11.11.09

عشرون عاماً بعد السقوط… و النصر

Posted in Arabic, Places, Reflections at 5:51 pm by Rou...

من الصعب أن تصدق أن عشرون عاماً قد مروا حقاً على سقوط سور برلين العظيم… كثير ممن شهد السقوط يجزم أنها كانت من أكثر اللحظات تأثيراً في العالم بأسره على مدار القرن العشرين… إن التاسع من نوفمبر 1989… يوم لا ينسى في تاريخ ألمانيا وفي تاريخ العالم الحديث…يوم لم يأت موحداً لألمانيا فقط، وإنما واضعاً حداً للشيوعية والحرب الباردة على السواء…

و اليوم، في 9 نوفمبر 2009، بعد عقدين من سقوط الحائط، إجتمع الملايين للإحتفال بذكرى السقوط والنصر… إجتمعوا معاً لتذكر ما كان يمثل لهم الحائط من معاناة… ذلك الجدار الذي سجن نصف مدينة… نصف بلد… نصف قارة… نصف عالم… لمدة تقترب من ثلث قرن من الزمان…

لا أستطيع تخيل إحساس من شاهد السقوط الحقيقي للحائط وهو يرى من أمام ناظريه ألف قطعة دومينو عملاقة تم وضعها يوم الإحتفال ممثلة للجدار و ممتدة من موقع كان يعرف سابقاً بإسم نقطة تفتيش شارلي إلى مبنى البرلمان (Reichstag)… و كأن الزمن يعود إلى الوراء ليعيد التاريخ نفسه، وفي لحظة مهيبة، سقطت الألف قطعة بالتتابع…

قد لا أستطيع أن أنقل مدى تأثري بذلك المشهد، فأنا لا أذكر مشهد سقوط الحائط الأصلي… ولكن… لطالما مثل حائط برلين بالنسبة لي لغزاً عجيباً… فدائماً ما كنت أتساءل كيف لبلد أن تقسم بين عشية وضحاها بهذا الشكل… كيف أكون أنا من قاطني مصر الجديدة وأهلي من قاطني الهرم مثلاً ولا أستطيع أن أذهب لزيارتهم بدون تصاريح وأوراق…إلخ… كيف لأبناء أسرة واحدة ووطن واحد أن يتم التفرقة بينهم بهذا الشكل…

كلما أفكر في ذلك الأمر أتذكر جملة مريد البرغوثي في بداية رائعته “رأيت رام الله”:
“ها أنا أمشي بحقيبتي الصغيرة على الجسر، الذي لا يزيد طوله عن بضعة أمتار من الخشب، وثلاثين عاماً من الغربة… كيف إستطاعت هذه القطعة الخشبية الداكنة أن تقصي أمة بأكملها عن أحلامها؟ أن تمنع أجيالاً بأكملها من تناول قهوتها في بيوتٍ كانت لها؟”

إن التاريخ يعيد نفسه هاهنا، ولكن… “مين يسمع”!

رحاب رجائي

ملحوظة:
كنت قد كتبت من قبل حقائق عن الحائط نفسه ومقتطفات من ذكريات بعض ممن عاشوا ذلك العهد…

http://sleeplessrou.wordpress.com/2008/01/10/the-night-the-wall-came-down/
http://sleeplessrou.wordpress.com/2008/01/11/die-mauer-ist-gefallen/

10.27.09

Vatican… The Holy See!

Posted in English, Places, Reflections at 10:55 pm by Rou...

Since the moment we reached Rome, I had nothing on my mind except the Vatican visit, where I would finally get to see the Raphael rooms and the Sistine Chapel… and when we had our tour on day one in Rome, and passed by the Vatican city from outside, I was about to jump from the bus and run into it…
 
Città del Vaticano; the world’s smallest independent nation and the spiritual center for the world’s Catholics…
 
Hearing a lot about its endless queue, we made sure to be there as early as we could to give ourselves enough time for touring both St. Peter Basilica and the Vatican museums…
 
