BARELY A SOUND is heard on the streets of El-Imam El-Shafei district. Although the area is heavily populated, the streets are quite empty on this crisp morning. The peacefulness is quickly transferred to newcomers. Passersby raise their hand in salaam as I make my way through the streets with Hajj Abdel-Aziz Saleh, president of the Gravediggers’ League.

Walking around the turab (graveyard) with Hajj Abdel-Aziz is an educational experience. A living breathing history book, the turabi (gravedigger) constantly drops the names of Pashas and Beks who live underground. To him, they are members of the family he grew up with. “There is nothing to fear in the dead. The real afrit [ghost] is man. I walk around here for half an hour every day to reach the mosque for the dawn prayers. It is very safe, the streets are well lit,” he says.

“But it’s so quiet around here,” I whisper.

My comment draws a laugh from the 76-year-old turabi. “You can say that again. All the dwellers here love the quiet. They are not very fussy — unlike the living,” he chuckles.

Stepping into Cairo’s City of the Dead fills me with awe, and I admit I am a little scared. But as I sit in the gravedigger’s office sipping mint tea, I start to relax a little. Still, the smell of the damp and the idea that we are surrounded by the dead, left, right and center, sends a chill up my spine every now and then.

It is Cairo’s oldest and largest cemetery, a place where hundreds of thousands of dead Egyptians lie peacefully. This is it — the final destination. Or rather, a transit station where people wait for the big day, the Day of Judgement. But to Hajj Abdel-Aziz, this place also represents his livelihood. At 76, Saleh has seen his share of death. Born, bred and living in the Imam section of the City of the Dead, Hajj Abdel-Aziz’s job is to build graves, care for them and open them when a new family member dies.

Mohsen Allam Hajj Abdel-Aziz Saleh (President of the Gravediggers’ League) at El-Daramalli family cemetery in El-Imam El-Shafei area

The gravedigger’s job comes at the end of a cycle whose wheels start turning once a person dies. Other characters include the mughassil (body washer), the hanuti (undertaker), the hearse driver, the Qur’an reciter and the farrash (contractor) at the condolence center or mosque, in addition to tens of supporting cast members. All of the characters live here, waiting for their call to action when a death occurs. It is only then that they can do their job: preparing the dead for burial, putting them to rest, and later preparing families to accept their loss.

For them, death is a living. It is their business. But is it a flourishing business?

A seventh-generation turabi, Hajj Abdel-Aziz often shakes his head at what his job has come to.

“This job has become a bad one. Bribery has reached it. New gravediggers think if they bribe an official to get the job, they will start scooping up money the next day. This was the case long ago when, after Eid El-Adha, you would find over 40 or 50 heads of sheep around here, which were gifts from the owners of the turab,” he says.

Mona Salah is a relative newcomer to the process following death. An Islamic preacher, Salah has quickly made a name for herself as one of the nation’s most famous mughassila. Death is her calling in life.

“If it is death you want to talk about, I cannot say no. I love talking about death. I am ustaza [a master] on the subject,” she says, a gentle, almost wishful smile on her face. “I really love death. It is the only truth in life. You may get married, or you may not, you may have children, or you may not, you may travel, or you may not. But is there any doubt whether you are going to die or not? Everybody is going to die,” says Salah, who, unlike professional washers, does her work for free.

And also unlike other mughassilat, Salah hasn’t been washing the dead all her life. “Years ago, I was talking to a group of my students in a mosque on Sudan Street [in Mohandiseen], and I asked them, ‘Why are you so slow in learning the Qur’an? Maybe next week the youngest one of us would be dead, and we would be praying upon her [the janaza prayer].’ It actually happened. Zeinab, who was 18, died. A month later, her mother died, and I asked my friends to take me with them to prepare her,” she remembers.

Salah’s friends were worried their teacher would faint as soon as she saw the body. “But the woman looked like a sleeping person. She was so peaceful. Today, I still cannot believe how I started a school for teaching ghusl [washing] and takfeen [wrapping in shrouds], that I have a hearse, three Shariah-style burial plots and Shariah-style kafan [literally ‘coffin,’ but referring to Islamic burial shrouds]. I have taught 60 married women and 47 girls, many of whom are graduates of the American University, and some of whom are the daughters of ministers. They park their BMWs and come with me to wash the dead. This makes me cry. I often pray to God to save their beautiful hands from hellfire. The Prophet (PBUH) said, ‘Whoever washes a dead person faithfully is absolved of his sins like the day his mother gave birth to him,’” Salah explains.

