Cairo's unique Ramadan traditions

Interesting article from Gulf News on the unique traditions of Ramadan practiced in Egypt.

I must admit, I have only seen the fanoos in Egypt during Ramadan, not in any other part of the world, so I did know about that. But I've never heard about the Yameesh, which nut is this?

Edited on 13 Sep, to add:
Thanks everyone for the clarifications of Yameesh being any combination of nuts and dry fruits. I guess the reported got it wrong about the Yameesh being unique to Egypt.

So that means, its only the Ramadan Fanoos that is unique to Egypt, or is there anything else that you know of?

Obama to speak from Al Azhar mosque?

Almost everyone seems to know that President Obama will be addressing the Arab nations from somewhere in Egypt on the 4th of June before heading to France.

While speculation is on as to whether he will even speak from Cairo - Sharm el Sheikh seems to be a favourite of Foreign Dignitaries who visit Egypt and hosts international summits too - one of the rumours is that he may speak from the Al Azhar Mosque in Cairo.

See article in DNA here

As an outsider who has lived in Egypt for close to 3 years, it seems like a great choice.

An American President visiting an Arab nation before Israel (hence breakinga non-official protocol that has been enduring since many decades) shows that there may be hope yet for an improved Arab-American relationship, but I'm not sure how the Egyptian masses perceive this step.

The Al Azhar mosque itself is a widely respected platform across the Islamic world, but what would be the wider reaction to a non-muslim, speaking at such a historic, spirtual and cultural center.

Another interesting development to look forward to. . .

Egyptian marriage fatwa causes stir

As you can see, I have a little time to catch up on some newspaper reading for about 24 hours and I am sharing the most interesting of the lot.

From The National Newspaper:
Dar al Iftaa, an authoritative Islamic research institute in Cairo headed by Egypt’s grand mufti, just passed a fatwa condoning a controversial form of marriage called “Misyar”, in which a bride forgoes typical premarital financial commitments from her would-be husband.

There are two sides to this argument. One being that this is a way to legalise prostitution, the other saying that this will allow some of the poorer sections of society who cannot afford the shabka and other financial requirements thrust upon them during a wedding (not living expenses) to still get married (. . . and maybe reduce some of the sexual frustration, which sometimes manifests on the roads)

Read the entire article here:

A friend also forwarded an interesting link that relates to this fatwa.
Misyaar Marriage in Saudi Arabia – What is it and Who would Want It?

Islamic hip hop, or a load of hype?

The article is a bit dated (22 April), but I just got to it and thought that it would interest those who read this blog.

From The BBC.

A satellite channel has launched in Egypt claiming to be the first Islamic MTV.

The studio presenter takes viewers' phone calls and interviews artists in baggy jeans, while music videos are played. . .

. . . 4Shbab aims to promote traditional Islamic values through hip hop, rap and pop music, using new and established artists whose lyrics and visuals address Islamic themes. . . .

What follows in the article; is an interesting snap shot of a debate on the pros and cons of such a channel. An interesting read, for sure.

A Woman's place in the Mosque?

Camel, of PTP brought this article to my attention.

Its from the BBC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7915393.stm

Your thoughts?

Church of St John the Baptist, Maadi

Headed over to the Church of St John the Baptist in Maadi for the Ash Wednesday service this evening. This was the only church where I could get reliable information about the service timing which was in the evening.

It took me almost 2.5 hours to drive from Mohandaseen to Maadi in the crazy traffic this evening. (traffic seems much, much worse in the last few days, anyone know why?)

Although, today the drive was worth it. The church is very small and intimate (compared to the All Saints Cathedral). The service was well attended and there was beautiful instrumental music accompanying the singing and the hymns.

I wouldn't mind driving back here on Fridays for regular services.

Although the church is small, the church is extremely active in helping its congregation including a sizeable number of refugees, especially through their Spirit of Giving Catalogue among other initiatives.

Their newsletters indicate that they have youth meetings regularly for various age groups, book club meetings and plenty of other group activities.