Entering the Vatican, you are at once hit by the view of the magnificent St Peter’s Basilica and its beautiful Michelangelo-designed dome… walking into the St Peter square you can’t but enjoy the surrounding of semicircular colonnades with an obelisk standing in the centre of the square (as usual)…
 
Standing in a long but fast-moving queue, we finally reached the St. Peter’s Basilica, which is basically one of the largest churches in the world, and where you cannot enter unless properly dressed with no bare knees or shoulders…
 
Inside the church, besides enjoying the beauty of its inner sides, you get to see the Papal Swiss Guard everywhere around you, with their very famous traditional uniforms… Reaching the top of the Basilica, you get to enjoy a lovely view of the surroundings…
 
To reach the Vatican museums, you have to get back to the St. Peter square, move in another direction, stand in an even longer queue, till you finally enter the largest museum complex in the world… what can I say about a place that has over 1400 rooms with such astonishing amount of arts including great Renaissance works, 4 rooms of Raphael works, and the amazing Sistine Chapel…
 
Walking into the four “Stanze di Raffaello” or “Raphael’s rooms”, I couldn’t but remember Camel’s presentation and consequently search for Raphael’s face in every painting… until finally standing infront of his “School of Athens”, taking as many photos as I can to Ibn Rushd at its left side… then completing the tour till finally reaching the Sistine Chapel…
 
I can’t really describe what I felt entering it… I mean… it’s amazingly beautiful… Since you enter and till you leave it, your eyes do not see except beauty all around…
 
Painted in a period a bit more than 4 years, the very famous ceiling looks incredibly awesome from below… as if you’re lying into a painting book… with the central scenes depicting creation and the story of Noah… You get your eyes off the ceiling only to dig into the amazing colors of the Last Judgment decorating the altar wall, and you can’t but wonder what kind of a man was Michelangelo!
 
For my own bad luck and disappointments, photography was not allowed inside the Sistine Chapel, I was only able to take one photo before the guards said it’s not allowed…
 
We finally ended our tour; not wanting to leave actually… then stayed for a while in a lovely terrace with a view on one of the Vatican gardens… then finally leaves the beautiful small holy city… The Vatican… and carry on with the rest of our days in Rome…
 
So, I guess this was the last in this series… I hope I wasn’t very boring… :)
 
Rou…

10.25.09

Roma… the pleasant but not-so-gorgeous ancient city…

Posted in English, Places, Reflections at 6:08 pm by Rou...

When we were first planning to the trip, our plan was to have it including Rome, Florence, and Venice… France was not in the plan at all… but for some “unknown” reason at that time, we failed to get an interview date through the Italian Embassy, and ended up having an appointment with the French one… and when we finally got our Visa, we were warned that sometimes (rare times) it is not really preferred to enter Italy directly while your schengen is through another European country… not wanting to take any risk, this left us with only one option, which is to include Paris in the trip, and hence forsake one of the other 3 cities of Italy… and so it was, and we let go of the dream of going to the open museum that Florence presents (I still wish to go there someday)…
 
Well… I love Italy… or let me rephrase… I used to adore Italy… Now I only… like it…
 
I was so much looking forward to seeing one of the founding and most powerful cities of the western civilizations… Rome… the city that has a history of more than 2 thousand years… the center of the Roman Empire… I was anticipating a breath of glorious history in every street… a scent of the ancient, medieval, renaissance, and even baroque eras in the good old city…
 
However, what I have seen was not much impressing… I would say that I was a bit disappointed… not that it’s an ugly place… no it wasn’t tab3an… but… something was missing… it’s not as beautiful as it appears in photos… not as stunning as my expectations for her were… I know that there are 2 main factors for my feeling… one of which was the fact that I have reached Rome after I had already fallen in love with the splendor of Paris, and Paris has this ability of erasing whatever you see afterwards… and the other is the fact that Italians are so much like Egyptians… their attitude… their disorganization… their loud voice… their way of dealing with each other and with tourists… they are even similar to Egyptians in terms of disrespect to traffic signs, especially the ones for pedestrian crossing … Drivers take “ghoraz” and “beyeksaro 3ala ba3d” , while their taxi drivers do not use fare… We even saw tissues seller at a stop light road intersection while on our way to Fiumicino airport…
 