With a decade of experience behind her, Salah has made a big name for herself in the business. “Some people brag that I washed and shrouded their dead, just like they brag that they got Sattuna for their henna night. It is ridiculous, of course. I hate it when people brag. I am not in this for fame. As for my real prize, I will get it when I die,” she says.

Mohsen Allam Mona Salah, mughassila

But while volunteers such as Salah strive through this type of mission toward a better afterlife, those in it for the business grumble that what they call neo-mughassileen are destroying their livelihoods.

El-Moataz Billah Mohammed Hassan, aka Hajj Hassan El-Areef, is Cairo’s most famous hanuti and hearse-service owner. Although his family has had offices on Sayyeda Zeinab’s Khairat Street for the past 200 years, El-Areef’s sweater and pants belie the image of a traditional hanuti in gibba and kaftan. Despite his modern attire, though, this hanuti is far from happy with what modern times are doing to his business.

“The sunniyeen [religious fundamentalists] have now taken to preparing and washing the dead. It is their way of winning people over. Very soon, the hanuti will become a thing of the past,” says the 51-year-old professional.

For El-Areef, it’s not a matter of professional jealousy, but more of a difference in points of view. Personally, he sees volunteer work as encroachment on a business that he has tried to nurture for over 30 years and for which he has sacrificed a lot, including his first sweetheart.

What he is about to tell me, he says, will cause him problems with his wife, but so be it: “I was in love with a girl, whom I knew from school. When I sent my sisters to ask for her hand, she turned them down. Her family had turned her against me with their degrading ‘How are you going to marry a hanuti?’”

Mohsen Allam A mughassil and driver loading an empty coffin into the hearse

And while newcomers are vying for his job, El-Areef says those of his background still live with the daily degradation that comes from people’s morbid superstitions about his work. “I see some pedestrians who prefer to jump off the sidewalk and endanger their lives rather than pass in front of my shop,” he claims.

His children, the eldest of whom are in expensive private universities, tell only their closest friends what their father does for a living. “It is a job like any other. In fact, it is one of the most beautiful jobs in Islam. As a young man, I often felt the need to listen to my youthful urges, but I always had death at the back of my mind holding me back. You are going to die and meet your Creator in the end, so why sin? He who does not heed death, heeds no one. I am the one who sees the human beings as they are, naked in front of me. I see what the end is going to be.”

Even family members who have moved on to different jobs and neighborhoods often want little to do with their roots.

“We do not do work for this part of the family, but only for the middle classes, although the hanuti’s job has always been a good one in terms of money,” El-Areef says.

As we sit with El-Areef, a customer comes in. They speak in whispers, but then their voices get louder. The customer is trying to force the hanuti to take more money. “He is a neighbor. I did not want to charge him, but he wants to give money to the workers,” El-Areef later explains. “I cannot say no to that.”

Mohsen Allam Digging a newly opened grave after a phone call announced a death in the family

Afraid of the Tax Authority, El-Areef will not say how much he charges, but the cheapest kafan costs LE 100, and can go up to LE 500. A mughassil will take no less than LE 100, and the same amount goes to the hearse driver, a friend who has just lost a loved one recounts. This part of the burial process can cost anything from LE 300 to LE 1000. Some people pay more, because they regard this as charity that will help the deceased on facing judgment.

To make up for the stigma, the hanuti tries to show excessive generosity, El-Areef says. “It is overcompensation, which shows in food, clothing, and cars. I always wear a full suit at night, because I have a lot of friends in high places,” he says. Although he studied only until the thanawiyya amma level, El-Areef talks like a much more educated man. He has a ready answer when queried: “It’s easy. I pick up information from friends and acquaintances. I meet a lot of people, and I learn something from everyone.”

The sad thing is that El-Areef cut his education short because of the name-calling. “It is dangerous, this misunderstanding of the hanuti’s job. Children keep calling you ‘ibn el-hanuti’ [son of a hanuti] so you give up on education,” he says.

