Greetings from “Umm ad-Dunya”
(Mother of the World) otherwise known as Cairo.
I’ve been thinking recently
about why this title was given to this city. One has to live here to understand
why. Specifically, one has to be around the Egyptian people, especially the
children. I’ll clarify what I mean by this by prefacing the clarification with
a note on the Islamic concept of the terms “child” and “adult.”
One of the points raised in
the SeekersHub course I’m partaking in called “Becoming a Man” has been the
fact that in Islamic law there is no concept of adolescence. Rather, one is
either a child or an adult. One makes the transition from childhood to
adulthood on displaying one of the signs of puberty.* After this point whatever
is obligatory for Muslims to perform becomes obligatory for one.**
I feel that in Egypt one can
see this part of the law extend to culture. The Egyptian children really do
become adults at around the age of puberty. I speak not of the children raised
in a “Western” way with a television, laptop, and no responsibilities. It is
the youngsters you see working on their parent’s fruit stall on the side of the
street at night. It is the mere seventeen-year-old driving a “microbus” (a 12
seater van used for transporting people around the city) while handling cash
from the customers seated behind him, calculating the change, and at the same
time being aware of where he is going and avoiding a crash on the laneless
streets of Cairo. It is in the way of speaking of a child who has never been to
school with the confidence and purpose of an adult. This child has grown up
living in a makeshift hut (there are several of these huts in the suburbs of
Cairo) on the side of the road, and learnt very early on that to eat he or she
must work.
The point these examples are
meant to make is that the children and teenagers here are much more advanced
than their Western counterparts in terms of socialising and responsibility. For
example, on the microbuses and Metro (Cairo’s rail system) I’ve seen many a
youngster keep up with someone twice or three times their age in exchanging
clever sentences.
This advanced ability in
socialising and responsibility I feel is one part of Cairo being the “Mother of
the World.”
I love and admire the young
adults of Egypt. Here’s a poem to celebrate them:
Never stepped foot in a flashy mall
Too busy working late at your daddy’s fruit stall
Never clicked a button on a mouse
The only mice you know are the ones that eat your food
You don’t complain when they do
Because they’re part of your family too
Never shy to say what’s on your mind
A few wrinkles starting to show after another day’s grind
Never bathed two months in a row
Never felt hot water flow
But there’s a spark in your eyes
And in your smile a glow
You’re a hero of mine
Living it real, on the streets of Cairo
*According to the Hanafi
school of jurisprudence, if one does not display one of the signs of puberty then
one is considered an adult at the age of 18.
**Importantly, this also means
that learning how to perform whatever is obligatory for one to perform is also
obligatory – this is known as “Fard ‘ayn” knowledge.