In addition, I noticed that Rome is full of Egyptians, but funny enough that the category of Egyptians who are living there makes you wonder if their stay there is legal, or they are simply amongst those who perform illegal immigration… something that made me realize why it was almost impossible to get a visa interview through the Italian Embassy… seems they have had enough of us…
 
Anyways, aside from people’s attitude in Rome (both Italians and Egyptians), I wasn’t much impressed by many of what I have seen, the only place that really really captured my heart was the holy Vatican (but this is another post)…
 
But, believe it or not, I wasn’t much impressed, for instance, by one of the largest amphitheatres ever built in the Roman Empire and one of the greatest symbols of Rome… I’m talking about the “Colosseum”… I don’t know why I felt it’s not taken care of… just like we do with our great monuments… Same goes for the very famous “Spanish steps” and the “Trinita dei Monti” that were extremely crowded and not that clean to an extent that prevents you from enjoying its supposed beauty… this feeling invaded me lots of times while watching other sites in Rome only with the exception of its ancient part and historic center, which I believe is a UNESCO world heritage site…
 
However I must say that there was a good side of the story too…
Walking around in some of Roma’s famous streets that are beautifully covered with amazing trees from both sideways, and strolling around in its beautiful squares that are often – if not always – decorated with obelisks such as “Piazza Navona”, “Piazza di Spagna”, “Piazza del Popolo”, and “Piazza Venezia” was one good exposure to the ancient city, that gives you the opportunity to foretaste some of its hidden beauty…
 
Staring long at the largest Baroque fountain in Rome; the magnificent Fontana di Trevi, and following its traditional legend of throwing a coin into the fountain with my right hand over my left shoulder as an assurance of a safe return to it was another good experience that helped in giving me the taste of Rome as it looks like in my dreams…
 
Spending some aimless time in the very famous “Villa Borghese”, which is one of the notable green spaces and Public Parks in Rome, was a good choice… The park is huge and greenery is everywhere, and the view from its top terrace to the square below it was quite amazing…
 
What I felt is that… Rome… is a pleasant city… but its people are not as beautiful as its glory… It so much reminded me of Cairo in terms of the fact that it can be a LOT better than how it looks like…
 
That was for Roma… As for the amazing Vatican… this is another story…
 
Rou…

10.24.09

Venizia, the City of Water!

Posted in English, Places, Reflections at 8:58 pm by Rou...

Spread over 118 small islands lies the beautiful floating city of Venice…
 
What a unique charm this city has… it’s in nowhere else but Venice that your taxi or shuttle bus is basically a boat… there’s nowhere else on earth that you get this feeling of relaxation and see nature in its basic form…
 
A boat ride in the canal grande that is connecting the islands is quite amazing; with all these buildings around you and with the view of “Bridge of Sighs”… till you finally have a full view of the beautiful “Madonna della Salute”…
 
Getting off the shuttle bus (boat) and walking our way into the amazing and open space of “Palazzo dei Dogi”, till you find yourself standing still infront of the charm of the “Basilica S. Marco”… Talking the stairs to its terrace, not only you are giving yourself the chance to take an amazing view on the surrounding square, but even feeling the glory while standing beneath the horses that were once a replica of the triumphal quandiga captured in Constantinople in 1204 and carried to Venice as a trophy…
 
A Gondola in the narrow (& smelly) canals is an experience in itself moving between the old beautiful and colorful buildings, with the gondola man telling numerous stories about the history of the city that once upon a time was an independent nation… stories about Marco Polo… and about… Casanova…
 
Peacefulness and Uniqueness are the keywords in Venice… The beautiful city amazingly gives you this inner peace feeling…
 
Even though for some reason Venice seemed more like a village to me than a city… a big village that even though I can’t possibly live (as of really live) there, but one can’t deny that out of all the places you can go, Bella Venizia remains the most unique one… It is a must see place at least once in a lifetime… a place that you probably won’t ever see again anywhere else…
 
We spent only one day in Venice… a day that couldn’t end in a much beautiful way than the amazing greenery scenes and sunrise from my window train heading from Venice to the ancient living city of Rome…
 
See you in Rome… next post… :)
 
Rou…

10.23.09

Europe Train Experiences!

