Islamic Cairo



I have left Cairo two weeks ago with plenty of new impressions. The city with its 20 millions or so, the incredible traffic with its, for Arab countries so typical, exactly two rules (rule number one: don’t let anybody in; rule number two: there are no other rules). Crowds in the streets rather reminding of mass demonstrations. The noise. The mixture of good and bad smells. And friendly people everywhere, deeply rooted in faith and trust in God despite touchable despair. I loved the heat and the rubble in the street. The enormous souqs. Very oriental, actually decaying, quarters amidst urban areas. Fancy park-like residential quarters, and incredible new ones with very-low quality buildings for the poor.




I’ve noticed that the common tourist usually leaves the city after having seen Cairo’s main souq (or bazaar) Khan al-Khalili and the Egyptian museum only, to head for Luxor and Aswan. This is actually a pity. It took me about ten days to explore the city and visit only a small number of interesting sites of its 1300 years’ history under Islamic rule. Very few tourists were seen in the spiritual center of Sunni Islam, the Azhad Mosque and University, and even fewer in the holy places with the shrines of Husayn ibn Ali and Zaynab bint Ali, grandchildren of the Prophet Muhammad. I have seen Lady Zaynab’s shrine in the vicinity of Damascus four years ago and was wondering whether she was buried there or here in Cairo (or actually in Madinah, where she had been sent by Yazid, the Umayyad Caliph in Damascus responsible for the terrible martyrdom of her brother at Karbala). Having visited so many holy sites in Iran, the few people worshipping at the shrines here in Cairo differed tremendously.
























Islamic Cairo was mainly built during Fatimid rule (909-1171 CE), a strange 3rd Caliphate when, in the East, the Abbasids in Baghdad had become more ore less powerless under Seljuk’s rule, and the Umayyads who had moved to the West, to Al-Andalus in Spain. The Fatimids belonged to the Ismailiyya, a distinct Shi’a sect of those who follow only seven Imams. One of the most bizarre rulers was Al-Hakim (886-1021 CE) who had once been considered (or considered himself) the Mahdi. He disappeared and the Druze (another sect) are still waiting for his re-appearance. The minaret of his mosque seems to be Cairo’s oldest.



When living in Kuwait I had many Egyptian friends who always invited me for visiting their beautiful country. So, this and the previous postings are dedicated to them, i.e., in no particular order:

Mr. Adel Othman, our store keeper and multipurpose employee.
Mr. Mohammed Magdi, our mandoub.
Fatima, and most handsome Mustafa, secretaries and translators.
Our guards Ahmed and Tareq, who were willing volunteers in some of my research projects.
Our most talented and diligent students Mohammed and Nermeen.
My coworker Dr. Refat Afsah who helped developing an animal teaching model.
My short-term colleague Professor Talaat Attia.

I hope seeing them soon when visiting Kuwait maybe next year, insha'allah.

Comments

eshda3wa said…
which was ur absolutely fav. site?
11 July 2008 at 20:53
Muller said…
Well, I suppose I was missing everything there.
11 July 2008 at 21:18
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lady Shatita

Image
In order to learn more about Shi’a Islam and the piety of ordinary people it would have been most helpful to visit at least some of the plenty of Emamzadehs (holy sites) all over Iran. So, it was a most welcome opportunity and, in fact, great honor when my Kuwaiti friends invited me to accompany them on their several bus trips in Khorasan on the occasion of their 2006 pilgrimage to the Holy City of Mashhad. Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sasanian Empires each embraced half of the then known world when they climaxed. And even when Iran was under the reign of Seleucids, Arabs, Seljuks, or Mongols, the Iranians imprinted their lifestyle and culture on the non-welcome invaders, who in any sense immensely benefited. So, the austere new religion Islam, which replaced Iran’s state religion Zoroastrianism, was fundamentally reorganized, and, as I see it as an outsider, filled with life. The rapid and shocking decline of the Sasanid Empire at the end of a century-long fight with Byzantium, and the
Read more

Persianization

Image
Kuwait’s Arab Times had attracted my attention to Esfahan’s gorgeous Great Mosque in an article in 2003. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find so far a webpage of the article which praised the wonders of Iran’s largest mosque and one of the most significant and finest buildings of the Islamic world. I visited the site the first time at my second trip to Esfahan in late spring of 2004. I took some pictures in the vast courtyard, soaked the peaceful atmosphere there, and watched the few visitors from Iran and elsewhere. I had forgotten about the many details of the article and faintly had read some of the notes in my travel guide. My second visit in late 2007 was driven by scientific interest. I had recently posted (at Freelance ) my rather amateurish studies and thoughts about a suggested ‘conceptual breakthrough’ in Islamic architecture and art in the late 15th century, i.e., quasi-crystalline tessellations, which had led to world-wide attention due to its publication in the Science magazine
Read more

Buyid Architecture in Esfahan

Image
Older than what is now visible in Esfahan’s Great Mosque (although the first mosque there was built in the 7th century) is what has remained of the Jurjir Mosque . The fragmentary façade of the Jurjir Mosque had been discovered during restoration work at Masjed-e Hakim in 1955. The fragment had been hidden for centuries behind a mud wall. The beautiful Hakim mosque itself is a Safavid mosque from the 17th century. The Jurjir façade is the only remains of a 10th century mosque which was commissioned by the Buyid (Buwayhid) vizier Al-Sahib ibn Abbad (d. 995), a Mutazilite scholar. The Buyid Dynasty, who ruled in Iraq and Iran, effectively brought the Abbasids era in Baghdad to an end. Although the Abbasids retained the caliphate, they were deprived of all secular power. Buyids were originally Zaydi, or Fiver Shi'as. They later began to lean closer to the nowadays dominating Twelver Shi'a branch of Islam. In general tolerant in religious matters, the Buyid rulers in Baghdad even
Read more