Egypt-Day 5-The Citadel, Sultan Hassan, Rifai, and Ibn Tuluun

Today was the highlight of the trip so far in my opinion. It was the day I’d been waiting for since before the trip even began. We got to see almost all of the mosques that I most wanted to see as well as the Citadel. We started off driving to the Citadel, which is the main fortress protecting Cairo. It was built by Salah al-Din (more commonly known as Saladin) in 1176 and added on to by his brother following his death. He was, as you might know, the Arab commander who fought against Richard the Lionheart. Fun fact of the day, though, despite being enemies the two had a great fondness for each other. They corresponded by letter, never meeting except in battle. Once when Richard’s horse died, Saladin sent him two new ones, and another time, when Richard fell ill, Saladin offered the services of his own personal physician.

Mosque Muhammed Ali

His being my favorite conqueror aside, we checked out the citadel and stopped first at the Mohammed Ali Mosque. Wow. What a place. It was strange because it wasn’t decorated like a mosque, it was decorated more like a cathedral. It was so ornate with nineteen types of marble, gold leaf, chandeliers, everything you can imagine. In Islam, there is a stress placed upon the idea of focusing. Ornate buildings distract from the true purpose of being in a mosque, worship. So if a mosque is overdone, it makes it harder to focus on prayer, and more likely that worshippers will become distracted. So in that sense it is a poor example. At the same time, it was amazing. And anyone who says differently wasn’t paying attention. We left after awhile and stopped at the former king’s residence next door. Surprisingly not too impressive. Not much to say about it.

 The ceiling of Muhammed Ali

Our next stop was at Sultan Hassan Mosque. This is one of the older mosques in the city and is the only one that President Obama visited during his trip to Egypt last year. Inside it was somewhat spartan, this goes back to what I said above. It was quite impressive, though, and made all the better by one of the men working there closing us into one of the chambers and going through some chants. Wait till I get that video online, it’s as impressive as you can imagine. Our next stop was across the street, the Rifai Mosque where several rulers of Egypt are buried along with the Shah of Iran. This was my favorite. It was somewhat in between over the top and bare. It was beautifully designed and yet not over the top, no crystal, no gold, just marble and wood and iron. I can’t really explain any of these of course so you’ll have to look at the pictures when I get them posted.

 Lighting in Muhammed Ali

It was a great place, though, and I spent a lot of time wandering on my own taking it in and snapping all the pictures I could. While we were there I wandered into a tomb and was in the process of walking around it when I came upon another man who was doing the same thing. He introduced himself in broken English so I did the same in Arabic. It was one of those things you remember from your trip. We couldn’t particularly understand each other, but we spoke for a minute or two and he explained that the tomb was that of a prominent scholar who the king had wanted to honor. I keep finding, especially on this type of group trip, that the best moments are often the ones where you are in a smaller group and have the chance to meet Egyptians.

 Sultan Hassan & Rifai Mosques

Not always, such as the other day in a restaurant where there was a moment of bonhomie, one of the girls asked someone who worked in the store if she could show her how to put on her headscarf. Within a couple of minutes it had cascaded and every woman in the store was upstairs helping everyone in our group put them on. It was just really interesting to see everyone together, smiling despite the language barrier, as these Egyptian women showed us all a small part of their culture. By the time we left they were all up there smiling and laughing with us as we headed out.
To get back on track, though, we left there and headed out to lunch. This turned out to be a similar experience as we pulled up at a restaurant nearby and hopped out of the bus. The place was somewhat small but within three minutes it had added about twenty seats. So as we filled up the place we started feeling a little awkward. Sort of like the aliens who land and get watched by everyone.

 Ceiling of Sultan Hassan

The rich Americans show up and take over the shop. But as we ate the young men in the store watched us and enjoyed our politeness, and eventually started taking pictures of us. They were looking out the windows behind us, asking if they could get pictures of the whole table, you name it. By the end it snowballed into them getting pictures with some of us, notably Amy and Megan who they are obsessed with and think are the most beautiful women ever, and Chris, whose smile they like as well as the fact that he’s possibly the biggest man they’ve ever seen.

 Tomb of the Shah of Iran

Our next stop was Mosque Ibn Tuluun, just down a couple of streets from there. Following Amr al-Aas, the mosque we had seen the day before, this was the second oldest mosque in the city. Built in the 860s, it was meant to hold the garrison that defended the city. To demonstrate how big it was, imagine us about two or three miles away on the citadel walls. We could still see it from there, not just the large square, but the individual arches inside of it. Covering about six acres of land and walking around in our little green booties (they tie them on over your shoes when you walk in instead of ditching your shoes like most places) we felt about as small as ants on a kitchen table. It was gorgeous, as the pictures will attest, and we thought we couldn’t get any luckier until we found out we had permission to climb the minaret.
Talk about luck. Many Muslim countries don’t even let non-Muslims into their mosques, but as for Minarets? Not many that you can hike up. We headed out of the mosque and around the corner through the outer defensive wall to the tower and started climbing. The bottom was about four or five stories tall and square. At that point it became circular and you ascended on a stairway outside of it rather than inside. This gave it a nice spiral and a great view out over the surrounding quarter. We made it to the top, amazingly considering how bad our legs burned, and had to drag Paul back from the edge so that he didn’t swan dive off of it. The view was pretty amazing and we spent some time taking pictures of the mosque, ourselves, and anything that moved, before we felt it was about time to head back down so that others could get up, the problem being that the top chamber where the muezzin calls Muslims to prayer was about the size of a bathroom.

The last thing that I’d like to note about the day was the whole security situation. As we left we had to get back on the bus so that we could go around the corner away from the police checkpoint, otherwise we wouldn’t be allowed to walk. So after our forty-five second drive, we all got out and started walking up Sharia Saliba (street of the cross) towards Rifai and Sultan Hassan, the two mosques we had been at earlier. This is our primary area of research, in old Islamic Cairo, and it had a different feel to it from the other areas. I personally loved it, and felt quite comfortable. What made me uncomfortable was that we were traveling in a group of thirty-nine and were being led by security. Yes, we do have a submachine gun toting guard. It’s always someone different, but they always wear a suit and shades and generally nix whatever plans we like to make. In addition, wherever we stop, if there are police within view, they get added to our escort and end up setting up cones around the bus, or just stalk around keeping an eye on things. Generally they’re very friendly and layed back, which begs the question, why do we even need them? I understand this isn’t exactly New York, but there have been terrorist attacks there and I don’t think the change of city changes the situation. What makes me uncomfortable is the overwhelming assurance that we are in constant danger. Our professor’s brother came with us today as well and he agreed with his brother, that it was a little excessive. But because of liability issues that is the story of our lives. It just seems to me to create an added barrier to our experience of the local culture.