But it was this same pressure that pushed El-Areef to prove himself in the business, and today he is the official hanuti for many of Egypt’s ministries and syndicates, including the Ministry of Interior and the Actors’ Syndicate. Over the past 30 years, he has prepared some of Egypt’s most famous and prominent people, most recently Minister Hassan Abu Pasha, Minister Abdel-Halim Moussa, actor Farid Shawki, actor Abdallah Mahmoud, and many of the victims of the Beni Sueif fire.

“Now nobody can call my kids ‘ibn el-hanuti.’ Someone would soon shut them up saying, ‘Hush, this guy sits with half of the country’s dignitaries.’”

The nameplate of one of the many Pashas’ cemeteries Mohsen Allam

And it is his affluent customers that help El-Areef do what he loves doing best, offering the poor his services for free. It is this part of his business that the new mughassileen do not understand, he claims. “I see my friends, who were sipping tea with me just last night, lying dead in front of me. If I do not fear God after this, I would turn into a demon. I do not take money from my friends and neighbors, and from anyone who cannot afford the kafan and car,” he says.

Although El-Areef deals with death every day, he has not let himself become hardened to the tragic fact of life. “A building recently collapsed in Sayyeda. I saw a man hugging his son. They were both dead. The hanuti does not become unfeeling because of all the death he sees. I have feelings — of course I do. But I cannot treat someone who lives in a villa the same way I treat the poor. Yes, you are paying too much, but you must know that I will take 10 piasters and give away 90. Strangely enough, it is the richest people who haggle with me the most.

“They haggle over the layers of the kafan, because they do not want to pay more money for the fabric. They haggle over how much they are going to pay the mughassil, and how much they are going to pay for the car. They argue over small figures, over an extra LE 50,” he says.

The wheels of the after-death rituals are set in motion as soon as the hanuti receives a phone call from the family.

Mohsen Allam A Qur’an reciter at El-Imam El-shafei cemetery

“My job is to go and look at the burial license first,” El-Areef says. “This is the most important task. After I make sure that everything is legal, I send the mughassil and the car, who do their job and then deliver the body first to the mosque for the janaza [funeral] prayer and later to the cemeteries. The turabi takes over from there.”

In some cases, when the deceased is old or sick, a hanuti may start the work cycle before the arrival of the license. However, he continues, “Sometimes, and even if there is a license, I sense something is wrong so I refuse to work. I have to call the health inspector and tell him that something is not normal. I may find the mark of electrocution that he had missed, or a suspicious wound that keeps seeping. Even if the wound happened as the person died and fell, it is not my business. The first person the police inspector often asks to see is the hanuti, and if he feels there is some foul play, I would be the first one to pay. The religious volunteers are one thing, but in my case my shop would be closed, and my reputation amongst my friends and kids would be jeopardized.”

Satisfied that there is nothing amiss, the hanuti then approaches the family to negotiate the kafan. According to El-Areef, a man’s kafan is different from a woman’s.

“A man’s kafan is made up of three rolls of fabric, while the woman’s is anything from 3 to 5, 7, 9 or even 21 rolls. Sutra [covering up] is important for a woman. You cannot shroud a fat woman and have people see the outline of a large breast. But people argue this over and over. What is this all about? I dare them to come up with one hadith to say this is wrong. It is not. We use colored or white fabric. If colored, each roll is a different color. The material is mostly satin, which ranges from LE 3 to LE 100 per meter,” he says.

Coming from a family that has worked as licensed hanutis since the 1800s, El-Areef argues that the religious parties who describe his work as not adhering to Shariah are very wrong.

“It is my religious duty to know the Shariah regarding ghusl and takfeen. After all, I am the one with the license here, and I am the one who pays taxes and has to answer to the Ministry of Health. I have the right to stop them from doing what they do. I believe in God, and in Doomsday.

“It was not easy getting where I am today,” he continues. “My father died when I was 11, and I learned at the hands of our workers, who were supervised by my uncle. Any mistake I made he let the workers punish me for. Yet I was ready for the job. The sight of the burnt or the drowned did not affect me. After all, how hard can it be? We are Muslims. Don’t you know how to perform ghusl on yourself? Don’t you know how to perform your ablutions? You know what, a lot of people don’t. A man leaves his room after sleeping with his wife, and has a quick shower and that’s it, they think their ghusl is complete. The ghusl for the dead is the same, and any educated Muslim must know how to do it.”

