Growing up in Cairo, I saw a lot of people praying all the time in different places. I lived in Zamalek and Maadi, and the experiences and talk of pilgrimage were very different than what we discussed in class. When I talk about pilgrimages I am referring to those of Muslim faith, for that is the dominant religion in Cairo. Ziyara I feel was not a talked about thing, more of just a cultural constant. And the hajj was also something celebrated differently as to how it is discussed in our readings for class.
The hajj is referred to in Meri’s chapter as a “universal rite” that all Muslims, if able, must take once in their life. Both in Meri’s piece and El-Shamy’s “Religion Among the Folk in Egypt” though the hajj is discussed as an almost optional thing. I’m not entirely certain if this is because the pieces were written about the majority of the people or because it was centered on a certain group. Living in Egypt my family was definitely what most of the country would consider upper class. My parents and myself had a lot of Muslim friends and during the hajj season we would know at least one family making the trip. It was something that, once they returned, was celebrated with a gathering of friends for a felucca ride on the Nile. The readings had me questioning whether the reason this seemed to me and my friends like a vacation, was because of the wealth. Or did the Muslim’s we were friends with so modernized that they went and took a couple of pictures and came back with no real changing of their faith.
The ziyara was also really interesting for me to read about. Meri defines ziyara for Muslims as a “pilgrimage to saints’ tombs and other pilgrimage sites”. Now in Cairo there are many places right outside the city that aren’t synagogues or regular places of worship. On field trips or days out with my friends many times we would pass people praying at tombs and think nothing of it. I recall a day when my nanny had taken my brother and I out for a walk and we ended up at this tomb for someone who she said was very important. She prayed while my brother and I sat under this tree playing and then we left. This happened on a weekly maybe bi-weekly basis. In my view, this was ziyara. It was not a discussed thing and maybe that’s because of the backlash it got from the Muslim community. To me as a child it did not seem any different than praying in a synagogue, but after the Meri reading’s I see how the connection of ziyara to saint devotion vs. devotion to God could have had a negative effect.