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Mogg, Present-day Cairo, like many cities in the ME, has a great deal to offer in the way of cigarettes and whiskey, and no shortage of very interesting and outspoken women. I've had some crazy nights in Cairo, and I have little doubt that it was just as crazy back in the day that Mahfouz writes about in the trilogy. Such things are not, btw, a function of modernity. If you want some outrageous stories of wine, women, men dressed as women, women dressed as boys, etc., look back over a millenium to the courts of the 'Abbasid caliphs as captured by al-Jahiz, Abu Nuwas, et alii. The Mamluks (my favorites, the rulers of Egypt and environs in the 13th-15th centuries CE) were no shirkers when it came to debauchery either. As for Sufism, mawlids and other Sufi ceremonies have been frequently decried over the centuries by some would-be overseers of 'orthodoxy' as dangerous, erotically-charged events with far too much music, dancing, and mixing of the sexes. And yet (happily, imo) they go on. I think one of the most pervasive misconceptions about the Muslim world (historical and modern) is that it was/is a universally 'pious', buttoned-down place. This is in no small part due to the fact that many in the region like to project this image of themselves, but that doesn't make it any more accurate. First, there are multiple definitions of what it looks like to be a good Muslim. Second, and more importantly, Muslims are as varied as any other set of humans, and, as with any other religious group, there are many Muslims who follow the dictates of the clerics to the letter and many others who do not, and all the evidence indicates that this has been true for as long as there have been Muslims. - Noah On 9/25/2012 2:31 PM, mandrake wrote: > On 25/09/2012 18:25, Noah Gardiner wrote: > > I think it is a fantastic insight that the Egyptian folk stories (ie > Tale of Two Brothers, Khemwaset etc) are ways of discussing sexual > mysticism - > indeed they are often very explicit - as when a grave robber thinks he > is getting his way with the lovely > Tabubue and wakes up naked in the street with his penis in a clay pot! > > I will check out the full article in the library as the authors are > being coy - > the festival of local sufi saint and his wife at Luxor, is said by > some researchers to be an archeological memory > of the festival of Opet (Amun & Mut). > > > Older versions of the festival had a symbolic sexual component (now > suppressed) - > although I'm currently reading Mahfouz's "Cairo Trilogy" - which > covers the period from 1918 - independence. It > is full of "cigarettes, and whiskey and wild wild women" - > also much Islamic and Koranic folklore - of which the author was an > expert - > do you have any thoughts on this view of Egyptian society? > > > mogg > >> This will certainly interest Mogg and many others on this list, if >> you didn't already know about it: "A recently deciphered Egyptian >> papyrus from around 1,900 years ago tells a fictional story that >> includes drinking, singing, feasting and ritual sex, all in the name >> of the goddess Mut." >> >> I don't know the site, but the article seems legit: >> http://www.livescience.com/23401-cult-fiction-ancient-egypt-priest.html >> -- >> Noah Gardiner >> Doctoral candidate, Dept. of Near Eastern Studies >> University of Michigan, Ann Arbor > -- Noah Gardiner Doctoral candidate, Dept. of Near Eastern Studies University of Michigan, Ann Arbor