Posted in English, Places, Reflections at 11:23 pm by Rou...

When we took the decision of making our trip including both France and Italy, I was so much excited about the idea of travelling across Europe via train; of the idea of seeing all this greenery and charming nature of Europe…
 
I have experienced 2 extremes train trips, both very interesting though…
 
Since we had a very tight schedule and couldn’t afford losing time in reserving tickets when we arrive, so we chose to reserve our train tickets from Paris to Venice and from Venice to Rome through a famous Travel Agency in Egypt that had branches worldwide… and to make things more convenient since we knew our 3 days in Paris were going to be extremely exhausting, so we chose to reserve a 3-beds cabinet for the 13 hours trip to Venice… while for the 5 hours trip to Rome, we reserved normal seats…
 
And so we arrived Paris having everything well planned and doing nothing in the 3 days except running from one place to another, and enjoying every single minute, only to arrive to the train station by the end of the third day almost dead from exhaustion, seeking nothing more than a long deep sleep…
 
But, how naïve our thinking was…
 
Because, sadly, we ended up spending one of the worst nights we could ever think of… as the cabinet we were seeking was like a small jail, with about 2 meters length, and less than 2 meters width… with 3 beds above each others filling almost 2 thirds of the room with a very small distance separating each, that makes it impossible for anyone to sit on the bed without having her head hit in the edge of the bed above… and what made things worse, is that the third bed was almost impossible to reach, and was so close to the roof of the cabinet with lights directly above it, making it similar to a grave, more than a bed…
 
So, we ended up, exchanging the other 2 usable beds and the floor, and then, later on, sharing the beds until in some way or another the night passed safely…
 
Even though this was one of the toughest nights ever, but deep inside I know that the memory of it will remain forever, and the laughters we shared that day will stay as an unforgettable mark of this trip to the 3 of us…
On the other hand, my second encounter with trains in this trip was, believe it or not, awesome… the ride from Venice to Rome was unbelievably beautiful, with very comfortable seats, and an amazing sunrise scene through the breathtaking greenery of the Italian countryside, making the 5 hours pass as if they were 5 minutes…
What I couldn’t really understand was the 180 degree difference between the 2 trains… and how can a seat be more comfortable than a cabinet with beds…
 
So, in all cases, I ended up with many lessons learned from this trip, one of which was, never to reserve a train ticket online, or through an agency… you can always have time to do it yourself when you reach your destination…
 
That was for the train experiences… As for Venice, Rome, and the Vatican… that’s in other posts… :)
 
Rou…

10.22.09

Parisian Reflections II

Posted in English, Places, Reflections at 2:51 pm by Rou...

I am simply overwhelmed with the amount of beauty I have seen in 3 days… Too much charm for my poor soul to take… my unfortunate soul that is accustomed to smoky sad Cairo…
 
I have heard a lot about Paris before I go, and I must confess that I wasn’t much impressed during my first day, mostly because of the airport experience and having almost half a day lost because of this…
 
But, let me tell you that a stroll on the calm flowing “River Seine”, a look at the breathtaking “Notre Dame de Paris”, a walk in the “Place de l’Étoile” reaching “L’Arc de Triomphe” then the “Avenue des Champs-Élysées”, a glimpse at the “Louvre” infinite amazing rooms, a walk through its amazing surroundings till the famous “Concorde”, a hike up to the charming “Basilique du Sacré-Coeur” and viewing the good old city from above, or down to the nightlife of “Pigalle” and the “Moulin Rouge” scene, a slow walk in the magical old streets of “Montmartre” with the talented French painters all around you, a view of the “Sainte-Chapelle” or the outstanding “Hôtel de Ville”, a glimpse at “Eiffel Tower” and the bridges across the Seine at night, a coffee break at a French café in an anonymous Parisian street, or a glimpse at the peaceful doves moving around you everywhere… can take your breath away in a second, in every way this word might mean…
 
There’s nothing like walking around aimlessly in the streets of Paris… Nothing like its cold breeze hitting your face, while listening to the famous sound of accordion coming from everywhere around you…
 
