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Title: The story of Cairo
Author: Stanley Lane-Poole
Release date: June 22, 2026 [eBook #78916]
Language: English
Original publication: London: J. M. Dent & co, 1902
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78916
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF CAIRO ***
_The Story of Cairo_
_First Edition, April_ 1902
_Second Edition, April_ 1906
_All rights reserved_
[Illustration: CAIRO FROM THE SOUTH-WEST: THE LAKE OF THE ELEPHANT
(BIRKAT-EL-FIL)]
_The Story of_ Cairo
_by Stanley Lane-Poole
Litt.D. M.A. Professor of Arabic
at Trinity College Dublin_
[Decoration]
_London: J. M. Dent & Co.
Aldine House_ 29 _and_ 30 _Bedford Street
Covent Garden W.C._ * * 1906
HE WHO HATH NOT SEEN CAIRO HATH NOT SEEN THE WORLD.
HER SOIL IS GOLD;
HER NILE IS A MARVEL;
HER WOMEN ARE AS THE BRIGHT-EYED HOURIS OF PARADISE;
HER HOUSES ARE PALACES, AND HER AIR IS SOFT, WITH AN ODOUR ABOVE
ALOES, REFRESHING THE HEART;
AND HOW SHOULD CAIRO BE OTHERWISE, WHEN SHE IS THE MOTHER OF THE
WORLD?
PREFACE
CAIRO is in the fullest sense a mediæval city. It had no existence
before the Middle Ages; its vigorous life as a separate Metropolis
almost coincides with the arbitrary millennium of the middle period of
history; and it still retains to this day much of its mediæval character
and aspect. The aspect is changing, but not the life. The amazing
improvements of the past twenty years have altered the Egyptian’s
material condition, but scarcely as yet touched his character. We have
given him public order and security, solvency without too heavy
taxation, an efficient administration, even-handed justice, the means of
higher education, and above all to every man his fair share of the
enriching Nile, χρυσορρόης in the truest sense, without which nothing
else avails. For all these, and especially the last, the peasant is
grateful in his way, when their merits are pointed out to him; but not
so the Cairene. The immediate blessings of the irrigation engineer are
not so prominently brought to bear upon his pressing wants, and for the
other reforms of the Firengy he cares very little. I should be sorry to
draw any discourteous comparisons with “the Ethiop,” but whatever time
and association with Europeans may do for the comely, and to my taste
none too swarthy, skin of my Cairo friend, I am convinced that he will
keep his old unregenerate mediæval heart in spite of us all.
Happily for purposes of study (I am not treating of ethics), the East
changes very slowly, and the soul of the Eastern not at all. The Cairo
jeweller, who will chaffer with you for an hour over a few piastres,
though he mixes reluctantly, shrinkingly, in the crazy, bustling
twentieth century life of Europe that rushes past him, is not of it. In
his heart of hearts he looks back longingly to the glorious old days of
the Mamlúks, to which he essentially belongs, and regrets the
excitements of those stirring times. What good, he asks, comes of all
this “worry”? Justice? More often a man had need of a little injustice,
and a respectable tradesman could usually buy that from the Kady before
these new tribunals were set up. As to fixed taxes and no extortion,
that is chiefly a matter for the stupid fellahín; and after all the old
system worked beautifully when you shirked payment, and your neighbour
was bastinadoed for your share. Then all this fiddling with water and
drains and streets; what is it all for? When Willcocks or Price Bey have
put pipes and patent traps and other godless improvements into the
mosques, will one’s prayers be any better than they were in the pleasant
pervasive odour of the old fetid tanks? The streets are broader, no
doubt, to let the Firengis, Allah blacken their faces! roll by in their
two-horsed ‘arabíyas and splash the Faithful with mud; but for this
wonderful boon they have taken away the comfortable stone benches from
before the shops, and the Cairo tradesman misses his old seat, where
unlimited _keyf_ and the meditative shibúk once whiled away the leisure
of his never pressing avocations. No; pure water and drains, and
bicycles and tramcars, and a whole array of wretched little black-coated
efendis pretending to imitate the Káfirs may be all very well in their
place, but they are ugly, uninteresting things, and life at Cairo has
been desperately dull since they came in.
