People of skill and magic tricks in Egypt and the Levant

From here we begin studying the people of tricks and magical games after the topic of the marginalized community of the Harafish and their natural role in society was hidden, and what skills, arts, and tricks they mastered in Arabic and foreign writings, which, however, were found, but not in the expected manner in terms of quantity and type; a gap was created between what the historical reality of society reflects in indications confirming the existence of practitioners of magical games from the Harafish. The study chronicles the secret and contradictory life that was bustling in the spaces of society, its vigilant markets, celebrations, and cheap gatherings frequented by the marginalized, the outcast, and the working classes; seeking fleeting entertainment to forget their worries and the harshness of life. This gives the study its significance, as it attempts to uncover the secret history of Egyptian society during the era of the Ayyubid sultans and Mamluks, with their markets and districts, and the history of its underlying culture and its layers of society, along with its transformations and the pains of its people. There can be no separation in this field between societal transformations and the transformations of the people of tricks, deception, and magical games, as each has been intertwined with the other, and this is what is addressed here with its details.