It dominates all other subjects, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. We talk about nothing else, and by that I mean all of us: Muhammad Bahgat, Rashad Magdi, Taha al-Gharib, Zayn al-‘Abidin ‘Abdallah, Isma‘il al-Shaykh, Zaynab Diyab, ‘Arif Sulayman, Imam al-Fawwal, Gum‘a, and some new folk who represent the ever renewing cycle of generations. Qurunfula has now stopped wearing her mourning garb. She sits there, watching and listening, but never saying anything. Often we find ourselves getting bored with the whole thing, at which point someone will suggest changing the topic before we all go absolutely mad. All of us enthusiastically support the idea and start on another subject, but discussion is usually uninspired and starts to flag. It’s not too long before it’s on its last legs, at which point we go back to our enduring topic. We’re flogging it to death, and it’s doing exactly the same thing to us, but there’s no letup and no end in sight.