More details on Church of St John the Baptist, Maadi are visible on their website http://www.maadichurchstjohn.org/

Book Review : The Jewel of Medina

I had written about the controversy surrounding "The Jewel of Medina" a couple of months ago, but it hadn't really inspired me to go out and buy the book immediately. Of course there was the other matter of it not being available in a Middle Eastern country. But when a friend of mine told me she had the book in case I was interested, I decided to see what the fuss was all about.

The book was initially quite ho-hum (compared to some of the other books I have read on the subject) while it covered the childhood politics around a little girl growing up in a polygamous family where her own mother was the second wife. The girl just happens to be Aisha Bint Abi Bakr, herself an extremely controversial character in Islam. After the Prophets death, she led an army against his Son-in-law Ali, which was the cause for the Sunni-Shia split.

Sunnis claim Aisha was the favourite wife of the Prophet, while Shiites believe that he disliked her for her disobedience. Sunni accounts put the Prophet in Aisha's embrace at the time of his death and Shiites believe that he died in Ali's arms.

Why is The Jewel so inflammatory?

Conservative Catholics across the globe were vociferously against "The DaVinci Code" as it was based on the anti-thesis of a non-negotiable fact - that Jesus was married and sired a bloodline. This questioned the foundations of the Catholic faith and the vows of celibacy taken by priests and nuns.

"The Jewel of Medina" portrays each edict passed by Mohamed as being one for personal gain. It also caricatures him as an old man in constant sexual overdrive, whose only interest was in finding the next beautiful young bride. Drawing conclusions and elaborating on the fact that, when his male followers were allowed only 4 wives, the limitations did not apply to him. And other such incendiary conclusions.

For someone who is not familiar with the basics behind the Islamic teachings, it is a disastrous book to read, because it will completely distort the idea of Islam and its foundations. Ms Jones in her interviews has claimed that she wrote this book to make Islam more accessible and understandable to the general public in USA.

If this is her target audience, it will only serve to further aggravate the differences between Muslims and non-Muslims in America where a majority of non-Muslims already look upon Muslims with suspicion and in extreme cases, even hatred. Among the non-Muslims in America, there is a wide spread belief that women are completely dominated by men in this religion, they are forced to cover up from head to toe by overbearing fathers and husbands. This book will only serve to deepen and worsen those beliefs. I do not see any "understanding" coming out of this book.

The problem with writing fiction with characters from real life is that very few readers actually have the ability or knowledge to distinguish the line between the blurred lines of fact and fiction in a novel. And how much of this book is fiction? As a non-Muslim with basic information about Islam from my Muslim friends, I was quite riled up about certain injustices being described in certain sections of this book. This is a normal process when reading a book, the skill of the author is in making you feel for the characters. But the way it is portrayed as fact, brings these feelings out back into the world beyond the reading of a book.

What Ms Jones has written is a piece of fiction and not even a well researched one at that. Friends of mine who are scholars in Islamic studies, say that the inaccuracies are innumerable.

Geraldine Brooks (who has extensively researched the history of this era), author of the 1995 nonfiction book, "Nine Parts of Desire" whom Jones has cited as one her initial inspiration, says this in her review of The Jewel of Medina, "if you wish to claim that your novel is "extensively researched", why lurch around in time and space, grabbing at concepts such as hatun, or leading wife, which Jones knows full well belongs to the Ottoman empire of centuries later, or purdah, which exists in Persian, Urdu and Hindi but not Arabic? Why refer to an Islamic veil by the modern Western term "wrapper"? Why have Muslims bowing to Aisha, when bowing is an alien custom to desert Arabia and to Islam's egalitarian ethos?"

Is "The Jewel of Medina" a good story? - Well, it manages to keep your interest going after the initial chapters, wondering what is going to come next? and How will Aisha manage this latest calamity?. But in most parts it reads like Mills & Boone/ Silhouette kind of Soft Porn.

I ask a larger question : "Is it ethical to write a book like this, which caricatures a person who is the cornerstone of a particular religion?

Disclaimer : I do not want to get into a debate about death threats, riots and fatwas that inevitably follow a book of this kind.

Published on desicritics.org

Eid Mubarak - Kol Sena Wenta Tayieb

Eid Mubarak to all my friends who celebrate this feast.