Even for fun… I mean… I can’t really remember when was the last time I felt I am happily enjoying being a kid as I did the moment I entered Paris Disneyland Resort… I felt I am a part of a magical world beyond the real one we live in… where everything is pinky and musical… where you can easily feel you’re Jasmine waiting for Aladdin’s magical carpet ride…
 
It’s as if Paris gives you the ability to keep your smile all the time… Puts you in an excessive happiness state of mind if I may call it so… :)
 
However, Paris’ amusing charisma was not only in its monuments and architecture… the charm of Paris is about the whole life style… its simple beauty… It’s as if you leave a part of you in Paris when you leave it… may be with a promise to return back someday…
 
Leaving it, the only thoughts on my mind were how much of charm it left me in…

I deserve to see beauty instead of ugliness…
I deserve to breathe fresh air instead of smoke…
I deserve to look around and see spaces, not necessarily greenery, but spaces instead of ugly buildings everywhere…
 
I deserve to live in Paris…
 
Rou…

10.21.09

Parisian Reflections I

Posted in English, Places, Reflections at 11:23 pm by Rou...

As a first-time visitor to Europe (Because I do not consider Turkey in “Europe”), I had many mixed feelings towards this new experience; impressiveness, amazement, joy, amusement, and even disappointments at times…
 
I know that many of my friends consider what I did completely nuts… But, I would rather consider it ignorance…

Why?
Because France and Italy are not 2 countries to be visited together in a period of one week for the first time… that is something I discovered only after experiencing it…
 
I have so many on my mind to say, and am not planning to sum things up here, because none of the 3 places, Paris, Venice, or Rome deserves to be treated lightly…
 
So, let me start just the way my short trip started… with the marvelous Paris…
 
Funny enough that my first encounter with the most beautiful city I have ever seen wasn’t as beautiful as the city itself at all… As a matter of fact it was a day full of disasters starting with the electricity cut all across CDG airport, and having to stay inside the plane after it landed for an hour, and having to wait for the luggage arrival for another hour in the airport afterwards… followed by another issue with our taxi driver from the airport to the hotel, and ending later on the same day with a bad experience in the metro…
 
But the fact remains that all these disappointments easily fed away the moment my eyes truly witnessed its charm…
 
Paris, what can I say about you…?
 
For me, Paris presented the ultimate perfection, where everything is too good to be true… where simplicity and beauty are the keywords…
 
One of the most interesting things that I learned during this trip is never to trust people’s opinions about a place or its people without experiencing it yourself… See, I cannot really recall how many times had I been warned about how rude and unfriendly French people are in dealing with tourists, especially with Muslim ones, and particularly veiled ones… and to those particular people I say… it’s either I’m the luckiest one on earth, or you’ve never been to Paris!
 
I mean… What I saw from Parisians was like nothing I have ever seen…
If this is being unfriendly, then I truly pray we all turn as such… If this is rudeness then I am happy I have been treated this way…
 
I stayed in Paris less than 3 days… and I cannot really recall how many times I have been generously given assistance without even asking for it… I cannot recall how many times we have been asked by normal people passing by us in the streets if we needed help just because they saw us opening the map…
 
Do you need examples?
 
An old man walked us to the Louvre, without even asking him, and when I say “walked us there” I mean it… he walked us till its entrance gate (the internal one that is right infront of the glass pyramid), and when we thanked him, he just asked for a postcard from Egypt when we return… Another man walked us from the metro station were we kinda got lost to a place very close to where our hotel is because we didn’t know the way to reach it…
 
Enough? No?
Ok… take this then… A taxi driver gave us a lift to our hotel and refused to take the fare money… Is that normal…? This is something that doesn’t happen in Egypt!
 
There are only examples of what we saw from French people…
Unfriendly?!
 
These people are as beautiful as their city… they simply changed the way I look to French people… they made me fall in love with their city even more…
 
So, here I am taking this pledge… I will offer my sincere assistance to any foreigner I see in the street… without even waiting for him to ask… just the way I have been treated in Paris… who knows… may be this might override any bad experience they have or will encounter here…
 
Paris… the most beautiful city… Another post to follow…
 
Rou… (Live from Cairo!)

