The Masaharati

The ‘masaharati’ just dropped by.

“Mom, there’s a guy with a derbaki (Lebanese drum) at the door,” my son yelled.

It seems he’s been at my door already a couple of times, but I’m never home. It took me some time to figure out who he was.

“I do booom boom boom. I wake you up all night in Ramadan. Good, no?” he said, smiling at me with eager eyes, while nodding his head enthusiastically.

This made me laugh. The guy had no idea what he was just telling me, but that’s okay.

“Aah, you’re the masaharati!”

“Yes!” he beamed.

The masaharati (talking about culture) is something typically Lebanese, although I’ve read somewhere that have them in Egypt and Syria as well. (And here's a little 'masaharati' clip from Turkey)

A masaharati is a man that walks the streets of a certain neighborhood at night during Ramadan, and wakes up the people with a drum and a prayer, so they do not miss their last meal before day break (sun rise).

It is a tradition that dates back to the days when people did not have alarm clocks. As the buildings rise up some 12 stories here, he’s got to do some extensive yelling and drumming.

Ramadan is over now, but he had come to collect his fee.

I only learned of the existence of the phenomenon when I had lived in Lebanon for some four years. This was because I had been living in mixed neighborhoods, or christian ones, where you do not have them.

But when I moved to Ras-Beirut, which has – although mixed – a large number of sunni muslims, one night during Ramadan, I woke up to the sound of what I thought were a couple of students going home late at night, and who’d obviously had had one too many. That, of course, would be the case in Holland. (I think you could describe it as some ‘college frat kids’ for American readers).

But when I heard it again the next night, I thought it odd. Open drunkenness is something you do not see a lot in Beirut. This may be due to the fact that we do not have (active) laws concerning drinking & driving, and therefore you can drive home, totally drunk. In Holland you’d have to walk, which for some reason inspires loud singing and banging on things.

The third night, I got up. I had to see those drunk college students! Hubbie then explained that, no, these were not drunk people, this was the traditional neighborhood masaharati, and the guy had been doing this job for a long time.

It is a voluntary thing, but after Ramadan, you can make the rounds and collect money. Our old neighborhood ‘masaharari’ died two years ago. We got a new one. He’s not as good as the old one, I must say. There’s no particular rhythm to his drum, and he does not articulate well. Still, it's a tradition, and a cute one at that.

Anyway, he passed by today, making the rounds and collecting money.

"I wake you up good, no?" he asked.

Yes, yes, very much, but I don't fast. I'm christian," I said.

"Never mind," he replied.