Region | Egypt
Egyptians stay away from 'tainted feasts'
Many Egyptians are opting to stay away from iftar hosted by entertainers and belly-dancers after some Muslim clerics branded these street feasts for the poor as "sinful".
- By Ramadan Al Sherbini, Correspondent
- Published: 23:56 September 28, 2008
Cairo: Many Egyptians are opting to stay away from iftar hosted by entertainers and belly-dancers after some Muslim clerics branded these street feasts for the poor as "sinful".
"I used to eat these meals at iftar since I cannot go home at that time," Saleh Abbas, a security guard at an office building in the fashionable Cairo quarter of Mohandessin, told Gulf News.
"But after hearing about the fatwas passed by many shaikhs that these meals are haram [illegal from the Islamic point of view], I have boycotted them, and become content with a sandwich of falafel I buy at a nearby restaurant to break my fast," Abbas said, alluding to opinions aired by an influential religious leader.
'Unacceptable'
A top leader of Al Azhar, a major Sunni institution, denounced such feasts as "unacceptable and unIslamic".
"These banquets are unacceptable and unIslamic because they are financed from sinful money," said Shaikh Farahat Al Muniji of Al Azhar.
"Everyone knows that these belly-dancers earn their money from exposing their bodies while performing in public. Accordingly, their charitable deeds are based on illegal earnings," he told Gulf News.
He urged Muslims to shun these meals locally known as "Mawaed Al Rahman" "because after all they know about their [financial] source".
During Ramadan, some artistes order feasts from plush Cairo hotels for the poor or for those who cannot be home for iftar.
Other Muslim clerics, however, disagree.
"Ramadan is the month of social interdependence and banquets hosted by artists and others for the poor during this month are a realistic expression of this interdependence," said Yousuf Al Qaradawi, an Egypt-born Qatari TV preacher. He said the poor benefit from these charity meals.
"Judging the intentions of the benefactors, including the artists, should be left to God who will reward them for their good deeds and punish them for the bad ones."
Around 40 per cent of Egypt's 80 million people live on less than $2 (Dh7.34) a day, according to World Bank reports. Minister of Economic Development Othman Mohammad Othman, however, said earlier this month that poverty rates in Egypt have dropped to 9 per cent in 2005 from 24 per cent in 1999.
In an environment of hardening religious beliefs, more and more people of this predominantly Muslim nation are frowning upon belly-dancing as unIslamic.
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