11.26.08

Thoughts about “The city of the Thousand Minarets”…

Posted in English, Places, Reflections at 3:25 am by Rou...

From “Al Fustat” to “Al Askar”, all the way to “Al Qatta’i”… One capital after another for a great nation… until a marvelous city was eventually built… “Al Qahira”… which literally means “the Victorious”… and so it had always been; a subduer to all its enemies…

 

Cairo, that old city that was founded by the Fatimids, ruled by the Mamluks, followed by the Ottomans… the city of the thousand minarets… Those remnants of a once exceptional past still have their charm…

 cairo-3

From “Wekalat” to “Asbella and Katateeb”, from “Baths” to “Mosques” and “Schools”…

No matter which you go through, it’s always this scent of a glorious past that surrounds you; a scent that can’t but take your breath away, and leaves you wondering; how come we have reached this stage…?

 

When you walk through its alleys, and you get to see some of the few remaining crafts that – among others – Old Islamic Cairo was famous with, yet the same question pops into your mind… how come we have reached this stage…?

 

When you have a look at its domes and its minarets that seems to be rising above the crowded streets of the now chaotic, yet scenic medieval parts of old Cairo, you can’t but wander, contemplate, then give a big sigh…

 cairo2

 

Rou…

 

* Photos by Rou…

10.10.08

From Malaysia to Emirates… Ya 2alby la te7zan…

Posted in English, Places, Reflections at 5:13 am by Rou...

I am having a very long vacation… took off to Kuala Lumpur; Malaysia on the first day of Eid, spent 6 days there, then headed to Dubai and Sharja; Emirates… I’m still there actually and hopefully will be back by October the 17th…

 

Well… I just wanted to write down my impressions regarding the two places… So, here we go…

 

For me, Kuala Lumpur, or “KL” as commonly known, brought together Malaysia’s past and present… Its many constituent cultures, remarkable natural treasures resembles a past that meets KL’s present through its lively streets, and its shining, modern office towers… allowing its visitors to see Malaysia as a whole, symbolizing not only its great heritage, but also its crystal-clear leap into the future…

 

In the Orchid Garden, the Deer Park, the Bird Park, the Butterfly Park, and many other parks of the “Lake Gardens”, one experience a supreme beauty and variety of Malaysia’s plants and animals, while in the energetic “Central Market”, crafts, and cultural practices from all around Malaysia and its neighborhoods can be explored and experienced…

 

One amazing place is the “Batu Caves” with the incredible 42.7 meters high statue standing at its entrance. The site actually consists of many caves; the biggest of them is well worth the climb of the 272 steps… The caves are all full of amazing statues and paintings, with a numerous monkeys everywhere around you… While, on the other hand, the view of the blue dome (which is one of the largest in the whole world) of Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Mosque, better known as the “Blue Mosque”, was stunning…

 

Then again, with a height of 451.9 meters, “Petronas Twin Towers”, which was once the world’s tallest building, rise above the skyline of Kuala Lumpur, and indubitably symbolize the amazing growth that has taken place in Malaysia over the last two decades… The best view for the Twin Towers is from the “KLCC Park”… In addition, the night view of the whole city in general and the Twin Towers in particular from the revolving restaurant of “KL Tower” was just… superb…

 

With the sky above you and a tropical rainforest below, taking the ride of the Skyway all the way up to reach the magnificent hilltop city of “Genting Highland” was a one good experience… I have tried the skyway before in Bursa of Turkey but, I don’t know, for some reason this one felt much more fun…

 

There were actually much more places to visit and things to do, but unfortunately I didn’t have enough time… was planning to make it to the nearest island which is called “Langkawi”, but couldn’t due to some time constraints… however, I enjoyed it big time, and I must say that Malaysia’s typical tropical climate of a hot, humid, and heavy raining weather, made the whole experience even better…

 

So, anyway, I reached Dubai on October 7th…

 