In one of the suggestive essays in his delightful book on “Asia and
Europe,” Mr Meredith Townsend has shown how _interesting_ life must have
been in India before England introduced order and all the virtues. The
picture might have been drawn in Cairo with trifling alterations. Life
undoubtedly was interesting in the old unregenerate days. There were
events then; something to see and think of, and possibly fly from;
plenty of blood and assassination, perhaps, but then you could always
shut and bar the strong gates of the quarter, when the Mamlúks or the
Berbers, or, worst of all, the black Sudánis, were on the war-path. Now
the gates are taken away, and there are no cavalcades of romantic
troopers, beautiful to behold in their array, to ravish your household
and give colour to life. In those days it was possible for any man of
brain and luck to rise to power and wealth, such wealth as all Cairo
could not furnish in these blank and honest times; promotion was ever at
hand, and the way was open to the strong, the cunning, and the rich.
What were a holocaust of victims, an orgy of rapine, even the deadly
ravages of periodical plague and famine, in comparison with the great
occasions, the gorgeous pomp, the endless opportunities, the infinite
variety of those unruly and tumultuous but never tedious days?
This is what the true Cairene meditates in his heart. His ideas, for
good or ill, are not as our ideas; they date back from the Middle Ages,
like his dress, his religion, his social habits, his turns of speech,
his calm insouciance, his impenetrable reserve, his inveterate negation
of “worry.” Outside the official class he is still the same man whom we
saw keeping shop or taking his venture to sea in the faithful mirror of
the Arabian Nights. Even his city preserves its mediæval tone. Much has
been destroyed by time or innovation, but the European fringe is still a
fringe, and the old Muslim city for the present defies western
influences. It has been rebuilt time after time, and every fresh
rebuilding will take away more of its charm; but enough remains to show
us what Cairo was five hundred years ago. The crowded streets of the old
quarters, the immemorial character of the houses and markets, above all
the historical monuments, carry us back to the Middle Ages.
The aim of these pages is to clothe the vestiges of the mediæval city
with the associations that lend them their deepest interest. Many of the
buildings of Cairo, especially the later mosques of the Mamlúk period,
are exquisitely beautiful, and may be admired as works of art without
regard to their history. But there are many more, ruined courts,
crumbling arcades, mere fragments of walls or inscriptions, which appeal
rather to the archæological than the æsthetic sense, and must be almost
meaningless until their story is revealed. In tracing the growth of
Cairo I have tried to surround the remains of its buildings with the
atmosphere of their historic associations. Mere topography has charms
for the antiquary alone; it is only when the material growth of a city
is interwoven with the life of its people and the character of its
rulers that topography acquires an interest for all. At the same time I
have sought to keep closely to the subject—the growth and life of the
city. This is no general history of Egypt, and many things are passed by
because they bear no intimate relation to the development of its
capital.
The authorities upon which I rely are sufficiently cited in the
footnotes. The greatest Arabic source is of course the elaborate
_Khitat_ of el-Makrízy, frequently referred to as “the Topographer,” who
wrote in the early years of the fifteenth century, but used various
topographical and historical works of much earlier date, many of which
are not otherwise accessible. The remarkable accuracy, completeness, and
research of his detailed description of Cairo need no praise of mine:
they are universally recognised. Other writers, such as el-Mas‘údy,
Násir-i-Khusrau, ‘Abd-el-Latíf, Ibn-Gubeyr (the extracts from whom I owe
to the kindness of my friend, Mr Guy le Strange, the historian of
Baghdád, and our most learned authority on the geography of the
caliphate), Ibn-Sa‘íd, Ibn-Dukmak, es-Suyúty, Abu-l-Mahásin, el-Isháky,
el-Gabárty, fill up the picture, and add valuable, personal, and
contemporary touches. Lane’s “Cairo Fifty Years Ago” has the merit of
presenting an account of the city as it was in 1835, before the
Europeanizing movement begun by Mohammad ‘Aly, and carried to the
extreme by Isma‘íl, had had time to work much change in the
characteristic aspect of the town. In archæology I am especially
beholden to the researches of MM. Max van Berchem, Ravaisse, and
Casanova. One exception I must note to the generally full references to
my sources. There is something repugnant, if not to modesty at least to
the sense of propriety, in frequently citing one’s own books. Writing
constantly on the subject of Cairo, its art, its monuments, and its
history, for many years past, it was inevitable that I should sometimes
repeat what I have said before: indeed, when we have written what we
have to say in the best shape that we are able to devise, it seems mere
affectation to try to seek a different form of expression. I have
therefore quoted, but sparingly, from my “Art of the Saracens in Egypt”
(published for the Committee of Council in 1886), my “Cairo Sketches”
(3rd ed., Virtue, 1898), my “History of Egypt in the Middle Ages”
(Methuen, 1901), and any extracts to which no footnote is appended must
be understood to refer to one of these books, generally the “History.” I
trust I may be permitted to say that for a more complete account of the
history than would be possible or desirable in the present volume the
student should consult the last of the three books above cited. Were
there any other work in English of similar scope I would gladly
substitute its title. For a much more detailed narrative of the history
of the Copts than could be here included the reader may turn to Mrs
Butcher’s “Story of the Church of Egypt” (2 vols., Smith, Elder & Co.,
1897), a work full of sympathy and appreciation for a neglected and
persecuted community, though open to criticism in its Mohammedan
relations.
