The Perils of Joy: Contesting Mulid Festivals in Contemporary Egypt

Title Page, Copyright, Dedication, About the Author

The Perils of Joy Contemporary Issues in the Middle East Other titles in Contemporary Issues in the Middle East American Writers in Istanbul: Melville, Twain, Hemingway, Dos Passos, Bowles, Algren, Baldwin, and Settle Kim Fortuny Cultural Criticism in Egyptian Women’s Writing Caroline Seymour-Jorn The Druze and Their Faith in Tawhid Anis Obeid Islam Without Illusions: Its Past, Its Present, and Its Challenge for the Future Ed Hotaling The Kurdish National Movement: Its Origins and Development Wadie Jwaideh One Family’s Response to Terrorism: A Daughter’s Memoir Susan Kerr van de Ven Painting the Middle East Ann Zwicker Kerr Islam, Arabs, and the Intelligent World of the Jinn Amira El-Zein Turkish Islam and the Secular State: The Gülen Movement M. Hakan Yavuz and John L. Esposito, eds. Writing Off the Beaten Track: Reflections on the Meaning of Travel and Culture in the Middle East Judith Caesar The Perils of Joy Contesting Mulid Festivals in Contemporary Egypt Samuli Schielke Syracuse University Press Copyright © 2012 by Syracuse University Press Syracuse, New York 13244-5290 All Rights Reserved First Edition 2012 12 13 14 15 16 17 6 5 4 3 2 1 ∞ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992. For a listing of books published and distributed by Syracuse University Press, visit our website at SyracuseUniversityPress.syr.edu. ISBN: 978-0-8156-3300-6 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Schielke, Joska Samuli. The perils of joy : contesting mulid festivals in contemporary Egypt / Samuli Schielke. p. cm. — (Contemporary issues in the Middle East) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8156-3300-6 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Mawlid al-Nabi—Egypt. 2. Fasts and feasts—Islam. I. Title. BP186.34.S35 2012 297.3’6—dc23 2012033974 Manufactured in the United States of America  To Fathi ‘Abd al-Sami‘, who gave me the best ideas and whose book on repression and joy I keep looking forward to Samuli Schielke was born in Helsinki, Finland, in 1972. He received his PhD in 2006 from the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Amsterdam. He is currently a research fellow at Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin, where he directs the junior research group on the project “In Search of Europe: Considering the Possible in Africa and the Middle East.“ He also teaches visual anthropology and social and cultural anthropology as an external lecturer at the Free University of Berlin. ...