YOU’VE gone on a two-week guided tour of Egypt, and now you’re in Cairo. This
morning, you went to the Egyptian Museum and peered at Tutankhamun’s
funerary mask in a densely sweating crowd. This afternoon, you’re in a coach
coming back from the Pyramids.
Your fellow tourists are full of complaints about the lewd liberties taken by
the camel-drivers, you’re laden down with tawdry purchases, and the coach is
stuck in traffic on one of the flyovers that cut through central Cairo. You
look out, and in the middle of the expanse of biscuit-dry roofs is an
extraordinary thing: a delicate stone pinnacle, carved into elaborate,
fantastic forms. A little farther away, another and another; a dome rippling
with lace-like arabesques
The coach moves on and the disloyal thought occurs to you: why aren’t we
looking at that? But you’re flying to Luxor tomorrow and there won’t be
time.
It’s a great oddity. Millions of tourists go to Cairo, and almost all of them
take the same route, visiting only the ancient relics at Giza and in the
Egyptian Museum. But Cairo was not a city of the ancient Egyptians. The city
was founded by the Copts as Babylon — one theory holds that its name has
nothing to do with the biblical city, but rather Bab il-On, the Gate of On.
After the Arab conquest in 641, it became perhaps the greatest Islamic city
in the world.
Its mosques and monuments are preserved as far back as the flood-recording
Nilometer of 861 and the mosque of Ibn Tulun, built in 879. There are
architectural treasures from almost every historical period since then,
including a supreme run of Mamluk architecture, the dynasty which ruled
between 1250 and 1517. It’s a cornucopia that compares with treasures from
the Roman Baroque, or the Florentine Renaissance.
To plunge into Islamic Cairo ankle-deep — perhaps literally so, since the
streets round here are not that well-kept — start with your back to Khan
al-Khalili, and cross the road. You might recognise the two towering
buildings, exuberantly striped and ornamented, from a famous painting by the
Victorian artist David Roberts. These are the Ghouriya, a complex of
religious buildings built by the last-but-one of the Mamluk sultans,
al-Ghouri. They combine several purposes — a madrassa, or religious school
with a mosque, is on the right. On the left, there is a mausoleum and a sabil-kuttab,
or a combination of public fountain and elementary school.
The beautiful mosque of al-Ghouri is a good starting point. Its thick walls
and complex entrance remove you from the raucous world of the street; an
ingenious system of air circulation keeps the building cool and fresh.
Inside, the light is rich and velvety; there are high windows of bright
stained glass, greens against reds, and everywhere a transfixing mastery of
ornament. The calligraphic verses from the Koran merge almost seamlessly
into geometrical patterns and plant forms; the whole effect is restrained
and organic.
Most of Cairo’s mosques are still in use and it’s important to approach them
in a polite spirit, removing your shoes and asking permission to take
photographs. In almost every case, the non-Muslim will be welcomed, though
perhaps with a little bemusement, and sometimes with excessive deference.
Most mosques, for some reason, are strewn with supine men, giving a very
good impersonation of being asleep. The custodian of Barsbay’s mosque, after
welcoming me in, officiously dashed about waking all of them up, telling
them to sit up and make a good impression.
These beautiful buildings are effectively buried in the mud and chaos of
Cairo’s urban life. Walking away from the Ghouriya, you find yourself in the
middle of what seems to be the women’s underwear bazaar: stalls of vast bras
and knickers in washload-destroying shades of red and pink and peach.
There are boys with vats of karkaday (hibiscus tea) on barrows, sacks
of guavas, cotton bales, an ice-merchant carrying a glistening 6ft plank of
ice on his shoulder; and suddenly you see the extraordinary vision of the
Sabil of Tusun Pasha, with its Rococo styling and bulging walls, very like a
miniature Paris Opera.
The Egyptian Government doesn’t seem to have its Islamic heritage high on its
“to do” list. Some of the most fabulous stretches of Islamic Cairo, notably
the street from al-Azhar to Bab al-Futuh, take place along streets that are
like bomb sites.
Occasionally, a piece of exemplary restoration has taken place. There are two
splendid medieval palaces that shouldn’t be missed: a merchant’s house,
called Beit al-Sihami and, just by the Ibn Tulun mosque, the GayerAnderson
museum, also known as the Beit al-Kritliya. Lucky old Major Gayer-Anderson
had a well in his garden which turns out to be the underground entrance to
the palace of the Sultan of the Bats, the evil genius of The Thousand
and One Nights, where the Sultan’s seven daughters still lie asleep on
golden beds. That’s what I call a water-feature.
In both houses, you can see the seductive rhythms of medieval domestic life;
the rooms melt from interior to exterior, the purpose of each not firmly
defined as the household would move around in search of coolness.
There are public and private spaces; the private areas, lived in by women,
have mashrabiyyas, or wooden lattice-work screens, overlooking the
public areas or the street — readers of Naguib Mahfouz’s Palace
Walk will remember the erotic potential of these veiled openings, as the
heroines peep out and even let their faces be seen by young men.
The mixed and fluid uses of buildings is very marked in Cairo. One of the
loveliest of the sabil-kuttabs, Qaytbay’s, is no longer used as a
neighbourhood fountain, but has gone on serving its function as a centre of
learning — there is an excellent library on the upper floors in which you
are made very welcome. Visiting one of the most ingenious and beautiful of
all mosques, Qijmas al-Ishaqi, it is enchanting to overhear the noisy
chanting of children from the attached kuttab.
The oddest mixture, however, is in the so-called City of the Dead, or the two
great cemeteries. Though they were built as cemeteries, Egyptians always
lived among the dead, and now they are thriving urban centres with frequent
tombs interspersed. Here, in the Northern Cemetery, is an awe-inspiring
sequence of late Mamluk mosques.
In a just world, the ornamental fantasy of the Qaytbay funerary complex, its
dazzling lace-draped dome above all, would be as celebrated as the greatest
of Venetian churches. In reality, you will have it all to yourself.
But you may be just as beguiled by the friendly, if slightly surprised,
greetings from the inhabitants of this oddest of urban developments, as you
walk along the streets afterwards.
Need to know
Philip Hensher travelled with Bales Worldwide (0870 7559851,
www.balesworldwide.com), which offers five nights at the Nile Hilton hotel,
Cairo, on a B&B basis, from £630pp, based on two sharing. The price
includes flights with Egypt Air from Heathrow and transfers. Half-day
sightseeing tour of Islamic Cairo with private guide costs £42pp (based on
two sharing).
Reading: Islamic Monuments in Cairo, by Caroline
Williams (American University in Cairo Press, £14.95). The Cairo
Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz (Everyman’s Library, £20).
Eating: Traditional and elegant: Abou El Sid, off 26th July
Street, Zamalek(00 20 2 735 9640).
Chic and international: L’Aubergine, 5 El Sayed al-Bakry
Street, Zamalek (738 0080).
Drinking: For chic, Nile-side settings try La Bodega, 157,
26th July Street, Zamalek (735 0543); Sangria, Casino El Shagara, Corniche
El Nile, Maspero (579 6511), and La Sequoia, Aboul Feda Street, Zamalek (735
0014).
Go green: Half the £299 you pay for a ten-day Eco Egypt tour
goes to a children’s home in Cairo. Departures on February 14 and September
5 with On the Go Egypt (020-7371 1113, www.egyptonthego.com).
