Egyptian Chronicles: Kodak Agfa presents : Moulid Al-Nabi eve at El-Siyada "Plus more photos and videos from all over Egypt"

Happy Moulid Al-Nabi to all the Muslims around the globe or actually to the whole world.

For a reminder, tonight millions of Muslims around the globe celebrate Prophet Mohamed "PBUH" birthday. Each country has its own traditions in its celebration. For Egypt, it is the time of the year where wear delicious sweets made of nuts covered with sugary syrup whose history goes back to medieval times.

We also got the old or rather ancient Egyptian Moulid maid or doll and its male equivalent for boy the Moulid knight.

This year Kodak Agfa went again El-Siyada Zeinab’s famous El-Sad street because she heard they were holding a special Moulid al-Nabi sweets market this year.

Moulid Al-Nabi dolls

This is the latest trend in the modern plastic Moulid Al-Nabi dolls in Egypt this year.

A Moulid Al-Nabi doll

Those dollies are actually mechanized and revolve around themselves while the music came out of them.

Moulid Al-Nabi dolls

They are sold for LE 200 each and they are handmade according to one of the vendors whom I spoke with. They take about one to two hours in making according to that vendor.

Moulid Al-Nabi dolls

This is considered an expensive price for many working-class families that head to the market for cheap Moulid sweets.

Still, there are other options like still dollies or the old traditional edible sugar Moulid dolls.

Moulid Al-Nabi sugary dolls

I know those handmade sugary dollies do not look attractive more, in fact, they look more like Halloween dolls but this is like a template or a model used by workshops across Egypt, not decades but for centuries.

Moulid Al-Nabi sugary dolls

It is my first time up close and personal to those dolls and despite they look odd and unhygienic aside from extreme sugar content yet I found there is a huge demand on them in the heart of El-Siyad Zeinab as you can see only a few were remaining in this handmade box.

Moulid Al-Nabi sugary Knights

The Moulid doll's male version exists too. It is called the Moulid horse which features a knight riding a horse and it actually witnessed a change from ancient times till our time. He went from Horus to Saint George to an Arabian knight to an Egyptian officer with a cap in the 20th century up till now.

I think it has to do with the )(*&^%%$#@ July 1952 coup. Interestingly, the old Egyptian Kingdom flag is still used with that knight.

They are also kids who are interested in buying them with their parents.

Buying a Moulid Knight

The market was not as big as the Ramadan market there but it is still it was a bit joyful to see people gathering to buy Moulid sweets and dolls.

A local Moulid sweet stall

The market presented in some stall cheap Moulid El-Nabi sweets reaching to LE 15 per box, the box got assortments of sugar-coated blocks of nuts, which are yummy.

The adults were focusing in the market to buy Moulid sweets for prices less than shops and patisseries.

A local Moulid sweet stall

All types of Moulid sweets are there but there is a catch, you do not know where they were manufactured at some licensed place or not.

A local Moulid sweet stall

I do not know for how long this market was held there but I know the decision to close the shops at 10 PM affected the market as I saw how the vendors closed down their stalls and collected their merchandise by orders of policemen.

Moulid Al-Nabi dolls

The government applied the new winter working hours starting last 30 September. Personally, I do not support that decision that much but I won't discuss it here. Let's keep it light.

Amazingly, I saw one of the so-called “servants” of El-Siyada Zeinab who are more of Sufi devotees distributing for free strawberry sharbat “which is one of the main festivity drinks in Egypt”. It is the first time I have seen that scene but I know it is a common tradition in Moulid Al-Nabi to distribute sharbat especially in Alexandria.

Alexandrians even distribute sharbat with pieces of bananas in it for free to strangers in the streets, especially in allies and working-class areas.

I also knew that the people in Esna, Luxor also celebrate it in the same way as Alexandrians in the North but without bananas :)

In the countryside, there are more festivities than in the big Cairo.

Here is a beautiful collection of photos by Egyptian photographer Karim Essam from his village in Bagour, Mounfia in the Nile Delta.

Here is a video of a camels procession in a village in the countryside, I can't know where they are from. I found it on Twitter.