 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 April 1999 Issue No. 425 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
 |
 |
|
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 April 1999 Issue No. 425
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
|
|
|
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters The king of spring
by Fayza Hassan"Such practices are horrendous to a believer... [who] knows what is reputable and shuns what is not reputable," wrote the prominent mediaeval theologian Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328) in connection with the celebration of public festivals, adding that those who participated in the practice were "common people who do not know the essence of Islam". Although not all the ulama of the period agreed with Ibn Taymiyya's austere pronouncements, many among them did pressure rulers concerned with public morals to restrict, repress or simply ban those cultural phenomena which are generally characterised as popular.
Describing the Nawruz celebrations of Ancient Egypt, the Mameluke chronicler Al-Maqrizi concluded that "nowadays the people have neither the leisure which they need nor the comfort and vivaciousness that are necessary [to celebrate]." There is no record, however, of whether the festival, which had disappeared by the middle of the 15th century, was abandoned because of a lack of enthusiasm on the part of the participants, or was banned only to resurface in another guise.
The festival of No Roz (new day), later Nawruz (or Nayruz), has its origins in ancient Iran, and is possibly derived from a pagan festival marking the transition from winter to summer. The name referred to the day of the spring equinox on 21 March, an occasion still celebrated in modern Iran. According to AUC professor of sociology Asef Bayat, nowadays Nawruz lasts 13 days, marked in Iran by a national holiday, on the last dawn of which people take to the fields, gardens, or any outdoor location, where they breakfast on fish, eggs, green onions, parsley and any other food symbolic of the new spring season. Other customs also associated with the mediaeval No Roz include wearing new clothes, starting the day with a mouthful of pure fresh milk and fresh cheese, sowing seven kinds of seeds in small containers to sprout on the holy day, exchanging gifts and sprinkling water over each other.
It is not known when or how Nawruz became an Egyptian festival, only that it was celebrated by the Copts (Al-Nawruz Al-Qibti). Several traditions were shared by Persians and Copts, including the lighting of bonfires the night before to ward off the "bad smells" of the past year. The Egyptian Nawruz, however, was not celebrated in March as it is in Iran, but rather on the first day of the Coptic month of Tout, marking the beginning of the agricultural year, which coincided with 11 September in the Gregorian calendar -- about the time when the Nile waters were expected to reach their peak.
Although it is impossible to ascertain if the festival was still being marked by special entertainment at the time of the Islamic conquest, there is an account of its existence in 912 AD, when both the elite and the ordinary people took part in the festivities; but, while the customs of the former resembled those noted for ancient Iran (exchange of gifts, eating special foods, wearing new clothes), the celebrations of the latter were of a rowdier nature, associated with drinking in public, a good deal of violence and generally loose behaviour. "There were also masks and masquerades," writes Boaz Shoshan in Popular Culture in Mediaeval Cairo (Cambridge University Press, 1993). "In 975, in celebrations which lasted three days, crowds marched in the streets of Cairo; masquerades, theatrical performances, and man-made imitations of elephants, possibly a means of mocking two elephants which had featured in a procession presided over by Fatimid Caliph Al-Mu'izz two years earlier," marked the occasion.
Historians of popular culture find great similarities between Nawruz as interpreted by the ordinary people and other mediaeval festivals of Western origin, where the basic theme was a world turned upside down: for a brief time every year, the weak and downtrodden had the upper hand over their rulers. "A mediaeval critic of Nawruz lamented the adverse effect of the holiday, not only on the common people but on the learned as well. On that day... schools were shut down and turned into playgrounds; teachers were attacked, insulted, and, unless they paid 'ransom', even thrown into fountains," adds Shoshan.
The main attraction of Nawruz in mediaeval Egypt, however, appears to have been the procession of the Amir Nawruz, who was elected by the revellers for certain specific traits of character. The chroniclers of the time write that this figure, naked, or dressed in yellow or red, rode on a small donkey. His face was covered with flour, he sported a beard of fur and a tartur (special pointy cap) made of palm fronds. He held a daftar (official register) in his hand and, at the head of a large crowd, visited the homes of the dignitaries and officials handing each of them a statement indicating the 'debt' they had to pay. Those who refused to hand over the money were abused, sprayed with water or even sometimes beaten.
