Lighting the Lantern - Day 13

After work I took the leftovers from Saturday's dinner over to my sister. I walked into her house and for a moment I thought I saw a pussyca.. no I thought I saw a Fanoos Ramadan. A fanoos is special lantern associated with Ramadan. It was in fact not a fanoos hanging in her house but some visual oddity of a hanging decoration made of plywood or something. Definitely not a tin fanoos. I wish it was, if only to give some semblance of what Ramadan was like for us as children. Somehow no Ramadan was complete without this simple object. My mother - yes she is amazing - once brought over a giant fanoos from Egypt and hung it outside our old house during Ramadan. She had pimped up the fanoos covering the inside with fairy lights and the outside with micro-fawanees [plural of fanoos]. At that time Ramadan still coincided with the Christmas season so our neighbours just thought we had a funny looking Christmas tree hanging by our door.

There are many stories about the origins of the fanoos set around the time of the Fatamid caliphate in Egypt i.e. the 10th Century. There is a lot to be said about the times of the Fatamid caliphate, so I will say nothing. As for the fanoos stories, in fact there are so many it would do absolutely no harm to add my own to that list. Here's what I think happened.

Once upon a day in the 10th century, a poor street vendor who had lost all his produce on account of a camel strike, came across a discarded tin lamp. He picked up the dull looking thing and decided to decorate it with the shards of coloured glass from the door his wife had slammed in his face that morning. He figured he would take it to the market and try to sell it to some gullible travelers. That none other than the caliphate court jester should come across this old salesmen's lantern was a small ramadan miracle. The jester bought the fanoos off the vendor and ordered him to make more with the money he would give him. That night after buying all the dull tin lanterns he could find, he went home and started arguing fiercely with his wife making outrageous claims just to rile her up. The wife no longer able to contain herself starting slamming doors and throwing glassware at her husband. The more she threw the louder her husband laughed. Soon she tired of his charade and went to bed. Her husband picked up the broken glass from all over the house and retired to a small shed to create his lanterns. By noon he had sold all the argument laden fawanees to the jester and bought his wife new glassware. His wife had already forgiven him for when she had woken up the house held no trace of the fight from the evening before and she assumed this was her husband's way of apologising. On the other side of town the jester had started handing out the coloured fawanees to the local children and ordered more street vendors to make fawanees. Before the end of Ramadan, the streets of Cairo were lit with fawanees hanging from doors and trees, or carried by children who sang rhymes and stories taught to them by the Jester to entertain the people. The Jester and the once poor vendor would sit back time and again to watch as the town lit up with their colours and sounds.

Nice, no? I am not the only who felt the need to re-create the story of the fanoos. Apparently Pepsi felt the very same inclination - except I am not trying to sell bottled fizzybubbly to anyone - still just CLICK HERE!.

Today children still carry fawanees, now with small led lights as opposed to candles, and they still sing songs. The most famous Fanoos Ramadan song was composed by one of the great Egyptian composers Ahmed Sherif. It goes like this:

Wahawi ya Wahawi [ light from fire i.e. candle]
Iyaha [meaningless word for rhyme's sake]
We Kaman Wahawi [and again light from fire]
Itaya
Roeht ya Sha’ban [gone you are Sha'ban {month preceding Ramadan}]
Gheet ya Ramadan [come you have Ramadan]
Iyaha
Shahr el sayam [month of fasting]
Iyaha
Bint el Sultan [daughter of the Sultan]
Iyaha
Labsa el Fostan [wearing her dress]
Iyaha
Allah ya Ghaffar [God the forgiver]
Idoena el hidiya [Give us the month's presents]
Allah ya Ghaffar

Every time the word "Iyaha" is sung the children would twirl the fanoos and often their hips as well. Let's face it - all Egyptians are born with loose hips, Ramadan or not. However, once again the translation of the song remains somewhat meaningless without sound and youtube is not helping me this time.

Now of course the lanterns are imported from China and don't require the kids to sing anymore because they come already with little voice recordings in them. Luckily not in Chinese. This is so unacceptable. The traditional makers of fawanees are losing their livlihoods on account of cheap import fawanees that break after the first half song ends. Luckily I am not the only who thinks like that. The Daily News Egypt did a small segment on the rise of imported Chinese fawanees They also show you how a fanoos is made and relay a bit of the real stories behind the fanoos.


The more logical meaning lies in the simle act of lighting a space. In Arabic light is often associated with wisdom. Hence "lightbulb moment". Another important facet of Ramadan is in the gaining and sharing of knowledge. The idea is that we spend time educating ourselves about our faith and share with those who wish to learn. The knowledge gained is to ensure that our path in life remains illuminated so that we may foresee obstacles and learn to overcome them before its too late. The fanoos is so much more than just a children's lantern; its a guide to all of us carried by those who represent our future as much as they are a product of our past.