Tanta and the Mulid of Sayyid Ahmad al-Badawi

One Of The Largest Annual Religious Gatherings In The World And Almost Unknown Outside Egypt: For A Week Each October, Crowds Counted In The Millions Fill A Delta City For The Mulid Of The Thirteenth Century Sufi Saint Ahmad Al Badawi, With Sufi Orders Processing, Tents Across The Squares And The Shrine Open Day And Night · Tanta, Gharbia

For one week each October, a provincial Delta city of around half a million people absorbs crowds counted in the millions, and almost nobody outside Egypt has heard of it. The mulid of Sayyid Ahmad al-Badawi - the thirteenth-century Moroccan-born Sufi whose shrine stands at the centre of Tanta - is by most reckonings one of the largest annual religious gatherings on earth, comparable in scale to the great pilgrimages people do know the names of. Sufi orders arrive with banners and drums and camp in the squares, the mosque stays open day and night, swings and stalls and tents fill every open space, and families who have come from across the Delta sleep in the street. It is enormous, loud, generous and entirely unstaged - there is no ticket and nothing laid on for visitors. The rest of the year Tanta is a working cotton and transport city with a large mosque, a market and a university, which is the honest other half of this row.

In the middle of the Delta 95 km north of Cairo, with the mosque and shrine at the centre of the old town, Tanta, Gharbia, Egypt

The mosque and shrine of Sayyid Ahmad al-Badawi are open daily outside prayer times, free, and during the mulid they stay open around the clock. THE MULID FALLS IN OCTOBER ON DATES THAT MOVE and this row does not state one - it follows the agricultural and Islamic calendars and is set each year, so confirm locally before planning around it. Non-Muslim visitors are generally able to enter the mosque outside prayer times at the discretion of those present; dress modestly, remove shoes, and women should cover their hair. During the mulid the city centre becomes effectively closed to vehicles and accommodation across the whole governorate is taken, so people day-trip from Cairo by train. Tanta is 95 km north of Cairo and about 130 from Alexandria, on the main Delta line, with frequent trains taking an hour and a half or two.

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