Salah’s objections to the way the hanutis perform the ghusl are predicated on what she claims are their lack of attention to detail and ignorance of the edicts of sunna regarding ghusl and takfeen. Not cleaning the openings faithfully, not dealing with wounds properly, not covering the private parts with several layers of fabric during the process, and actually looking directly at the body of the deceased are only some of her many objections to how the professionals do it.

“They say the strangest things to the dead, like ‘Help me, sister,’ and make sounds to encourage the dead to defecate — like one would to a toddler,” she alleges. “It has nothing to do with what God told us to do.” Important things like braiding a woman’s hair and finally using camphor are not done by the professionals, Salah claims. She also objects to the use of colored silk or satin fabric for the kafan. The Prophet (PBUH) specifically said the kafan must be pure white cotton.

Mohsen Allam Nasr City illustrates the regularity of a modern cemetery

According to Salah, doing the ghusl faithfully means covering up the deceased and not exposing her awrat (private parts) during the process. It also means cleaning her very well, drying her very well, braiding her hair, and then washing her with musk and camphor before takfeen. “It also means praying for her. Angels are present during ghusl, at least the two angels who reside on the person’s shoulders all his life. Nobody else sees you as you do this, but God knows if you are treating the dead gently or not, if you are using hot water that would scald the skin,” she says.

Salah claims that she can often tell what kind of life and ending a deceased person has had. “Every day I see honorable and beautiful endings and, may God save us, some other things. It shows, trust me. A woman may be frowning, or biting her lip, while another is smiling, or her face is lighting up. I have seen dead women from whose bodies emanated the smell of musk.

“Every soul shall have a taste of death: and only on the Day of Judgment shall you be paid your full recompense,” she says, starting to recite Qur’an, 3:185. “Only he who is saved far from the Fire and admitted to the Garden will have attained the object (of Life): For the life of this world is but goods and chattels of deception.”

She grows quiet for a moment, then murmurs, “I always wondered what death was going to taste like. Now I understand that it tastes sweet for the obedient, and bitter for the disobedient.”

Salah claims she has tried to reach out to the professional mughassileen, “to teach them, but they refuse to deal with me. They see us as competition, although we do not take money. We follow the Sunna, while they don’t. The first thing I do is ask how the woman has died. The mughassila doesn’t. I have to know the cause of death. Cancer victims often have blood in the mouth, which I have to help them spit up. The mughassila wants to finish her work and run to another job. She covers wounds with plastic bags. I do that too, but after cleaning thoroughly and putting a lot of cotton wool first. We prepared Mai, who was run over by the Heliopolis Metro as she was talking on the phone. In these cases, we make sure that all severed parts are included inside the kafan. The mughassila does not ask such questions. And instead of duaa [prayer] they tell the deceased ‘help me sister.’ The dead can hear, this is what the Prophet told us, but they need to hear duaa,” Salah says.

Mohsen Allam The gaping mouth of the grave is revealed.

Which is why many a mughassila is annoyed when she sees Salah near any hospital, although Salah makes sure she tells the family to pay the professional even if she is going to perform the process.

“I think if I am killed one day, it will be at the hand of the hanutis,” Salah jokes.

Salwa El-Sayyed, 40, is a professional mughassila who works for El-Areef. Swathed in black, her huge eyes and delicate features are lost in a face that has seen a lot of hardship. She only started working professionally five years ago, as the demands of a difficult life and three growing children (one is in the army, one in college, and one in thanawiyya amma) made it imperative for her to get a job.

“It is a job for which I have to wear black all the time. People like to feel that we are sharing in their sadness,” she says. Better known as Omm Ahmed, El-Sayyed chose to follow in the footsteps of her mother.

“My mother is a mughassila, too. She works at Qasr El-Aini. She still works, although she is almost 70. When I was a child, I often accompanied her to work. At 14, I used to take her place when she was sick or if she went to Omrah. I would hold the water can as her colleagues washed the bodies,” she recalls.