Cairo has these special colored cloths associated with different feasts through the year. The color for this festival is red as seen in the pictures below of the butchers shop all decorated for Eid.

They were taken from a moving car, so the picture may not be as sharp, but its colorful :)

The Hijablog - a blog on Hijab fashion

Just saw this blog sometime back. The latest post today has some outlandish fashions from an Iranian fashion show, but the previous posts showcase some innovative ways to wear the headscarf and some very wearable hijabi fashion.

Take a look:
http://thehijablog.wordpress.com/

Ramadan Kareem - Ramadan begun in Egypt

With the appropriate sighting of the moon, yesterday (September 1st) was the first day of Ramadan in Egypt.

This begins the Holy month of fasting for Muslims over the world.

What specifically does it mean to expats in Egypt?

Treat everyone with utmost respect. Lack of nicotine and caffeine to bodies used to consuming them every 5 minutes can lead to extreme crankiness.

What work normally takes a day to be done, will take longer. (yes, than usual)

Offices are working shorter hours.
Expect major traffic jams around 3pm when people start heading home.
Expect near zero traffic at sunset during Iftaar time.

Ramadan is a time to share with the less fortunate. Expect more people lining up for Baksheesh and remember your house help have to be given half their annual bonus at Eid time.

Expect to be invited for at least one iftaar party where you will be treated to a large variety of foods. If you are unlucky enough to not have any Egyptian friends to invite you, make sure you attend at least one iftaar buffet in town this season to be treated to delicacies that aren't prepared during the rest of the year. The buffet at the Marriott is a good option.

Definitely wander around the Khan late at night and soak in the atmosphere, maybe even waiting until Sohour. Try to attend a Sufi Performance at the Wikalat al Ghuri.

There are plenty of special cultural events being hosted in the city, try and attend as many as you can and take full advantage of the shortened work days.

Ramadan in Egypt is a unique experience, enjoy it as much as you can. Who knows where you will be next year :)

With a word, Egyptians leave it all to fate

From the New York Times - International Edition

By Michael Slackman
Published: June 20, 2008

CAIRO: The McDonald's here has golden arches, the same golden arches as anywhere else in the world. The food is prepared the same assembly-line way, too. But there is an invisible, or more precisely, divine, element in bringing that burger to the plate that the uninitiated may not be prepared for.

"Inshallah," or "God willing," the counterman said as he walked off to see about a burger without onions at the McDonald's on the Alexandria Desert road, 30 miles from the center of Cairo.

Egyptians have always been religious, from Pharaonic times to the present. Any guidebook to Egypt alerts tourists to Egyptians' frequent use of inshallah in discussing future events, a signal of their deep faith and belief that all events occur, or don't occur, at God's will. "See you tomorrow," is almost always followed by a smile and, "inshallah."

But there has been inshallah creep, to the extreme. It is now attached to the answer for any question, past, present and future. What's your name, for example, might be answered, "Muhammad, inshallah."

"I say to them, 'You are already Muhammad or you are going to be Muhammad?' " said Attiat el-Abnoudy, a documentary filmmaker in Cairo.

Inshallah has become the linguistic equivalent of the head scarf on women and the prayer bump, the spot where worshipers press their foreheads into the ground during prayers, on men. It has become a public display of piety and fashion, a symbol of faith and the times. Inshallah has become a reflex, a bit of a linguistic tick that has attached itself to nearly every moment, every question, like the word "like" in English. But it is a powerful reference, intended or not.

Political and social commentators here say its frequent use reflects or fuels, or both, the increasing degree to which people have dressed the routine of daily life up with religious accessories. Will the taxi get me to my destination? Will my sandwich come without onions? What's my name? It's always, "God willing."

"Now inshallah is used in a much broader way than 20 years ago," said the Egyptian playwright Aly Salem. "We always used to say inshallah in relation to plans we were going to do in the future. Now it is part of the appearance of piety."

The starting point for inshallah is faith, but just like the increasing popularity of the head scarf and the prayer bump, its new off-the-rack status reflects the rising tide of religion around the region. Observance, if not necessarily piety, is on the rise, as Islam becomes — for many — the cornerstone of identity. That has put the symbols of Islam at the center of culture, and routine.

