Ramadan started only a few days ago, but most Muslims have now got into the routine of fasting during the day and then going out in the evening to visit family and friends or to stroll around Cairo, taking in the cooler air after the oppressive heat of the day. Whilst Ramadan is a holy month and Muslims' focus is on returning to Allah, there is nonetheless time to relax and enjoy these days as well. One of the most popular places to visit is Khan Al-Khalili, with its spices and perfumes. The nearby Al-Azhar park is also a pleasant place to spend the evening. There is another place, though, not far from Al-Hussein, which is even more a magnet for Muslim visitors during Ramadan, although tourists and non-Muslims may not even have heard of it. The district of Sayyeda Zeinab during Ramadan is as Egyptian as fuul and taameya, those typically Egyptian foods of the poor, and is a reflection of popular devotion mixed with local custom and tradition. If you have not been there this Ramadan it maybe worth a visit, since you won't find the belly dancing outfits and plastic Pharaonic statues supplied in vast quantities in Khan Al-Khalili for coach loads of tourists. Instead, you might see toys and sweets for children, prayer beads and copies of the Holy Qur'an for their parents, and enough food to feed an army! The Mosque of Sayyeda Zeinab itself has a very long history. Zeynab herself (May Allah be pleased with her) was the granddaughter of Prophet Muhammed (pbuh), being the youngest daughter of his own daughter, Fatima, and his cousin Ali Ibn Abi Taleb. She was the sister of Al-Hassan and Al-Hussein. Zeynab has been called “the heroine of Karbala" because of the way she rallied the Muslim soldiers during that battle, providing food for them, treating the wounded and looking after the children. Little wonder, then, that when she moved to Egypt in the year AD 680, the governor of Egypt, Maslama Ibn Makhlid Al Ansary, was one of the first to set out and greet her. He welcomed her to stay in one of his palaces in the district that now bears her name. Less than a year later, the holy lady had died and she was buried, according to the conditions of her will, on the same spot where she had lived for the past eleven months. A Mosque had already been built here soon after her arrival in Egypt and the faithful began to visit her shrine to ask for baraka (blessing). Whilst this sort of veneration of the dead is not encouraged in Sunni Islam, since our help comes from Allah Alone, it is often a part of popular devotion amongst those whose piety is perhaps not as informed as it might be, but who nonetheless wish to express their simple faith by visiting the graves of holy men and women, hoping that some of their holiness might rub off on the simple folk who visit them. Down through the ages, the simple mosque of Sayyeda Zeinab has been embellished and expanded by the great and the good. The first such repair was undertaken by Ahmed Ibn Tulun, whose own nearby mosque is one of the sublimest examples of Islamic architecture in the entire world. In 1201, the mosque was expanded to an area of three thousand square metres and the mausoleum was covered with a layer of yellow copper. Egypt's ruler in the late nineteenth century, Khedive Tawfiq, undertook the most ambitious project, rebuilding the entire mosque next to the mausoleum. The last of his dynasty, King Farouk, ordered further repairs in 1946, and those who overthrew him expanded the mosque even further to an area of four thousand square metres. The most recent expansion, which increased the size of Sayyeda Zeinab Mosque to an area of eighteen thousand square metres, capable of holding up to fifteen thousand worshippers for prayer, was undertaken relatively recently. So what makes so many flock to this area throughout the year, and in particular during the long nights of Ramadan? For sure, there is excitement aplenty. For people whose lives are, on the whole, hard and rather dull, the lights, the crowds and the spectacle of Sayyeda Zeinab is a welcome delight. There is something more, though, and it is this which is truly at the heart of Ramadan, even though the tourists in Khan Al-Khalili would never understand it. In the Holy Qur'an we read: "O Ye who believe! Fasting is prescribed to you As it was prescribed to those before you, That ye may learn piety." 2:183 The television might present the world with an image of fasting for a whole month, but Muslims know that Ramadan is about much more than fasting. They fast for Allah's sake. That is what Ramadan is about and they can feel blessed by having done what Allah commanded them to do. More than this, though, Ramadan is a time for self-reflection, asking ourselves how we have been living as Muslims during the last year. It is a time to think of those who are less fortunate than we are, whose fasting each day will not end with the sound of a cannon fired from Cairo's Citadel, since there is no food for them. Ramadan is a time to thank Allah for all the blessings we take for granted in life, including wives and husbands, children and good health. And it is a time, inshallah, to improve our efforts and resolve to be better in the year ahead. If there is a chance this Ramadan, in sampling the excitement of Sayyeda Zeinab district and its mosque, we might learn from Muslim history the even greater excitement and deeper fulfillment of what it means to love for Allah Alone. Ramadan Kareem. British Muslim writer, Idris Tawfiq, is a lecturer at Al-Azhar University. The author of eight books about Islam, he divides his time between Egypt and the UK as a speaker, writer and broadcaster. You can visit his website at www.idristawfiq.com.
