Death Rituals in Rural Egyptian Society: A Symbolic Study

Abstract

This paper attempts to shed light on the concepts, actions, and rituals connected with al-maut, or death in rural Egyptian society. The research is based on fieldwork conducted from 1979 to 1980 in an Egyptian village in Beheira goyernorate (western Delta). Fundamentally, the study is concerned with death and funeral (janazah ) rituals that reveal the faiiahin's beliefs and attitudes toward death, in general, and the dead, in particular. Also, the relationship between men and women, as implicitly and explicitly shown in death rituals and beliefs, is discussed. Some components and objects of funeral and memorial rites, such as food, the aloe tree, the tomb, and the recitation of the Quran are dealt with as symbols signifying the cultural and religious values of the faMhin. The symbolic approach applied here differentiates this paper from previous studies dealing with death rituals in contemporary Egyptian society. The paper aims to show that death rituals reflect some fundamental themes in rural (Muslim) Egyptian culture. The anthropological literature on death rituals in both rural and urban Egyptian societies is not extensive, and the studies so far made by Lane (1966), Blackman (1968), and Fakhouri (1972) are not concerned with sociological or symbolic interpretations of these rituals. In his book THE EGYPTIAN PEASANT (1963) Ayrout, except for one paragraph which describes a cemetery of an Egyptian village, does not address the death rituals and beliefs of Egyptian