Mohsen Allam The grave of a young girl set on fire by her maid in the Daramalli family cemetery at El-Imam El-Shafei

Omm Ahmed sees her job as a job like any other. “It is only difficult if you are not used to it. You see some terrible sights, like burn or traffic-accident victims. I am used to these sights, although I cannot bear to wash a little child. It breaks my heart. And I can’t wash any of my relatives,” she says.

Omm Ahmed did the ghusl and takfeen for the famous Tunisian singer Zikra, who was shot dead by her estranged husband in their Zamalek apartment a few years ago.

Although used to her job, she is still not accustomed to the way some of her friends treat her. “If I go to visit a sick friend or relative, they start saying, ‘Okay, get ready now, here comes the mughassila.’ But it does not happen that often. People know that their day will come sooner or later,” she says.

“Ask her why her husband won’t come near her,” El-Areef jumps in. “Whenever she has work and he finds out she has touched the dead, he refuses to sleep with her. They have become like brother and sister.”

Although the situation with her husband has become difficult, especially since Omm Ahmed can only take time off when there are no dead, she will not even consider leaving her job. It is what she knows how to do. “My work is for my children. They need money for books and transportation, and all the money my husband makes he keeps for himself,” she explains.

Mohsen Allam “He [God] is alive and does not die.”

Like El-Areef, Omm Ahmed complains that their work is being hit hard by the non-professionals.

“Instead of four cases a day, we now get two. In my case, I am paid by the family of the deceased, so less work makes a difference for me,” she says.

According to El-Areef, a lot of celebrities are finding religion and taking up ghusl and takfeen, including retired singer Yasmin El-Khayyam and retired actress Shahira. “Of course any sane adult Muslim is allowed to perform ghusl. But still, I do not believe it is right for young girls who are educated university graduates to be doing this,” he says.

Although it is permitted by Shariah, he does not think it seemly for young, unmarried women to deal with the dead.

Omm Ahmed, who has observed the business first-hand all her life, says it is unfair to say her work is not adequate. “I place the woman on the ghusl bench, treating her really gently. I cover her whole body with a sheet; only the face can be seen. I wash her first with water only, first the right side of the body, then the left. I make her sit up, I clean her private parts, then I perform her ablutions. I then wash her hair and body with soap, then I wash her with water, I perform ablutions again, and then I wrap her in the kafan. I tie the kafan at three or five places. These must be untied inside the grave. After the takfeen, I leave,” she says.

Salah, who is the author of Khitam El-Salikeen (Endings of the Pious), a Nahdet Misr book on the preparation for death and funerals, would consider this a job half done. To her, the process is a lot more intricate, in accordance with the teaching of Shariah and Sunna.

“First, I have to cover the awras with a doubly folded sheet, then the rest of the body is covered too,” she begins, then describes the specific cleaning procedures she performs to make certain every orifice is clean. The procedures may vary depending on what claimed the person’s life — different illnesses, she explains in detail, leave different residues.

“I do all this with my hand under the sheet. If there is a bad smell I light some incense. The dead can feel our discomfort. The only difference is that they cannot speak out if they are uncomfortable,” Salah explains.

Ablutions come next, but it is important that not a drop of water reach the face. Then comes the cleaning of the mouth, nose, and ears three times with a wet piece of cotton. A piece is used to wipe the mouth, then it is thrown away, and this is repeated two more times, and so on. “You treat the dead like a newborn baby, with the utmost gentleness.”

The first wash then takes place. “The Prophet (PBUH) said wash her with water, sidr (but soap is used today) and camphor. So the first wash involves water. The second is water and soap, and the third is water and camphor. We start with the ablution points, and always from the right to the left. First, the front right side of the body is washed, then the front back side, then the same on the left side. All of this takes place while the deceased is covered up,” she says. The same process is repeated two more times, and the hair is washed with shampoo. During the third wash, which includes camphor, the hair is rinsed, and then wrapped with a towel. Drying the body gently and carefully comes next, and then a lot of cotton is wrapped around the pubic and anal openings to ensure that nothing seeps out. “It is my duty to do this, because those who are going to carry her are going to go to a mosque, and nothing must reach them,” Salah says.

The hair is then braided into three braids, which is what the Prophet (PBUH) told the women to do when his daughter, Zeinab, died. Any wounds are covered with cotton wool, then the first layer of the kafan, the sutra, is wrapped, with the right side covering the left.

