The Truth within a Circle: A Muḥabbaẓūna’s Play and Its Revival by Alfred Faraǧ

Abstract

During his travels in Egypt, Edward William Lane attended “a low and ridiculous farce,” he reports, performed by the muḥabbaẓūna, before Muḥammad ʿAlī Bāšā. Lane described its plot and concluded that the farce was played before the Pasha to open his eyes to the conduct of the tax collectors. When recounting farces in the Ottoman Empire, some travellers and critics confirm the narrative of ridiculous and low shows, while others underline their social critique. In 1979, inspired by Bertolt Brecht, Alfred Faraǧ rehabilitates the show in Dāʾirat al-tibn al-miṣriyya, masraḥiyyat al-muḥabbaẓīna (The Egyptian Hay Circle, a Play by the Muḥabbaẓūna). Comparing different descriptions of the muḥabbaẓūna and Faraǧ’s interpretation of their play, this paper provides reflections on the social aim of performances using the circle as an ephemeral division of fiction from reality and highlights how the muḥabbaẓūna could deliver political comments both to the common people and to the elites. During his travels in Egypt, Edward William Lane attended “a low and ridiculous farce,” he reports, performed by the muḥabbaẓūna, before Muḥammad ʿAlī Bāšā. Lane described its plot and concluded that the farce was played before the Pasha to open his eyes to the conduct of the tax collectors. When recounting farces in the Ottoman Empire, some travellers and critics confirm the narrative of ridiculous and low shows, while others underline their social critique. In 1979, inspired by Bertolt Brecht, Alfred Faraǧ rehabilitates the show in Dāʾirat al-tibn al-miṣriyya, masraḥiyyat al-muḥabbaẓīna (The Egyptian Hay Circle, a Play by the Muḥabbaẓūna). Comparing different descriptions of the muḥabbaẓūna and Faraǧ’s interpretation of their play, this paper provides reflections on the social aim of performances using the circle as an ephemeral division of fiction from reality and highlights how the muḥabbaẓūna could deliver political comments both to the common people and to the elites.