"Over the past three decades, the role of religion has been expanded in everything in our lives,"' said Ghada Shahbendar, a political activist who studied linguistics at American University in Cairo.

Deference to the divine has become a communal reflex, a compulsive habit, like the incessant honking of Egyptian cabdrivers — even when there are no other cars on the street.

Samer Fathi, 40, has a small kiosk that sells chips and cigarettes and phone cards downtown. He was asked for a 100-unit phone card and responded almost absent-mindedly "inshallah," as he flipped through the stack to find one.

At 19 Ismael Street the elevator door opened.

"Going down?"

"Inshallah," a passenger replied.

As it has become routine, inshallah has also become a kind of convenience, a useful dodge, a bit of theological bobbing-and-weaving to avoid commitment. No need to say no. If it doesn't happen, well, God didn't mean it to happen. Nazly Shahbendar, Ghada's daughter, said for example if she was invited to a party she did not want to attend, she would never say no.

"I'd say inshallah," said Shahbendar who is 24 and anything but a picture of the new religiosity. She is not veiled or shy about talking to men; she smokes in front of her mother.

She also points out that inshallah is not the only religious term to infiltrate the lexicon of routine. The younger Shahbendar, like many people here, have taken to using the Shahada, the Muslim declaration of belief, as a routine greeting. So instead of "How are you? Fine, and you?" she will say to a friend "There is no God but God," to which the friend will complete the statement. "And Muhammad is his prophet."

People now answer the phone that way, too, skipping hello altogether. It would be something like Christians greeting each other with "Christ is risen!" followed by "Christ will come again." Not just on Sundays, but every day.

"We are a very religious people, Egyptians," said Mostafa Said, 25, as he told his friend he hoped, inshallah, to have his car turn indicator fixed by next week. "We believe God is responsible for what happens, even to the car."

But it is not just about faith in the celestial, that has people invoking God. It is also, at least for some, a lack of faith in the earthbound rulers who run the place. People here are tired — of the rising prices and the eroding wages, of the traffic, of the corruption, of the sense that it is every man for himself.

"In this place, when something works, or you want something to work, you thank God, because it's certainly not the government who is going to help you," said Sherif Issa, 48, a taxi driver in Cairo with a nicotine-stained mustache and a fair size belly. "It's because everything is going in the wrong direction — who can we look up to except God?"

That Issa is a Christian is evidence that the use of inshallah is not just a phenomenon of Egypt's Muslims.

"It doesn't matter whether you're a Christian or a Muslim," he said. "I'm going to take you to your house, arriving there in a decent amount of time is already a miracle. Of course I say inshallah!"

Nadim Audi contributed reporting.

Alcohol sale banned @ Grand Hyatt?

Heard that the Grand Hyatt Cairo has decided to ban the sale of alcohol on its premises.

I'm not sure how true this is, but will check it out the next time I head to The Hard Rock Cafe for my Margarita dose. Well, if they have stopped the sale of alcohol, then I will just have to content myself with the high of the hot chocolate fudge sundae, won't I? :)

Possible reasons being ascribed are, that this is a marketing strategy by the Saudi based owner to entice his high-spending countrymen with this unique religiously compliant USP.

Other rumours also say that the Hyatt group, may pull out of the joint venture if this stalemate continues!

Edited on 15 April 2008, to add the following links to relevant news articles:
www.dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=13456
www.zawya.com/story.cfm/sidANA540123203517
http://almasry-alyoum.com/article2.aspx?ArticleID=103597
news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080502/lf_afp/egypttourismislamsaudi

Oldbag of Cairo: Dying / Funerals in Cairo

Oldbag of Cairo: Funerals in Cairo

Old Bag has written an interesting article on options available to an expat who dies in Cairo. This may sound morbid to some, but its a valid concern of many expats who have settled in Cairo for the long haul.

She covers funerals for Christian expats as the options for muslims are relatively easy to figure out.

To my Hindu (Indian) friends, well, Hinduism isn't one of the three recognised religions in Egypt, so no chance of a ghat! But maybe I will check this fact with some of the Indians who have been here for 12+ years, I'm sure they would have researched the subject.