“The family is then called to bid her farewell and kiss her. The rest of the kafan is then wrapped. We like to use three layers only because it is better not to be spendthrifts. The best color to use is white, and it must be pure cotton. The kafan is then tied at three or five points, and the knots must be on the left side, because these ties are undone in the grave. A dead person must sleep on his left side, facing the kiblah,” she says.

The body is now ready for its trip to the mosque and then to the grave.

Unlike El-Areef, the Gravediggers Union’s Hajj Abdel-Aziz perfectly fits the stereotype of the turabi, with his little cap, gallabeyya and the shorter coat on top. Nothing else is grim or somber about this grandfatherly gentleman. But much like El-Areef, the Hajj has lived through the stigma of his job. “A newspaper did an article about me once. My relatives, many of whom are ministers, MPs and doctors, were very upset. They do not want it known that their relative is a turabi,” he says.

Being the president of the league, Hajj Abdel-Aziz is in charge of 650 turabis. “But many of them can no longer pay the annual fees. Do not believe those who tell you that the turabi is rich. It is not true. Besides, taxes take care of that,” he says.

The relatives left long ago, when the job was still lucrative. Today, the money he makes comes mainly from his contracting work, constructing buildings, apartments and graves. He charges LE 8,000 for the most basic grave he builds, and prices go up with the quality of materials used, including marble and brass fitting. Prices can range as high as LE 30,000. The turabis do not ask for a specific sum for opening a grave, but are usually given anything from LE 150 to 500 or more, again depending on the family’s situation and generosity.

The Hajj supervises 45 zones of the most populated graves; each zone includes 100 graves, and each grave has an average of 20 bodies. He is immediately in charge of 80 graves.

A walk down the cemetery’s streets is a walk down memory lane for the Hajj.

“We never cooked in our homes in Ramadan. The owners of the turab used to send us all the food, and if we had guests they asked us what they would like to eat. Forget about this now. Nobody believes in rahma [mercy] for the deceased anymore. The times of prolonged visits to the araafa [another name for turab or cemeteries] have ended. Some people used to spend the whole Eid here, sleeping near their dead,” he says.

Although many large families have their graves in El-Imam, a number of the families have died out or become poor, and most of them cannot even maintain their turab, let alone pay the turabi.

Maintenance is a constant concern as many of the graves are submerged in underground water and need continual work. Hajj Abdel-Aziz became a building contractor to make ends meet, which is how he was able to keep his job after things changed. According to him, no regular contractor knows how to build graves properly. “Some people bring in a contractor, and he has to resort to us because this is a specialization. We dig at a depth of three meters. This is deep enough to avoid the smell seeping out. It costs around LE 8,000 to build a new grave, in addition to LE 1,000 for a plot of land from the governorate. You get 40 meters, according to the new laws,” he tells me.

Egyptian graves closely resemble ancient crypts, where the deceased are laid to rest on stone platforms. A stairway leads down to the crypt, and a room is assigned to men, another to women. As we sit with the Hajj, he gets a phone call from a family. One of the crypts must be opened. It takes a professional turabi only a few minutes to open a grave and move the huge slab of stone guarding it. This gravedigger, who has performed Umra 14 times and Hajj nine times, was not very impressed when he visited the cemeteries in Saudi Arabia.

“They dig at one and a half meters, then they make an opening in one side of the grave, which is where they place the body. This is the lahd method, which is supposed to be the Sharii way of burying the dead. Then they close it off with dirt and mark it with a rock to let people know that someone is buried there. I’ll show you the beautiful marble work we have in some of the graves now. It is something else,” he says.

But people like Salah are today working hard to bring back what they claim to be the correct way of burial, the lahd method. “We have started introducing Shariah graves. Two businessmen donated a piece of land to us in Sixth of October, and we now have three graves. The dead must be covered in earth completely, facing the kiblah. The grave must be one with the ground, raised just a little to denote that this is a grave,” she says.

Although Dr. Abdel-Moati Bayoumi, former dean of Al-Azhar’s faculty of Usul Eddin (Religious Fundamentals) agrees the lahd method is the method concurring with Shariah, Egypt is a special case. “There has been unanimous agreement that the burial method we follow here in Egypt is acceptable because water is available at a shallow depth in our country. The crypt method is more honorable for the dead, because our soil quickly turns to mud. But where possible, lahd is certainly preferable,” he says.

