Ramadan’s ‘Mesaharati’ Disappears from Sudan's Big Cities in Sudan, Remains Resilient in Countryside

Mesaharatis in Sudan (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Mesaharatis in Sudan (Asharq Al-Awsat)
TT

Ramadan’s ‘Mesaharati’ Disappears from Sudan's Big Cities in Sudan, Remains Resilient in Countryside

Mesaharatis in Sudan (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Mesaharatis in Sudan (Asharq Al-Awsat)

A mesaharati, also known as “the Dawn Caller of Ramadan,” is a person who wakes others up before dawn to eat before their fast during Islam’s holy month of Ramadan.

The voluntary job has been around for generations but has gone missing in big Sudanese cities, where the more significant part of the population relies on social media and satellite channels to stay up late till Suhur on their own, without the need for a mesaharati.

Suhur is the meal consumed by Muslims before dawn breaks, and they start fasting during Ramadan.

In today’s Sudan, mesaharatis can only be found in the countryside, where the phenomenon is honored as a celebration of religious and cultural heritage in the North African nation.

“The countryside still enjoys calm nights and people there sleep early. It is as it was in the past,” said the President of the National Union for Folklore Heritage Salah El-Din Faragallah.

“Moreover, houses are built close to each other in the countryside,” he added.

Faragallah then explained that these factors help make it easier for the mesaharati to play their role.

Additionally, Faragallah links the survival of the mesaharati in the countryside to a local desire for preserving the traditional features of Ramadan.

He said the mesaharati gives those fasting in the countryside a sense of “activity and vitality,” especially when reciting rhymes and jokes while waking them up for Suhur.

In the few minutes when the mesaharati gets to do their job, the locals have an opportunity to relive their heritage, added Faragallah.

There is no specific age when a person can become a mesaharati, which is why you can find youths volunteering for the job in the Sudanese countryside.

On the matter of mesaharatis being exclusive to the countryside, Eziddine Omar, aged 19, argued that the dawn callers of Ramadan still made trips to the outskirts of Sudanese cities.



Deadly Israeli Strike in West Bank Highlights Spread of War

Demonstrators clash with Palestinian security forces in Nablus in the West Bank (File photo/Reuters)
Demonstrators clash with Palestinian security forces in Nablus in the West Bank (File photo/Reuters)
TT

Deadly Israeli Strike in West Bank Highlights Spread of War

Demonstrators clash with Palestinian security forces in Nablus in the West Bank (File photo/Reuters)
Demonstrators clash with Palestinian security forces in Nablus in the West Bank (File photo/Reuters)

The ruins of a coffee shop in the West Bank city of Tulkarm show the force of the airstrike on Thursday night that killed a senior local commander of the militant group Hamas - and at least 17 others.

The strike in Tulkarm's Noor Shams refugee camp, one of the most densely populated in the occupied West Bank, destroyed the ground floor shop entirely, leaving rescue workers picking through piles of concrete rubble with the smell of blood still hanging in the air.

Two holes in an upper level show where the missile penetrated the three-storey building before reaching the coffee shop, where a mechanical digger was clearing rubble.

The strike by the Israeli air force was the largest seen in the West Bank during operations that have escalated sharply since the start of the war in Gaza almost a year ago, and one of the biggest since the second "intifada" uprising two decades ago.

"We haven't heard this sound since 2002," said Nimer Fayyad, owner of the cafe, whose brother was killed in the strike.

"The missiles targeted a civilian building, a family was wiped from the civil registry. What was their fault? ...

"There is no safe place for the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people have the right to defend themselves."

Residents said the strike took place after a rally in the middle of the camp by armed fighters based there. When the rally ended, some went to the coffee shop, Reuters reported.

The Israeli military said the strike killed Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi, head of the Hamas network in Tulkarm, a volatile city in the northern West Bank that has seen repeated clashes between the Israeli army and Palestinian fighters.

It said the attack joined "a number of significant counterterrorism activities" conducted in the area since the start of the war.

ATTACK KILLS FAMILY OF FIVE IN APARTMENT

Local residents said another commander, from the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad, was also killed but there was no immediate confirmation from either faction.

But Palestinian emergency services said at least 18 people had died in all, including a family of five in an apartment in the same building.

The missiles penetrated their ceiling and the floor of their kitchen, leaving many of the cabinets incongruously intact.

With the first anniversary approaching of Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel, the strike on Tulkarm underlined how widely the war has now spread.

As well as fighting in Gaza, now largely reduced to rubble, Israeli troops are engaged in southern Lebanon while parts of the West Bank, which has seen repeated arrest sweeps and raids, have in recent weeks come to resemble a full-blown war zone.

Flashpoint cities in the northern West Bank like Tulkarm and Jenin have suffered repeated large-scale operations against Palestinian militant groups that are deeply embedded in the area's refugee camps.

"What's happening in Gaza is spreading to Tulkarm, with the targeting of civilians, children, women and elders," said Faisal Salam, head of the camp refugee council.

More than 700 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank over the past year, many of them armed fighters but many also unarmed youths throwing stones during protests, or civilian passers-by.

At the same time, dozens of Israeli soldiers and civilians have been killed in the West Bank and Israel by Palestinians, most recently in Tel Aviv, where seven people were killed by two Palestinians from the West Bank with an automatic weapon.