The Mulid of al-Sayyid al-Badawi of Tanta (eBook)

Egypt's Legendary Sufi Festival

Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2019
232 Seiten
The American University in Cairo Press (Verlag)
978-1-61797-952-1 (ISBN)

Infos

Every year, in Tanta, in the heart of the Nile Delta, a festival takes place that was for centuries the biggest in the Muslim world: the mulid of al-Sayyid Ahmad al-Badawi, a much-loved saint who cures the impotent and renders barren women fertile. This study tells the history of a Sufi festival that for long overshadowed even the pilgrimage to Mecca. Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen shows that the mulid does not stand in opposition to religious orthodoxy, but rather acts as a mirror to Egyptian Islam, uniting ordinary believers, peasants, ulama, and heads of Sufi brotherhoods in a shared spiritual fervor.

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Every year, in the heart of the Nile Delta, a festival takes place that was for centuries the biggest in the Muslim world: the mulid of al-Sayyid Ahmad al-Badawi of Tanta. Since the thirteenth century millions of believers from neighboring regions and countries have flooded into Tanta, Egypt’s fourth-largest city, to pay devotional homage to al-Badawi, a much-loved saint who cures the impotent and renders barren women fertile.



This book tells for the first time the history of a mulid that for long overshadowed even the pilgrimage to Mecca. Organized by Sufi brotherhoods, it had, by the nineteenth century, grown to become the scene of a boisterous and rowdy festival that excited the curiosity of European travelers. Their accounts of the indecorous dancing and sacred prostitution that enlivened the mulid of al-Sayyid al-Badawi fed straight into Orientalist visions of a sensual and atavistic East. Islamic modernists as well as Western observers were quick to criticize the cult of al-Badawi, reducing it to a muddle of superstitions and even a resurgence of anti-Islamic pagan practices. For many pilgrims, however, al-Badawi came to embody the Egyptian saint par excellence, the true link to the Prophet, his hagiographies and mulid standing for the genuine expression of a shared popular culture.



Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen shows that the mulid does not in fact stand in opposition to religious orthodoxy, but rather acts as a mirror to Egyptian Islam, uniting ordinary believers, peasants, ulama, and heads of Sufi brotherhoods in a shared spiritual fervor. The Mulid of al-Sayyid al-Badawi of Tanta leads us on a discovery of this remarkably colorful and festive manifestation of Islam.

Autor

Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen is professor of history at Sorbonne University, where she teaches on early modern and modern Islam. She is the author or co-editor of several books on Sufism and Islam, including Ethics and Spirituality in Islam: Sufi adab (co-edited with Francesco Chiabotti et al., 2016).

Inhalt

Acknowledgments



Chronology



Introduction



1. The Mulid of Tanta, October 2002



2. The Lives of al-Sayyid al-Badawi , between Oral and Written Tradition



3. From Saint to Mulid: The Ahmadiya Brotherhood



4. The Mulid of Tanta: From Its Origins until the Napoleonic Expedition



5. The Nineteenth Century Mulid: From Carnival to Reform



6. The Mulid of Tanta in the Twentieth Century: The Metamorphosis of the Pilgrimage



7. Return to Tanta



Glossary



Notes



Bibliography



Index

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 23.7.2019
• Übersetzer: Colin Clement
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte
• Schlagworte: al-Sayyid al-Badawi • Egyptian Islam • Egyptian Popular Culture • Islam • Islamic ceremonies • Islamic festivals • Islamic saints • mulid • Orientalism • Sufism
• ISBN-10: 1-61797-952-X / 161797952X
• ISBN-13: 978-1-61797-952-1 / 9781617979521