The clock approaches six in the evening, just before the sunset call to prayer, Cairo time, so Badriya - an elderly widow - rushes to the street, leaving her children in her apartment, or rather, her room with a bathroom attached, to follow the date of the Ramadan Iftar distribution in the street near her home.

Badriya sits on the sidewalk opposite one of the stores waiting for hot breakfast meals distributed by the store's management to them in the same place where a Ramadan table was held last year, which disappeared due to a government decision banning the Rahman tables as part of what was prevented from gatherings in order to avoid the spread of the Corona virus.

Daily weather

This daily ritual is practiced by Badriya, among others, who were brought together by the need for a free, complete meal for themselves and their children.

Badriya says to Al-Jazeera Net: I do not work because of several chronic diseases that compelled me after enduring hard work in service and cleaning homes, and today I have no income except for what philanthropists and charities provide, and it is very little, and I take advantage of the increase in charitable work in Ramadan in order to save the price of a daily meal for me and my three children. I will not be able to do it, especially since they do not eat a full meal with animal protein except during Ramadan and some days during other seasons of the year.

Abdel Shakour, one of the "Trahil" workers, receives his meal from a benefactor, then searches for a place to eat his breakfast (Al-Jazeera)

Sidewalk guests

It is noticeable that the increasing number of men and women sitting on the sidewalks in Cairo just before the sunset call to prayer, their bodies suggest simplicity and need, converge in their sessions, perhaps in a way that is more healthier than the table sessions.

On the sidewalk of a street in Giza, Abd al-Shakour, one of the “Trehil” workers, sits around him waiting for the routine daily passage of the car of a philanthropist who used to distribute packed meals to those sitting on the sidewalk.

His face rejoices with a smile when he sees a car close to the waiting car, then his smile fades when it passes past him, and it becomes clear that it is not the one waiting for him, and he tells Al-Jazeera Net with regret that he has been working in Cairo for 5 years, sitting on the same sidewalk throughout the months of the year waiting for the arrival of job seekers, So he accumulates an amount of money every time that he sends part of it to his family in Upper Egypt, and he spends the rest on himself.

Ready meals for breakfast provided by an association to the needy (communication sites)

Tricks to do good

In Ramadan, the work is reduced, but Abdel Shakour stays in Cairo, and he says that the tables of the Most Merciful provided a generous form to satisfy his need for food, as he sits among others, including those in need, passers-by, and even taxi owners, and the sunset prayer came while they were in the street, so they sat at the table of good people.

Today - he adds - he must wait in the street in the same place where he spends his day waiting for job seekers, or waiting for the car of a benefactor to pass.

What the store management, the unknown car owner, and others are doing are attempts to bypass the government's decision to ban the tables of the Most Merciful, and those who wish to do good deeds in the month of goodness have to reach the needy fasting people in their gathering places and give them the meals that were previously placed on the tables.

One of these benefactors - who refused to be named - told Al-Jazeera Net that he circumvented the decision by opening a car park, which he owned and rented to overnight cars, in order for the needy to enter it and give them meals and eat standing up quickly, "to prevent police reports that he may be exposed to if someone informs him that he is setting the table of the Most Merciful. He avoids that by not putting chairs and tables. "Before Corona, he used to set up a long table along the fence of the car park.

Volunteers prepare drinks to put them with meals and distribute them to the needy on the sidewalks before breakfast (the island)

Various initiatives

With the support of donors and the help of volunteers, charities launched the idea of ​​"Good Kitchen" to prepare ready meals and distribute iftar for fasting people under the slogan "Your meal is ready, take it and break your fast at your home."

The Misr al-Kheir Association distributes meals to the needy just before sunset, in front of the association’s headquarters, in the same place where the Table of Mercy was previously held, which was organized by the association with donations from benefactors and the needy people used to eat it every Ramadan and sometimes in other seasons, and today they have to take it and search for a place to eat There is breakfast.

Amal Wahba, a volunteer with the association, says that the lowest ready meal costs about 35 pounds (about two dollars). The association does not require donors to pay the price of a specific number of meals, but rather receives any amount that the owner requests to direct to break the fast, and some of them like to distribute the meals themselves.

As for the meal preparers, they are volunteer housewives. The association delivers to them the requirements for preparing the meal from vegetables and fruits in their homes, so they cook, then deliver the meals in tightly-wrapped plates.

Tweeters called for expansion of initiatives to transfer the tables of the Most Merciful to the homes of the poor and their whereabouts.

On the other hand, tweeters criticized the government's banning of the tables of the Merciful in order to seek solutions, and that it could have organized them with controls so that the needy and workers would not be deprived of them, as the state allowed unnecessary gatherings of the rich, such as celebrity singers' parties.

Different opinion

Al-Azhar University professor Ahmed Karima has a different opinion about the tables of the Most Merciful in general, as he calls them “the sidewalk tables and the scattering of dignity,” stressing in press statements that feeding people should not be in this appearance, but rather by delivering it to them in their homes.

Karima emphasized that preparing bags containing a fresh breakfast varied with proteins, vegetables, fruits and sweets, and delivering them and distributing them to the homes of the needy in secret is the best, pointing out that he did so through his charity called "harmony between people" in the poor neighborhoods of Al Haram and its suburbs, and in Al Ayyat Center. In Giza.

Similar initiatives spread on social media sites without cover from NGOs or civil organizations, relying on a group of young people coordinating - through groups on Facebook - between restaurants serving meals at a nominal price, and some of them donating a fixed number of meals throughout Ramadan, and among volunteers who showed Their willingness to hand it out with their cars or scooters.

The owners of some of these initiatives considered that whoever is on the street at the time of breakfast and does not find a place to break his fast, he is counted among the guests of the Most Merciful.