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Food destroys the essence of
Ramadan
In Saturday's Akhbar El-Youm, the Egyptian Mufti is quoted in one of the
paper's headlines as saying "No to Yameesh (dried fruits and nuts)
and Kahk (biscuits) in Ramadan." Mufti Ahmed El-Tayeb says that the
whole essence of Ramadan is to decrease the amount of food we consume,
and not to be preoccupied by the amount yameesh needed as Ramadan
stock (as many people seem to be). El-Tayeb says that he has never
bought yameesh or kahk in his life and is not embarrassed
to merely offer his post-iftar Ramadan visitors dates and tea. He finds
the trends practiced in Ramadan demeaning to the philosophy of the
holy month, which calls for less food and living a simpler life. To him
these practices change Ramadan into a "food season."
Abstaining from more than food
and drink
A funny cartoon in Monday's Al-Wafd shows a sheikh scolding a minister,
telling him that "In order to fast in Ramadan, you should not eat,
drink, or issue any press statements."
The joke is that press statements made by government officials are often
not true.
What's up with the traffic?
The papers can't quite seem to decide whether or not Ramadan traffic
is as bad as every year. First, on Thursday, which was Ramadan's 2nd
day, an article in Al-Akhbar proudly claimed that traffic was running
smoothly. Then, in Saturday's Akhbar El-Youm an article nearly identical
to the one that was previously published on Thursday, explains that some
streets in Giza are crowded, while Ramses and Tahrir are not that
crowded.
While Al-Akhbar thinks the streets are fine, Monday's Al-Ahram adds that
the smooth traffic was merely because of the weekend when less people
were out on the road. According to this article, the regular phenomenon
of Ramadan's crowded streets was back by Sunday -- to the extent that
some streets were totally paralyzed. The article is tellingly
titled, "The crowds defeated traffic police's plans!"
Hassan to appear for
first time
According to Monday's Al-Akhbar, the sixth episode of Emam El Do'aa (The
Sheikh of Sheikhs) will witness the first appearance of veteran star
Hassan Youssef as El-Sheikh El-Shaarawi, now that the soap opera has
gone past his childhood and teenage phase (which
was played by Ahmed El-Shafie). Also, Affaf Shoeib will appear as El-Shaarawi's
wife and Hamdi Ahmed will be playing the role of Zaghloul, who works
with him in the Zagazig Azhari Institute. Zaghloul tries to destroy El-Shaarawi's
career by sending letters to the radio station that El-Shaarawi works
in, claiming that his voice is not good enough to be broadcast on the
radio.
FOR
SUMMARIES OF THIS AND OTHER RAMADAN SOAP OPERAS CLICK HERE
Name game
Somaya El-Alfi spoke to Akhbar El-Youm about problems that occurred
during the making of "Al Attar Wal Saba' Banat" the Nour
El-Sherif soap opera showing on Channel 2. El-Alfi says that she was
tricked by the producer into believing that her name would appear
directly after Nour El-Sherif's name at the beginning of the soap
opera's credits, but actually she was shocked to find that Magda Zaki's
name comes before hers.
According to El-Alfi, Zaki had also signed the same contract, but the
producers had promised her that the names would appear in such a way as
to introduce the different families within the show's cast of
characters, with Zaki's name as the first to appear in her family's
group.
El-Alfi claims these promises were not kept, and she was shocked to find
that Zaki's name was written first, even though El-Alfi has starred in
more soap operas and movies than Zaki.
FOR
SUMMARIES OF THIS AND OTHER RAMADAN SOAP OPERAS CLICK HERE
RELATED LINKS
To keep up with all that's on
offer on TV make sure to visit cairolive.com's
TV schedule. There you'll also find synopses of the plots of
most shows.
To
read about Ramadan traffic in the past click here.
To read this year's previous
editions of Ramadan digest:
Digest # 3
Digest # 2
Digest # 1
FOR
MORE EGYPT RELATED HEADLINES CLICK HERE
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