We follow Hajj Abdel-Aziz to check the work on the newly opened grave. His workers are digging hard, and soon the gaping mouth of the grave is revealed. It’s a sobering moment for my photographer and myself, but for those who do this for a living, it is nothing but another place to rest bones. One of the helpers is a very old woman dressed in black. The Hajj says she is poor and tries to make a living by moving dirt. She is concerned, and wants to go down the crypt and prepare the place for the nomah (sleep).

Hajj Abdel-Aziz has personally trained all his helpers. He sits at a committee of seven members, including a judge and a representative of the governorate, to test new applicants for the job of turabi.

“We ask them many questions. It is important that we make sure that they are well aware of the edicts of Shariah concerning burial. It is also important for them to be the son or grandson of a turabi,” he says. “Newcomers do not know who is buried where. The first thing I ask is, ‘If you get news that someone died, what do you do?’ They must tell me that they have to make sure the person informing them is a family member, and only then can they open the grave, which must first be opened for two to three hours to air. The next thing he must know is how to prepare a place for the case to sleep in. Sometimes people just arrive with a body, which is fine. The grave is opened and closed according to a predetermined time [ie: according to the will of God]. If the applicant tells me he then buries the case right away, I fail him. He must check the burial license, which is the most important thing. He must also reveal the face of the dead males, check to see if they are who the relatives claim them to be, and then wipe the face, re-align the right hand on the left [as in prayer] and cover him with the kafan again. A woman’s kafan is not opened.

“The dead are then placed in the final resting place. Some sand is placed under them, so they do not fall back from their position. They should be lying on the right side of the body, facing the kiblah,” he says.

Long ago, people used to come with bread, a jar of water and some henna to place under the deceased.

“I refused to let the family do this to the dead,” Abdel-Aziz says. “I threw these things away. Do you think the dead will wake up feeling hungry or thirsty? These are pagan rituals. As for the henna, as the body starts to decompose in one or two days, the henna hardens and becomes like nails,” the turabi explains.

Security remains a problem. Years ago, people used to buy only the purest silk for the kafan. “Thieves used to come here while the body was still fresh and steal the kafan. To solve this problem, we used to guard the grave for the first three days. No thief can go down a grave where someone has been buried for three days, the stench would kill them,” the Hajj says.

More recently, Abdel-Aziz foiled an attempt to steal the bones of the dead. “Thefts were taking place and the police blamed us, although it is their job to guard the area, not ours. We lay in wait after receiving a tip, and caught a gang of 10 thieves. They had 54 sacks of bones and five guns on them. We turned them over, but they only received a sentence of six months. That was 15 years ago. The Minister of Health hushed things up because the bones were going to the faculty of medicine,” he claims.

As we walk around the streets, he remembers other thefts— thefts that happened during the ‘German war.’ We visit the cemeteries of the royal family, where many of Mohamed Ali Pasha’s relatives are buried. But more touching is the beautiful plot of the Daramalli family. This place has seen its share of pain. A 17-year-old was buried here after her maid set her on fire 15 years ago. Outside in the yard, two more are buried: Jailan, the teacher who was murdered by her police-officer husband two years ago, and her father who died two months later. Jailan is buried according to the edicts of lahd. Due to the suddenness of the death, she had to be buried this way as underground water was wreaking havoc with the beautiful marble graves where her ancestors are buried. Her father is buried in a new grave a few meters away from her.

“Her mother called me this morning, asking about her daughter. She is checking that everything is fine with the plants. She also asked about my diabetes. You don’t find people like her nowadays. She’s a real lady,” says the old man.

No death ritual is complete in a family’s mind without a proper azaa, which is a gathering after the funeral service where people gather to listen to Qur’an and pay their condolences to the family. In the black comedy Ay Ay, the character played by Mohamed Awad asked his daughter on his deathbed to hold his azaa in Omar Makram. Destitute, the character played by Laila Elwi tries throughout the film to secure her father’s azaa in the place normally reserved for heads of state, public figures and celebrities.

Today, Hassan Kamel and Hassan Abdel-Aal are the two Ministry of Awqaf (Religious Endowments) employees supervising the storied mosque’s events hall.

