At first, I thought I would see Humphrey Bogart walking out of one of the Hollywood-esque coffee shops, seedy souvenir traps, or sheesha bars. Boys toting wears and weathered old women peddling charms, trinkets and scarves ask for bakshiish. This looked like Casablanca. Before I had time to be disappointed, Coptic Cairo lived up to its Arabic name, Masr al-Qadima, or “Old Egypt”.
Here, all the branches of Cairo’s long and varied history visibly intermingle, with foundations constructed on top of foundations and religious buildings enjoy equal historical value, even though the adherents of such faiths battle out their differences daily. An amazing amount of history spanning not centuries but millenniums awaits pilgrims and tourists alike.
One thing that I had never heard in all my years of Sunday school and regular church attendance was the story of Mary, Joseph and Jesus high-tailing it out of Judea and their subsequent vacation in Egypt after the whole Herod debacle. Somewhere between making paper Advent wreaths and memorizing the Nicene Creed it got put on the back-burner. Who knew that’s what the Feast of the Holy Family was all about? Not I. Maybe I’m just revealing my ignorance, so we’ll move on.
Anyway, back home we have places whose claim to fame is that George Washington slept there. Well, Egypt’s one of those countries who can put little plaques on their landmarks that say JESUS slept here. In Old Cairo, a there is a small church named after St. Sergius. Built in the 4th century A.D., it’s Cairo’s oldest church, and marks the place where the Holy Family rested at the end of their flight from Judea (this is very briefly mentioned in the Book of Matthew, and more extensively cited in Apocrypha. I checked). Unfortunately, the 1992 earthquake (the only earthquake in Egypt since 1552) damaged much of the infrastructure and much of the building had to be re-constructed. But squeezing into a four-foot-tall enclave, I saw the original well where the Holy Family is thought to have drank, and even my skeptical self was made to pause in wonder.
This Church is located in the middle of a Greek Orthodox graveyard (after all, how sacredly awesome is it to be buried next to where Jesus slept!?). Also nearby is the Church of St. George. Built in the Byzantine style indicative of Greek Orthodox architecture, this was built in 684 and is still used for weddings. The iconography and ceiling detail was absolutely breath-taking. Every culture seems to adopt St. George as their own. Most of us in the West identify him as the patron saint of England, but he appears in national Christian myth in Spain, France, Germany, Turkey, and the Coptic Church maintains that he was Egyptian. In actuality, St. George is buried in Israel in a marked tomb that people can frequent today.
The last church I visited was the Coptic marvel Al-Muallaqa, or The Hanging Church, owing its appellation to its construction in the 7th century over a former Roman Fortress and a former 4th century church. They cut away a section of the floor so that you can still see the Roman foundations. Coptic symbolism in the architecture is quite fascinating. One unique characteristic found in most Coptic churches are the 12 pillars that surround the periphery of the sanctuary. All are white marble except for one black, representing Judas and his betrayal. Additionally, the pulpit is supported by 10 pillars to symbolize the 10 commandments. The Coptic Christians in Cairo today are a visible minority, and a maltreated one at that. They receive abuse in taxis in the form of verbal insults, higher rates, or refusal of services. A large group of Copts remains outside the city in Garbage City, where they pick through trash to find the most re-usable refuse. Essentially, the Copts were pocket of resistance when Egypt converted to Islam in 642, and haven’t been forgiven for it ever since.
Apparently Jesus wasn’t the only religious celebrity to lay claim to Old Cairo. Behind the Synagogue Ben Ezra, Egypt’s oldest synagogue (built 98 A.D.), is a well that Moses is supposed to have used. Not likely, in my historical opinion, but the synagogue itself was well worth the trip. There are about 200 Jewish families left in all of Egypt (200 that will report themselves to census-takers, anyway). Of the 22 mosques in Cairo, only one remains open, the Sha’ar Hashamayim synagogue downtown.
The final stop was the Amr Ibn al-As Mosque, the oldest mosque in all of Egypt and the African continent. Frankly, this was a big deal, because I had never been in a mosque before. Even after my copious study of Islamic culture, religion, and Arabic, I felt thoroughly unprepared to enter. This was a place that was erected in the year Islam came to Egypt (642 AD) by Egypt’s conqueror, Amr Ibn al-As and marks the edge of Fustat, the temporary city he founded. This was not only a center for prayer, but Islamic learning and jurisprudence. The ornate splendor of the churches and synagogue I saw earlier could not compare to the simple geometric beauty of the mosque. If one were really intent on contemplating their God and nothing but the divine, I can see why people go here.
It felt stupid to take pictures, and I took umbrage at the people who trundled across the marble courtyard yelling to friends and snapping photos with each other. I checked my expectations, assumption, and knowledge at the door with my shoes, and covered my head as required. I felt out of place, but not unwelcome. Listening to the tour guide, I detected a few inaccuracies when he, a Sunni Muslim, spoke about the differences between Shi’a and Sunni sects. When one girl spoke up argumentatively and tried to correct him, I became angrier than I have been in a long time.
Ignorance is not an acceptable excuse for making bad decisions or harboring prejudices, and I cannot condone the proliferation of inaccurate information. But this man was trying his best to educate a group of students who, ostensibly, came to learn about Cairo’s culture. Egypt has taken Sunni Islam and run with it. It’s the dominant religion, and a lot of people are astonishingly informed about their faith, a phenomenon I find to be untrue in the United States. But in that time and place, when this guy who knew less about Shiism than he probably should have was trying to promote peaceful understanding between religions, a mosque was not the proper place to break that peace in lieu of academic squabbling. However, I did get a little miffed when the dude said non-religious people are inherently bad people.
One last interesting note is about cultural proliferation. One of the best greetings I’ve received in my brief time here is “Aloha Yankee Doodle!” from a peddler outside St. George. Honestly! If you asked some Americans what Yankee Doodle was, they’d probably give you blank stare, or if you’re in New York, a “F*** You!” before they moved on with their day. How did this Egyptian woman learn about that piece of American culture? And Aloha? I can’t believe I heard that in Egypt either. Regardless, this brief trip was illuminating, profound, and exasperating on many levels, and I definitely left understanding much less about Cairo than when I came.
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