Before the sun sets

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MOMENTS before the call to maghreb (sunset) prayers, Cairo readies itself for the break of a day's fast. And half way through the holy month, Cairenes have settled into their Ramadan routines. Every day, the streets choke in traffic as people rush about trying to finish a day's work before heading home for Iftar. A notorious bottle-neck is Midan Libnan in Mohandessin where drivers stuck in lines of cars endlessly await the moment they get home. Across town at the Al-Hussein Mosque, men congregate for the daily lessons in religion given before prayer. Outside the mosque men and women go about getting their food ready and spreading out their mats and food on the sidewalks waiting for Iftar to begin. But perhaps the most intimate of pre-Iftar routines is that when the pious open their Qurans and read the words of God. photos: Mohamed Wassim