And… to tell you the truth… I didn’t like it at all… It’s my first time here, and am not sure actually if this is because I just arrived from the beautiful nature of Malaysia, or is it because this city is seriously without a soul…

 

So far in Dubai, I had a quick tour around it, a view of its most famous buildings; Burj Dubai, Borg ElArab, and many other Skyscrapers… I also went to Ibn Batouta… which was somehow nice; resembling all the places that the great explorer visited during his journeys… In Sharja, I had a beautiful walk on its Corniche for a while, which was very nice actually with the beautiful palms all around you…

 

I know that many Dubai fans will disagree with me, but seriously I cannot feel anything towards it… so far… (and I doubt I ever will)

 

Anyway, I still have a week left here, ama neshoof…

 

 

Have a lovely day,

Rou…

 

 

Note:

One of the most stunning scenes I came across in Malaysia was 2 “عمال نظافة” seriously cleaning up the garbage baskets with water and SOAP in a public garden early in the morning…………… and I couldn’t but remember the sad scene of the very same baskets in Egypt’s streets… full of unbearable and smelly garbage…

 

* Photos by Rou…

01.19.08

Mosque of Sultan Al-Muayyad

Posted in English, Places, Reflections at 9:24 pm by Rou...


Mosque of Sultan Al-Muayyad Sheikh* lies immediately to the west of Bab Zoueila; inside Fatimid Cairo.

 

The mosque was built on the site of an old jail, where Al-Muayyad had been imprisoned when he was still a Mamluk soldier. During his incarceration, he vowed to replace the prison with a mosque if he ever came to power, which he verily did on 1415 after becoming a Sultan.

 

However, he lavishly spent lots of money on its construction by means of tax money, and took parts from other mosques to include into his. One of the famous things he placed into his mosque was the superb bronze-plated wooden entrance door, which originally belonged to the Sultan Hassan mosque. This grounded hatred of people to this mosque to the extent of calling it: “جامع الخطيئة” or “Sin Mosque”

 

The Complex of Sultan Al-Muayyad Sheikh, in the vein of most of the Mamluk’s architecture, is far beyond merely a place of worship and praying. It includes a mosque, Sultan’s mausoleum, in addition to a school that was one of the outstanding academic institutions of the fifteenth century where more than 200 students had been taught by great scientists such as “Imam Ibn Hajar Al-Asqalani” of Palestine.

 

The burial chamber that has Al-Muayyad’s mausoleum and marble tomb includes also the tomb of his son, Ibrahim.

 

The mosque originally had 3 minarets; one collapsed after a short period of its construction, while the other two were built by the architect Muhammad ibn al-Qazzaz using the towers of Bab Zoueila as both buttresses and bases from which the two identical minarets rise to be seen from both the inside and the outside of Fatimid Cairo.

 

The view from the roof of the mosque is well worth the climb because it offers a superb perspective on the extent of the medieval city to the north and the south. From the other side of the roof, immediately next to the mosque, a large building which looks like a small palace can be seen; this, in fact, is the bath-house (Hammam) of Al-Muayyad, which has fallen into disrepair.   

 

There are some elements that beautifully identify the interior of the mosque such as:

- Painted wooden panels known as “Damascus ceilings”

- Wooden pulpit (Minbar) decorated with geometric designs called “star patterns”, in the center of which is a six-pointed star (Ters), around this is an engraved composition with designs resembling arrowheads (kinda) surrounded by four-sided polygons (Loza).

- The bench (Dikka) of the Mouballegh; a wide bench of marble used for communicating the words of the Imam during the prayer.

- The Riwaq style (Columns arranged into rows).

- The colored marbles on the Qibla wall along with the blue Ottoman qashani tiles on the far right of the Qibla wall that were added during restoration work by Ibrahim Pasha, the son of Muhammad Ali.

- ”Muqarnas” designs in top of the burial chamber to cover the octagon resulting from breaking the square level to reach the circular design of the dome.

 

 

* Al-Mu’ayyad Shaykh, was the forth Sultan of Circassian (Burgi) Mamluks in Egypt after Sultan Barquq, Sultan Faraj ibn Barquq, and Sultan Abdul-Aziz.

 

* Photos by Camel.