Read the entire article here: Oldbag of Cairo: Funerals in Cairo

Sufi Performance at Wikalat al Ghuri

The tannoura / sufi dervish performance has moved from the Citadel to the Wikalat al-Ghuri at Khan el Khalili.

Timings :
Its held twice a week, Wednesdays and Saturdays.
The doors open at 8pm and the show starts at 8:30.

Directions :
Get off at Al Azhar mosque. Then turn your back to the main road, with the entrance to Al Azhar mosque on your left walk straight ahead till you reach the roadside restaurant at the dead end. Turn right and walk straight down. Cross the vegetable market and a smaller wikalat before you reach the Wikalat of al Ghuri.

Price :
The performance is free.
Regular entry into the wikalat for non Egyptians is about 10 or 15LE as far as I remember, but this is waived for the Sufi performance.

The performance is wonderful and even more fun if you can catch it during Ramadaan.

Read more on
tripadvisor.com
touregypt.net

Wudu - Ritual cleansing

Part of the reason for Wet Bathroom Floors in Egypt is Wudu.

As I understand from my muslimah friends: Wudu is the ritual cleansing before each of the fard (obligatory prayers)

It includes washing the hands 3 times and the face and rinsing out the mouth and sniffing water in the nose and then washing to the elbows and then wetting the head and ears and then the feet and ankles(some go upto the shin).

Wudu in Egypt is needed on a physical level to cleanse oneself of all the dirt, dust and pollution, so that one can be clean when standing before God.

But on a spiritual level it helps start the process of getting into a prayer mode. When you focus on the rituals of cleansing, you start leaving behind the stress and strains that have been occupying your thoughts, you start focusing on your upcoming prayers and dialogue with God.

The above explanation is my understanding, errors if any are mine alone - please feel free to correct me.

This ritual cleansing is not unique to Islam. Hindus in India and elsewhere have to take a bath in the mornings before they pray. The previous generations used to be really strict about this morning bath and prayers. Before entering a temple, there will be a water tank(in the older temples) or taps (in the newer ones) for devotees to wash their legs(mainly) hands and face before entering the temple itself. Some of these practices may have been diluted in todays day and age, but the concepts behind this are very similar to the concepts behind wudu.

When entering a church, you often find a basin of Holy Water (blessed on good Friday) The faithful, dip their fingertips in this and then make the sign of the cross with these fingers. Isn't this a ritual cleansing too? We use water(albeit Holy) and then make the sign of the cross as a self blessing and cleansing. (Because the water is Holy, just dabbing it at the 4 spots can cleanse you?)

Story of Egypt's Jews: Rich, complex, not yet over

Heather forwarded me this link and I hadn't read it before. Its quite an interesting article even though it is almost 5 years old .

Its from the Historical Society of Jews from Egypt site.

I can't vouch for the lack of bias in the article, but its pretty interesting all the same.

Below are a couple of excerpts.

....... The Haroun sisters still count among their close friends the Muslims and Christians with whom they went to school as girls, and each grew up to marry Muslims. But much has changed in a generation, says Nadia Haroun. Her daughter was ostracized when she revealed to schoolmates that her mother was Jewish......

.....If there were supporters of Israel, there were also Jews like Chehata Haroun. The father of lawyers Nadia and Magda counted himself an Egyptian, not a Jewish, nationalist.....

Read the entire article at the Historical Society of Jews from Egypt site.

Upcoming Easter Services

St Josephs Roman Catholic Church has an Easter vigil and mass today evening at 8:00pm. It will be in English and French.
They have an English mass tomorrow at 6pm.
The church is located in Zamalek on Ahmed Sabin Stret.

I haven't been to this church before, so I can't give better directions.

There is a Roman Catholic church in Maadi too but I don't have their Easter Service details.

All Saints Cathedral in Zamalek (they are just behind the Marriott - the last rt turn on 26th July street, just before hitting the Marriott) is Episcopal. Very good English preachers for the last 2 years that I have been here. Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services were extremely good and meaningful.

