005_DSC_0674

Um Mohamed, a woman who has been in the business of preparing the boxes of sweets for more than 30 years, says she was born in Darb al-Barbara. She explains that things have changed a lot over the years. In the past, people bought the sweets from spice sellers (Atareen), before the alley became famous for selling Sebou’ supplies.

There are two main accounts of the naming of the alley. The first goes back to the Berber (or the Amazigh) tribes in North Africa and the Maghreb, who came with Jawhar the Sicilian during the conquest of Egypt in the Fatimid period and settled. The second account relates to Nubian workers who came to Cairo and the Delta at the beginning of the 19th century, and stayed and met in the area. Others claim, however, that the name is related to a group of Berbers who came to Cairo to work as servants and butlers to the Pashas during the rule of Mohamed Ali Pasha at the beginning of the 19th century.