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Cairo fruit-sellers
have a tradition of giving nicknames to their selections of dates before
Ramadan and this year the Hizbullah leader topped
the unofficial popularity ratings, with the 'Nasrallah'
the most expensive in town.
The
charismatic Shiite cleric, who earned great support from Arabs during his
group's month-long war with Israel, surpassed the
presidents of Iran and Venezuela -- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo
Chavez -- two other prominent Israeli foes.
"There's
no doubt, it is 'Nasrallah the victorious' who gets
first place," said Abdou Kashush,
who has 60 kilograms of different types of dates laid out in little piles on
his stall in the popular Cairo market of Rod el-Farag.
Emulating
the Prophet Mohammed, Muslims traditionally eat a date and drink milk to
break the dawn-to-dusk fast during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, whose
beginning is set according to the sighting of the moon.
This
year, a kilogram of "Nasrallah" dates
goes for 24 Egyptian pounds (4.20 dollars, 3.30 euros), while "Ahmadinejad" dates sell for 18 pounds (3.14 dollars)
and "Chavez" dates for 14 (2.44).
The two
presidents, whose opposition to Israel and the United States have
earned them vast popular support in Egypt, will have to wait
another year before they can hope to succeed French President Jacques Chirac
and the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in
the Ramadan dates hall of fame.
Equally
predictable was Ehud Olmert's
poor performance on the dates market, with the
Israeli premier duly succeeding Ariel Sharon in lending his name to the
cheapest date on the market at 1.5 pounds.
There
was no date bearing the name of Pope Benedict XVI, whose use last week of a
medieval quotation describing some of the Prophet Mohammed's teachings as
"evil and inhuman" caused a public uproar in many Muslim countries.
Kashush, who even pinned a poster of Nasrallah
on his stall, explained that political nicknames appeared after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, when one of the
best varieties of dates was dubbed "Bin Laden."
"In
the past, we'd use names from movie stars," he said.
Karim Ghazi, another fruit-seller at the Rod el-Farag market, said "the supply and quality of dates
this year is generally on the rise while prices have gone down
slightly."
"The
Nasrallah date is not cheap however and even if it
only represents around one percent of my sales, I'm expecting to make a hefty
profit," he added, displaying his own poster of the Shiite leader.
Egypt is the world's top
date producer with 1.1 million tons a year, accounting for 16 percent of
world production, ahead of Iran and Saudi Arabia.
In Egypt, the fasting month
is expected to start on September 23 or 24.(AFP)
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