Their service tomorrow is at 10:30am

More details about churches in Cairo are at http://whazzupegypt.blogspot.com/2006/12/churches-in-cairo.html

Stifled, Egypt’s Young Turn to Islamic Fervor

From The New York Times

Shawn Baldwin for The New York Times

HELPING HAND A charity paid for dozens of couples to wed last fall in Idku, Egypt. Many young Egyptians cannot afford to marry and set up a household.

By MICHAEL SLACKMAN

Published: February 17, 2008

CAIRO — The concrete steps leading from Ahmed Muhammad Sayyid’s first-floor apartment sag in the middle, worn down over time, like Mr. Sayyid himself. Once, Mr. Sayyid had a decent job and a chance to marry. But his fiancée’s family canceled the engagement because after two years, he could not raise enough money to buy an apartment and furniture.

Read the rest of the article at The New York Times

Self-appointed enforcers of Islamic law spread influence in Egypt - Yahoo! News

Yahoo News!

By Miret el Naggar,
McClatchy Newspapers Thu Nov 29, 6:00 AM ET

CAIRO, Egypt — The self-styled enforcers of religious law issued frequent reprimands to Rasha el Kholy for not wearing a head scarf.

Sometimes her co-workers spoke to her as "concerned friends," and one colleague at the Cairo clothing factory where she worked gave her a CD of a sermon that emphasized the virtues of wearing the veil.

When that failed, the de facto morality squad lectured her on how to stand during prayers, on the need to pray more than the required five times a day and how she should limit her contact with Christian co-workers, Kholy said.

"It bothered me a lot because we were not friends," said Kholy, 36. "You're not doing it for my concern, you're really doing it just because you want to give me these pearls of wisdom that make you in some way a better Muslim than I am."

Self-appointed enforcers of Islamic law are becoming more common in Egypt , a Sunni Muslim nation with a population well above 70 million. Unlike the state-sanctioned morality police of conservative theocracies such as Saudi Arabia and Iran , Egypt's enforcers are ordinary people who take it upon themselves to offer religious "advice," often to strangers.

Unveiled women are the primary targets, but the enforcers also chastise Muslim men for dating, not observing prayer times or allowing their wives or sisters to wear revealing clothes.

Television preachers, Saudi religious literature and religious instruction in mosques all are encouraging practicing Muslims to offer such advice to others, even if unsolicited.

"People I barely knew started walking up to me, saying, 'You have beautiful hair and you're such a decent girl. Complete the perfect picture and get veiled,' " said Salma Nadim , 24, a telecommunications analyst in Cairo .

Egyptian officials have expressed alarm at the conservative Islamist reformation that's spreading across the Middle East and posing a challenge to the secular, authoritarian government of President Hosni Mubarak , one of the United States' closest Arab allies.

While Egyptian security forces regularly round up dozens of Islamist activists from organized movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood, they're all but powerless to stop the street preaching that's now an everyday occurrence on the subway, at the airport, in the workplace and at sidewalk cafes.

Government-backed clerics fear that their relatively moderate brand of Islam is being replaced by a more militant version fueled by widespread political discontent at home and fury over what's seen as Western meddling in the Muslim world. To add insult to injury, sheiks who've devoted their lives to studying Islam's intricacies are finding themselves upstaged by religious vigilantes with no formal training.

"Preaching has its professionals who know religion and understand how to do their job," said Sheik Omar el Deeb, a senior cleric at Al Azhar, a venerable Cairo religious institute that's struggling to remain a touchstone for the Islamic world. "But for someone to appoint himself as a preacher, on public transportation or on the streets, and then order people to follow religion, could make people shun religion."

Several other Muslim countries are locked in internal struggles over the role of morality squads in public life. The difference is that enforcers in the other countries have full state support.

This year, Shiite Muslim Iran launched one of the widest crackdowns in nearly two decades, allowing paramilitaries and police to harass or detain hundreds of women for wearing snug clothing or not wearing the proper head scarves. Men were accosted if they sported long hair, sleeveless shirts or tattoos.

In the Palestinian territories, members of the militant Sunni group Hamas , which won parliamentary elections last January, banned certain musical instruments they deemed counter to Islam, while the rival Fatah party's newly appointed morality police arrested dozens of people for smoking or drinking during the Ramadan holy month of fasting.

