Popular Egypt at Sayyida Zaynab

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On one of my last days in Cairo I visited the Mosque of Sayyida Zaynab. I once again had to miss the mulid or festival connected to this mosque.. this time by just two weeks. As I walked outside the mosque I looked for early arrivals, and I saw a tent hung with red banners.. marking it as the tent for a Sufi order. Once those inside saw me taking a picture, they motioned vigorously for me to come over and talk to them. They had me sit down and drink some tea with them.

These are the people in Egypt that I find most fascinating. I have a hard time convincing people of this, but the traditional brand of Islam, which includes devotion to the religious festivals of saints such as Sayyida Zaynab, is friendly and open. I’ve never had a bad experience among people like this. Traditional Islam is the antithesis of fundamentalism, which is hostile toward the old and popular. Sitting among these guys is always interesting. They pry me with questions and have nothing but excitement when they find that I am interested in mulids and the important shrines of Egypt. When I expressed sorrow that I would not be here for the mulid of Sayyida Zaynab, one guy pulled out this folded flyer:

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That is an image of the mosque of Sayyid Mursi in Alexandria. It lies just north of the corniche as it bends toward the Fort of Qaitbey. I opened the flyer and found the following text:

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The important thing to note is the date for the mulid of Sayyid Musri. It will last from July 3 to July 9. So if I wanted to see a mulid in the few days before I left Egypt, this would be my chance.

The fact that this man was carrying around with him this announcement for the mulid is worth pondering. This is not an event that has an Internet presence. When I got to Alexandria the English language daily did not list this mulid among other cultural events. It is an event that flies under the official cultural radar. But there is a well developed network of information spread among the attendees of mulids. This network relies on what seem fairly archaic means of communication: physical paper handouts and word of mouth. It’s a knowledge that eludes tourists completely.

Once I attended the mulid of Sayyid Mursi, I was looking over some color posters that were offered for sale. The posters were in this layout of merchandise:

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Up at the top left of the photo you can see the small posters. There were some obligatory images of Mecca and the prophet’s tomb at Medina. But there was also the following image:

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I bought this poster but then decided I could not carry it with me back to Cairo.. and so abandoned it in my hotel room in Alexandria. What you see in the image are the shrines for ten important saints in Egypt. These include the shrine of Husayn, the shrine of Sayyida Zaynab, the shrine of Imam Shafi’a.. as well as a few shrines outside Cairo such as that for Sayyid Badawi in Tanta.

As I talked to the men who welcomed me outside Sayyida Zaynab, these were the places that tripped off their tongues. If they were asked to name the important places to visit in Egypt, these would be the places. Most of these shrines are not even in the medieval mosques that are on tourist itineraries.. they are housed mostly in newer mosques, even if the shrines themselves have a much longer history. There is a disconnect between the notions of what is important in Egypt within popular Egypt and that which is heralded for tourists. The Egypt of the tourists is present on the web and in all sorts of official guidebooks, while this popular Egypt is present in ephemeral flyers and images.

I will close with two videos of popular devotion at the shrine of Sayyida Zaynab. Devotion at these shrines is at the heart of popular religious practice in Cairo. It is easy to spend time in Egypt marvelling at very old things, but to understand traditional Islam it’s necessary to seek out these more modern shrines.