Although the celebration of Nawruz is said to have been discontinued by the middle of the 15th century, an account of the river festival taking place on the first day of the Coptic month of Tout by a traveller who toured the Egyptian countryside in 1914 offers striking similarities with the mediaeval custom, complete with the election of "Abu Nerus", the mock leader chosen by the people and dressed in a robe of brilliant colours, a fool's cap and a flax beard. There was a procession and mock court proceedings; "but," adds the traveller "[i]n these days it is only possible to meet Abu Nerus by travelling to distant villages."
One is tempted to believe that some of the aspects -- at least the less objectionable ones -- of the Nawruz festival survived in the celebrations of the Egyptian Shamm Al-Nessim.. Although the former can be traced to Pharaonic Egypt, its lighting of bonfires and burning of old garments (to produce a smoke that would purify houses of the fleas and vermin which infested the dwellings at the start of the hot months), its smelling of onions and early breakfasts of eggs and fish, its day trips to the countryside and sailing on the Nile, are all activities which were also practiced during Nawruz. Shamm Al-Nessim was later adopted by the Copts as part of their festive calendar, and its date fixed by the relevant religious authorities of the time on the day following Coptic Easter.
Could Nawruz have simply been made to blend with Shamm Al-Nessim? It is often said that Egyptians do not abandon century-old traditions and practices easily, but rather add to them others that are pleasing, or adapt them to their present needs -- a notion confirmed by E W Lane's remark that "the Muslims of Egypt observe certain customs of a religious or superstitious nature at particular periods of the religious almanac of the Copts; and even, according to the same system, calculate the times of certain changes of the weather. Thus, they calculate the period of the Khamassin... to commence on the day immediately following the Coptic festival of Easter Sunday, and to terminate on the day of Pentecost... an interval of forty-nine days."
Shared customs, according to Lane, include Arba' Ayyoub (Job's Wednesday), when both Muslims and Christians "wash themselves with cold water and rub themselves with the creeping plant called raara'a Ayyoub or ghubeyra on account of a tradition which relates that Job did so to obtain restoration of health"; the festivities also involve eating eggs dyed red, yellow or blue, eating a dish of khalta composed of kishk (wheat and bran soaked in soured milk then pounded into a cream) with fuul nabit (germinated boiled beans), lentils, rice, onions etc. on Good Friday, and adorning one's eyes with kohl on Sabt Al-Nour (Saturday of the Light), "because a light said to be miraculous, appears during the festival then celebrated in the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem".
Celebrating Shamm Al-Nessim on the first day of the Khamassin was a custom more popular with women than men, according to Lane, which included the smelling of an onion, a ride or a walk into the country or a short boat excursion on the Nile, "generally northwards to take the air, or as they term it 'smell' the air, which on that day they believe to have a wonderfully beneficial effect... This year [1834] they were treated with a violent hot wind, accompanied by clouds of dust instead of nessim [the spring breeze]; but considerable numbers notwithstanding went out to 'smell' it." The bonfires remained a popular practice in the coutryside rather than in the cities, but in Port Said, for instance, it seems to have held fast nevertheless, to be transformed after the beginning of the1919 revolution into the famous Allenby procession, in which an effigy of that infamous general is ritually burnt.
Finally, a remark by Lane: "The ulama do not celebrate their Shamm Al-Nessim with the rest of the people..., [but] at a fixed period of the solar year, the first three days of the spring quarter, corresponding with the Persian 'Now-Roz' called by the Arabs 'Norooz'." Perhaps the connection between the two festivals is to be found here. While Lane does not elaborate on the nature of the festivities, one would assume that they were marked with the required decorum, perhaps taking the more subdued form of the modern Iranian festival.