Then there's Saudi Arabia , where seemingly everyone has a story of an unpleasant encounter with the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, also known as the Muttawa. The commission's members troll the kingdom's ubiquitous Starbucks cafes in search of unmarried couples on dates or for women who aren't clad in the mandatory black robe called an abaya.

In September, two Saudi women made headlines for pepper-spraying and beating up a morality officer in an attack they filmed with their cell phones. The women were hailed as heroes on several Saudi blogs and listservs.

Not all Egyptians oppose their country's emerging volunteer morality police. Many welcome their work as legitimate outreach, or da'awa, a cornerstone of Islam. Yet even supporters concede that the message can get lost in an overzealous delivery.

"A big part of my reaction depends on the attitude in which the message is delivered," said Ahmed Zahran , 22, a university student. "If they're trying to deliver a message in a good manner, without shaming you, then it doesn't make you turn them away."

Critics, on the other hand, regard the vigilantes' efforts as intrusive, offensive and hypocritical.

Mohamed Abdel Wahab , 21, a senior at an Egyptian fine arts university, said he was standing with a female friend one recent day when a stranger approached them and called their behavior "impious." The stranger invited Abdel Wahab to join him in prayer. Not wanting to cause a scene, the student politely answered that he'd think about it. Abdel Wahab never went; he considers the enforcers' focus on beards and veils to be superficial.

"You would never see one of them picking up garbage from the streets and throwing it in a garbage can, for instance," he said.

Kholy, who was the target of constant harassment at the clothing factory, left her job this year for unrelated reasons. But her bitterness lingers, and it's made her more defiant in her belief that no one has the right to question her relationship with God.

"At first, I thought they were really concerned about me, but then I realized that their advice didn't go deeper into spiritual issues or even toward building a stronger relationship between us. It was only about, 'Get veiled, get veiled, get veiled!' " she said.

In her view, the religious vigilantes are competing to show their piety. "Nowadays, everyone is holding a notebook, counting their merits and turning it into a race. If I convince you to get veiled, I'll get two pages of stars and smileys."

(Naggar is a special correspondent for McClatchy .)

Ramadan's Moon

On the occasion of the eve of Ramadan, I would like to share an article written by my friend Mohamed Mabrouk of Sahara Safaris :

Ramadan Kareem ya Safarists! :)

Here are few facts that will help you understand and evaluate for yourself how a new Moon (new lunar month) is born. I will not get into any 'coordinates' of astronomy.

To understand, just think of the sky as a Dome around you while you are standing on Earth facing North.

- Moon (Al Qamar) travels in the Sky Dome in a circle which is almost the same as the Sun in the Sky Dome. It ALWAYS rises from the East and sets in the West.

- The Moon however is slower in the cycle than the Sun. You cannot notice the slowness within one day, but everyday it rises about 45 minutes LATER (actually 48 minutes) than it's time the day before. By approximately 30 days the delay (30 days x 0.80 hr) becomes a 24 hour delay. which means the MOON RISES AT THE SAME TIME OF THE DAY AFTER A MONTH.

- Two important time of this (30 day) month:

1) when the Moon is VERY CLOSE TO THE SUN at the circle of the Dome (they then seem to travel together along our Sky on that day, but you cannot see the moon because the Sun is so bright), then they rise almost together and set almost together on that day

2) when the Moon is ON THE OTHER END OF THE CIRCLE. This is when the Moon rises from the East almost at the same minute the Sun sets at the West.

Now you can see: Crescent is when the Moon is very near the Sun in the Cycle & Full Moon is when the Moon is furthest from the Sun in the Cycle.

So when is a New Moon born???

Ok. When the Sun starts coming close to catch up with the relatively slower Moon, that's when the Lunar month is about to end. Exactly the moment when they're running together, that's when the Crescent diminishes to almost zero (sometimes this moment is a Full or Partial Eclipse of the Sun) and then is born again facing the other side.

When this moment happens at any time of the day (or night) it means that this day is the last day of the Lunar Month and that the next day is the first day of the new Month.

It's much easier to explain the Desert of course. :)

Salaam,
Mohamed Mabrouk

Ramadan Kareem to all my friends who will be getting in touch with their spiritual side in the coming 30 days.