. All of these pilgrims sitting cross-legged on the ground simply want to spend the evening around the mast. The atmosphere is easygoing: parents sit with children, bands of youths are hanging out, a group of girls sings and dances, clapping their hands, while around them a gang of admirers gathers. There is plenty of laughing and joking, but mulids are not really the place for young girls. Nevertheless, it is Tuesday, there are quite a few of them, they are all locals on their home turf, and fathers and brothers are never too far away. Someone is selling cotton candy, called ‘girls’ hair’ (sha‘r al-banat or ghazal al-banat) in Egypt, someone else popcorn. Swings fly up into the air and little firecrackers explode everywhere. Some of the brotherhoods would have liked to begin the dhikr this evening but authorization was not given: too much noise for the neighbors, who are hoping for some quiet tonight before the two sleepless nights and the decibels that are ahead of them.
Around ten at night the Great Mosque is calm when suddenly three or four cars pull up at the entrance to the sanctuary surrounded by a rush of men trailing an extraordinary atmosphere of joyous zeal. The young sheikh of the powerful Khaliliya from Zagazig, ‘Amm Salih Abu Khalil, has arrived. His disciples, many of whom are educated men and women of the middle classes, including couples with children, state firmly that he is a saint. The chamber of Badawi’s tomb is suddenly full of men and women of the Khaliliya. As the sheikh calls upon God and Badawi, they stand, turned toward the gate of the maqsura with hands raised, responding with repeated cries of “Amen!” that bounce around the dome. Eyes glisten and tears flow. Photographs of the sheikh are handed out to the crowd and then he swiftly departs, shielded from the fervor of his flock by some burly security guards. And so it is for the rest of the week: great sheikhs arrive one after the other to honor the Tanta mulid by their presence, to gather together their disciples and lead one or two dhikrs. Other visitors with no claim to sanctity also feel the need to make an appearance at this national religious event, without of course mingling with the peasants squatting on straw surrounded by goats and children. A minister or two, the supreme sheikh of the Sufi brotherhoods, the Sheikh of al-Azhar turn up for a few religious get-togethers: Qur’an readings, piously dull lectures, flesh-pressing and glad-handing with state-appointed Islamic worthies. The governor is kept busy.
On Wednesday, things get serious. The crowd grows and grows because tonight and tomorrow night will be evenings of dhikr. The old town is almost closed to cars, and peddlers take over, selling trinkets, toys, and incense on the median of the main street that leads to the mosque of Badawi. Trains and buses from Cairo and other big towns bring in pilgrims for the day or for a couple of nights. Conscripts on leave mix with Sufis smitten by Badawi: city-dwellers of Delta origins returning to the villages rub shoulders with youth who are simply out for a good time. The closer to the Great Night, the more holy and auspicious the moment. When night falls, people eat and then perform the evening prayer. Once the plates have been cleared the dhikr begins. Dhikr consists of calling on the name of God, litanies and prayers of the brotherhood, rhythmic gestures as His Name is intoned, often accompanied by chants praising the Prophet and the saints. The Qadiris from Sidud, my camel-owning friends, line up in rows according to age and degree of initiation. Their dhikr is very physical and jerky, the rhythm following the beat of a teaspoon against a metal bar. The man in charge of the teaspoon does not falter as he hammers away for a solid hour. There are no instrumentalists, but a chanter bellows a cappella with the aid of a huge sound system. The young are at the edges and take the opportunity to mess around a bit: they are sweaty and delighted, they are having fun. Every now and then they break off to sip a glass of tea, to check on a restless camel, or to greet a passing friend. The older men—all those over thirty or thirty-five years, married with kids, fit into this category—are not distracted and display unearthly stamina: rhythm is perfect, breathing regular, the prayers known by heart. Many of them smile during the dhikr, eyes closed with toothless grins. Hard faces shine, solid bodies are lithely balanced, and their arms, draped in wide gallabiya sleeves, are precisely extended.
Given that not everyone can hire musicians or sound systems and microphones, people may respond to the dhikr of a neighbor. People stroll from tent to tent searching out the most beautiful and moving dhikr. It often happens that a person will encounter the sheikh and will occasionally change brotherhoods. For the time being, people are wandering, since the dhikrs will not finish until dawn, around four o’clock in the morning.
The inhabitants of Tanta also participate in the celebrations, at least those who live in the old town or around the grounds. They may look down on the peasants, but nobody would sniff at such entertainment, and it provides the occasion to cook some special meals and get out to visit others. For those who have Sufis camping on their doorstep, there is usually a good relationship with them, and over the years people help each other out. And for those groups who are blessed with a particularly venerated sheikh, the links are all the stronger. Of course, the shopkeepers complain of stubborn peasants who buy nothing, of the market being slow, of the decline of the mulid because of general poverty. Frankly, I have always heard these complaints, but it is true that the crisis is sharp.
A young woman stops me in the street and stares: we know each other. Fifteen years ago she was a little girl whom I would push on the swings: now she’s a mother. Her father is dead, as is her uncle, both before the age of sixty. As townies, they expressed the same condescension towards the fellah, the yokels, that the people of Tanta have always shown. And yet they were originally from the countryside, still kept the accent, shared the same beliefs, and were proud of their native village, which happened to be founded by a saint who was also an ancestor. I used to sell cassettes of dhikr in their shop to wary peasants. They would come looking for such and such a singer, and would listen a bit, tapping out the rhythm with their fingers. They would try to bargain, turning the cassettes around and around in their thick hands, peering closely at the box as if this might reveal the contents and lower the price. Sometimes they would carefully reach into an inside pocket and pull out a small cloth purse from which appeared a crumpled bill. Other times, they would leave, unconvinced and worried that they might be being had. And then the shop owner would crank up the volume on the latest hits, trying to pull in the customers with a powerful-voiced sheikh who could melt hearts as he vaunted the Prophet, or perhaps a songstress with a peasant accent trilling wedding songs of love and longing.
The night of Wednesday to Thursday is already a stern test. Sticks of sugarcane stack up in the mulid campsite next to a small dried-up canal. People come and go ceaselessly. Buses, horse carriages, and taxis drive around and around until dawn in the midst of an unworldly commotion. How will they be able to manage tomorrow, the Great Night of the mulid, from Thursday to Friday? At sunrise, the noise of dhikr still rings through the grounds and the old town. The rooftops are washed in thin light and, if one listens carefully, a flute in the near distance cuts through the noise of mingled dhikrs. It seems to whistle on even after everything is silent.
Thursday: all day the prayer hall of the Great Mosque is thick with people. Everywhere, both men and women sit or lie, snoozing or exhausted, at the feet of columns in tight little rows. Rays of sunlight beam through the openwork ceiling, casting a golden aura on the crowd below. Heartless workers smother the prayer hall in a cloud of insecticide that drenches the beautiful carpets with a ghastly smell. Midday prayers today and tomorrow will be filled with people from the mulid. The sheikhs of the brotherhoods will be coming with their delegates and disciples. Prayers in the mausoleum mean turbans and walking sticks, immaculately