Creating Local Democracy in Iran

Abstract

Evans-Pritchard saw himself as McPherson’s student. As he states in his introduction (written while patrolling the Abyssinian frontier of Sudan in 1940), “What I know about the moulids of Egypt, I have learnt from him”. Evans-Pritchard mirrors McPherson’s key argument that the moulids have a secular side. “The sports, games, theatres, shadowplays, coffee-booths, beer booths, sweet stalls, eating houses, the meeting of friends, the singing, the dancing, and the laughter, are as much part of a moulid as the religious processions, the visits to the tombs of holy men, and the prayers in the mosques. The gay and secular side to religious ceremonies is an essential part of all popular religious festivals.”