“Umm ad-Dunya” and the young Egyptians

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.