“This place became the most famous events hall in the country when the government made it its official hall in the 1970s. Since then, anybody who is anybody has had their janaza and azaa here. Lately, there was Queen Nariman’s azaa, Hassan Abu Pasha’s, Thabet El-Batal, Hussein El-Shafie, Abdallah Mahmoud, Zikra, Abdel-Mohsen Kamel Abul Nour,” Kamel says.

Unlike other famous halls attached to mosques, such as Al-Rashdan and Al-Hamidiyya Al-Shaziliyya, where katb kitab (official marriage) ceremonies take place, Omar Makram is only associated with death. “Nobody has ever come here for a katb kitab. It would be a joke, a bit like marriage and janaza all in one,” Kamel says with a laugh. The employees cannot explain why this is, neither can they explain why Omar Makram remains the most famous azaa hall today.

“Maybe because it is the biggest,” Abdel-Aal hypothesizes.

And although it is associated with the rich and famous, the basic fees for renting Omar Makram are comparatively low: LE 80 for the janaza, LE 160 for the small hall and LE 300 for the big hall. “These are the fees that go to the Ministry of Awqaf,” Abdel-Aal says.

But that is not all. The cost of a leila (night) at Omar Makram can go up to LE 20,000, when you count the fee of the muqrea’ (reciter), the drinks, the sufragis (butlers) and the firasha (extra furnishings). This is money that changes hands between the family of the deceased and the farrash or contractor.

The most famous farrash in Cairo is Saudi. Luckily, he is here today supervising an azaa in the small hall. Montasser Saudi looks nothing like the typical farrash: The two Hassans joke that he looks more like a Pasha. Dressed in an expensive suit, Saudi explains that he has a day job at a five-star hotel, but maintains the family business. Like everybody else associated with death, Saudi is a fourth-generation farrash, whose job is to provide the family of the deceased with what they need in terms of chairs, carpets, sufragis, buffet and sowan (tent). And like everybody else in the business, he refuses to divulge how much he charges. “It depends on many things. I cannot commit to a figure,” he says.

The two Hassans are more forthcoming, although they insist this is information they have gathered out of observation. They are ministry officials whose job is to supervise only. “The costs are going crazy. A famous reciter charges a little less than LE 10,000. You have to get two because one needs to rest while the other recites. Then there is the firasha, and the buffet. Omar Makram is the only condolence hall that offers all kinds of hot and soft drinks — it is like a café. Mineral water is a must, and some people even offer soft drinks,” Kamel says.

An added cost is the sections of the mushaf people have taken to distributing during the azaa.

“A ruba’ [quarter] costs 50pt, while a complete mushaf costs anything from LE 10. A new trend is distributing ruba’ on tape, mostly by Mashaly Rashed, a Saudi reciter. These cost LE 2.5 per tape,” he says.

Most of the new trends in azaa start in Omar Makram, Abdel-Aal says: “The ladies’ azaa started here five years ago. Before, the obituaries in Al-Ahram read ‘no condolences for women.’ Things are changing. Some people have also taken to videotaping the azaa.”

The whole point, Kamel explains, is to show off how much money you have.

“They brag that their father’s or husband’s azaa was in Omar Makram. This is enough to let people know that it cost thousands. This is why we are always booked many days in advance. Some people come here and book the hall even before their relative is even dead. A famous businessman recently booked the hall while his wife was in hospital, but she did not die. He did this five times. She died two weeks later, and he could not find a booking so he had to wait a few days,” Kamel remembers.

But booking a hall in Omar Makram does not always ensure a successful azaa. “Some people tell us, ‘Be very careful. Many people are coming. Write down the names.’ One time, the only person who showed up was the son. At the end he burst out laughing and went home,” Abdel-Aal says.

Do they see a lot of sadness during azaa? They laugh: “No. At the end the azaa turns into a party, with relatives and friends meeting to joke and exchange news.”

Which only goes to underscore that as a nation, death is one thing that is never very far from our minds. In his book Immortality in Egyptian Cultural Heritage, published in 1966, Dr. Sayyed Eweiss, one of Egypt’s greatest sociologists, reports that throughout the ages, Egyptians have regarded death with respect and fear. But at the same time, and unlike many other civilizations, Egyptians do not fear their dead, a natural result of their inherent belief in immortality.  et