Wednesday, Sep 24, 2008
Gulf News
Cairo: Like his fellow Muslim beings in the Al Hussain area here, Kamal Mahmoud eagerly awaits the start of Ramadan. This month injects fresh blood into the craft of Mahmoud, who runs a workshop for manufacturing prayer beads.
"With Chinese rosaries flooding the Egyptian market, it is difficult for me and others like me to sell our rosaries," Mahmoud, 68, told Gulf News. "Compared to the local ones, Chinese rosaries are of low quality and are cheap."
Chinese prayer beads, which are plentifully available here and in the neighbouring market area of Khan Al Khalili, sell for less than $1 (Dh3.67). "Egyptian rosaries, made of precious material, may sell for much more ," said Mahmoud.
"Our rosaries are made of expensive material such as onyx, amber and ivory and are inlaid with silver and gold. Sometimes, elaborately made rosaries are weighed in grams for customers who really appreciate their artistic value."
During Ramadan, many Egyptians, as well as Arab and foreign visitors, flock to the bustling area of Al Hussain where they bask in the festive aura of the quarter.
"Customers show up during Ramadan to buy rosaries, which conveniently enable them to say their prayers," Hamed Jad, an owner of a store in the area, said. "Who buys what depends on the customer's financial condition and artistic taste," he added as he attended to one local client.
Jad could not help getting nostalgic as he spoke about "the good old days". "In the past, high-class people from Egypt and the oil-rich Gulf countries would come to my shop to order certain rosaries, which they would proudly use in public or hang inside their houses as objects of art.
Varying forms
"Others, particularly women, would wear rosaries to dispel the evil eye," Jad, 65, explained.
Rosaries are varying in forms and the number of their beads too. The 33-beaded rosary is the most common. However, other rosaries may have 100 or 1,000 beads. "The 1,000-beaded rosary is usually ordered by the Sufis (Muslim mystics)," Hajj Sayed Arafa, one of the oldest craftsmen in the area, said.
"Every rosary is like a piece of art, which cannot be copied. Still, the cheap but sub-standard Chinese rosaries as well as the soaring costs of living have landed our craft in the doldrums," he added.
"By and large, people now prefer rosaries selling for a few pounds. Even Egyptians who go to Saudi Arabia for pilgrimage bring back Chinese-made rosaries as gifts for relatives. The glory days of Egyptian rosaries are over."
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