City - Cairo State - SALADIN CITADEL Country - Egypt
About
The moment Ramadan starts, Egypt celebrates the month with all its aspects: the spiritual rituals that conflate fasting, praying and participation in charitable activities; and the social side that includes iftar and sohour feasts, television serials and soccer tournaments. Throughout Egypt’s history, some traditions have survived the years with each generation adding its timeless touch.
Some of these Ramadan fixtures include the fanous (lantern), mesaharaty (whose job is to wake people up for the pre-dawn meal) and el-madfa’ (the canon signaling iftar time).
Boom! With a mighty blast, the cannon announces the end of a day of Ramadan fasting.
The “Cannon of Iftar” is a throwback to days when life was simpler and clocks were a rare luxury. The cannon was implemented as a tool to announce the official daily sunset for the people too far away to hear the Adhaan Al Maghreb announce the breaking of the fast.
The tradition of using artillery to announce sunset has its roots in the sands of Egypt when it was governed by the Ottoman Khosh Qadam, more than two centuries ago. The story goes that Qadam had been given a cannon as a gift, which he was testing during Iftar of the first day of Ramadan. When he fired it, the whole of Cairo reverberated with the sound of the canon.
The inhabitants of Cairo were impressed and thought that this was a new method of announcing sunset. The next day Qadam was visited by people who congratulated him on such a clever way for everyone in the city to be informed of the breaking of the fast.
Till this day in Cairo, there is a cannon known as “Hajjah Fatimah” which, according to some, was named after the daughter of Qadam.
RAMADAN KAREEM dear Khaled, I would like to thank you not only for this fantastic great shot that brought to me a lots of memories and literally cause me to cry; but also thank you for “about” the additional information that you attached with it. Ramadan is different here in the US; one of the things that I miss besides many things in Ramadan; is the Cannon. Thank you again … God bless you. Ali
Beautiful b/w tones and an excellent composition, Khaled! An extremely interesting "about" as well, to those of us not versed in your traditions. Dave.
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{K:89003} 8/22/2009
