The typical Arab sheikh of modern fiction (if he does not turn out to be an Englishman) is a young, dashing, handsome and intensely fascinating individual, well mannered and well washed; but in real life one rarely meets such a person—I myself have never seen him. The typical sheikh at Siwa or on the Western Desert was elderly, bearded and only moderately clean. Some of them were certainly very fine-looking men, but utterly different to the personage that one would expect from the descriptions in a certain style of popular novel. The “guides” who swindle visitors in Cairo are much more like the sheikh of fiction in appearance than are the real sheikhs whom one meets and has dealings with on the desert.
One of the most curious, partly philanthropic institutions which has survived in Siwa is the “Beit el Mal,” a public fund used for providing shrouds for persons who die without money or relations, and also for repairing mosques, causeways and sun-shelters. The money is contributed from the sale of public land belonging to the community, and also from the sale of argoul, which is a plant that is used as manure, and rents for grazing paid by visiting Arabs. The fund is collected and administered by certain sheikhs, and in former days it included fines, inflicted as punishments, and taxes on strangers who visited the oasis. Any case which is considered deserving of charity is supplied from the money.
Ramadan, the Mohammedan Lent, the month in which the Koran was supposed to have been sent down from heaven, is kept very strictly in Siwa. During this month all good Mohammedans are expected to refrain from the pleasures of the table, the pipe and the harem; no morsel of food or drop of water may pass their lips during the day, but at night the revels commence and they feast and enjoy themselves till the unwelcome approach of morning. Night is turned into day, and at Siwa, during Ramadan, there is a continuous rumble of drums from sunset till the early morning; at first it is disturbing, but one grows accustomed to it before the month is out.
The words of the Koran are:
“Eat and drink until ye can plainly distinguish a black thread from a white thread by the daybreak; then keep the fast until night.”
It is possible to obtain a dispensation from keeping Ramadan, on medical grounds, and among the effendi class I noticed that this was frequently done; travellers are also excused from observing it, though I have often been out on trek during Ramadan with men who were strictly fasting. If the month occurs in the hot weather it is a very great strain on every one. Siwa, in the daytime, during Ramadan, is like a dead place; the minimum amount of work is done in the gardens, everybody stays indoors during the day, and one sees nobody about the streets except in the cool of the early morning and after sunset. Fasting, especially abstaining from drinking, is a severe strain; the sheikhs, when they come to the Markaz, look thin and ill, and one’s servants make the fast an excuse for doing nothing.
This arduous month is terminated by a festival lasting for three days known as the Minor Festival or Kurban Bairam. It is celebrated with great festivities and rejoicings in Egypt; servants expect tips and every one appears in new clothes, but in Siwa it is not so important an occasion; the people merely take a rest after the trials of the fast month, reserving all their energy and money for the great local mulid which occurs a week or so later. The mulid of Sidi Suliman, the anniversary of the birth of Siwa’s patron sheikh, is the most important incident of the whole year. The festival generally lasts for three days, but the people take three more days to recover from it. All the year round everybody saves money in order to make a “splash” at the annual mulid.
For several days the women are busy cooking cakes and sweets; the best fruit in the gardens is carefully watched over to be ready at the mulid, and certain animals are fed up with a view to being slaughtered. If possible one or two camels are bought from the Arabs and kept at grass till they are fat enough to kill. On the eve of the feast there is a general spring cleaning of the town. The tombs of the sheikhs are freshly painted with whitewash, carpets and coloured blankets are hung from every roof, while the houses are swept and cleaned, and the place looks quite gay with its clean white tombs, and bright mats and rugs hanging out from roofs and windows. In the evening the sheep that are to be slaughtered on the morrow are led in from the fields, and everybody discusses with interest how many animals Sheikh So-and-So is going to kill. Sometimes the richest men kill as many as seven or eight sheep, and this is remembered and often mentioned to their credit, all through the year. One year there was a great scandal in the town because Sheikh Mohammed Hameid had boasted to everybody that he had killed six sheep, but one of his household let out that there had only been three old goats slaughtered. Enormous supplies of lubki are drawn before the holiday in order that it may stand long and become really strong.
On the morning of the mulid everybody puts on his best clothes, and even the poorest labourer dons a new shirt or a clean jibba. Every man goes to pray in his own particular mosque, and the women visit the tombs and lay palm branches on the graves of their relations. After this people retire to their houses and eat an enormous meal and as much meat as they can possibly swallow. When the men have eaten, the remainder of the food is sent to the harem, and when the harem have finished, it is sent out to the servants and labourers who pick the bones clean. After this heavy meal and during the two following days everybody calls on everybody else, and on this occasion one may see eastern sheikhs riding haughtily through the western quarter to call on their much-detested neighbours. In all the streets one meets the sheikhs riding along on their best donkeys, wearing gorgeous silk, coloured robes, which emerge from the chests in which they are locked up during most of the year, each followed by an escort of servants. The people let each other know at what time they will be “at home” and when they will ride out visiting.
On arriving at the house one finds servants waiting to hold the donkeys, and if one is so indiscreet as to look up at the little windows numbers of female heads pop out of sight. The owner of the house is found seated in his largest room, with the best carpets covering the floor, surrounded by about a dozen little tables with dishes of peaches, grapes, figs, melons, nuts, cakes and sweets, and one dish which contains the young, white pith of a palm tree, which is much esteemed as a delicacy. Along the side of the room there are more dishes, covered with napkins, heaped up with meat, generally smothered by a cloud of flies. The host offers tea, coffee, or an exceedingly disagreeable syrupy liquor made from a species of fruit “syrop” which should be taken cold with soda, but is served hot like tea, according to Siwan fashion. Strict etiquette enjoins that one must drink three cups of tea or coffee, and taste every dish in the room, except the meat, which is reserved for the family at each house.