I have not troubled the reader with an elaborate system of
transliteration of Arabic names. An acute accent is used merely to show
where the principal accent falls, not necessarily to indicate a long
vowel. The vowels are to be pronounced as in Italian, and the letter _g_
is employed to represent the Arabic consonant that in Cairo is
pronounced hard (as in _get_), but elsewhere usually soft (as _j_ in
_jet_). Those who are curious to know the exact transliteration should
turn to the index, where every Arabic word is given in roman letters
with diacritical points and distinction of the long vowels.
The illustrations have been chosen with a view to showing the mediæval
city as far as possible before it suffered its European change. Nothing
could be better for this purpose than the drawings made between 1826 and
1838 by Robert Hay of Linplum and by his companion Owen B. Carter (about
1830), the originals of which are preserved in the Print Room of the
British Museum, and some were lithographed in Hay’s “Illustrations of
Cairo.” These represent the mediæval remains as no modern sketches could
depict them, but Mr J. A. Symington has skilfully supplemented them,
when no older drawings could be obtained.
In conclusion I should wish to draw attention to what I have said in the
last chapter on the subject of the Commission for the Preservation of
the Monuments of Arab Art. To its vigilance and unremitting labours
during the past twenty years we owe the fact that the mosques and other
remains of Saracenic architecture are secure from demolition, and, as
far as the conditions admit, guarded from decay. Never in the history of
Cairo have its monuments been in such safe keeping, and everyone must be
grateful to each member of this invaluable committee. In the last five
years, since Lord Cromer used his influence to improve its financial
position, the Commission has been enabled to undertake very
comprehensive works of scientific restoration, and all who visit Cairo
should make a point of examining the results of its labours and
inspecting the collections gathered under the care of its chief
architect, Herz Bey, in the Museum of Arab Art.
STANLEY LANE-POOLE.
TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN,
_January 31st_, 1902.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
_The Two Cities_ 1-31
The European and the Egyptian Cairo, 1—Oriental Scenes,
2—The Conservative Tradesman, 6—His Shop, 7, and Home,
9—The Zuweyla Gate, 10—A Private House, 11—The Mandara,
14—Bedrooms, 17—Daily Life, 18—Women’s Life, 19—Cairo
Festivities, 22—The Hasaneyn, 23—The Mohammad ‘Aly
Street, 27—View from the Citadel, 28.
CHAPTER II
_The Town of the Tent_ 32-58
Successive Cities at Cairo, 32—Arab Conquest, 34—Treaty
of Amnesty, 35—The Ancient Misr, 36—Babylon and the
Mukawkis, 37—The Copts, 38—Foundation of Fustat, “the
Tent,” 40—Settlements of the Arab Tribes, 42—The Mosque
of ‘Amr, 42—The Fortress of Babylon, 48—The Coptic
Churches, 53.
CHAPTER III
_The Faubourgs_ 59-90
The Caliphs’ Governors, 59—Helwan, 61—Treatment of
Christians, 61—Monasticism, 62—Conservatism of the
Copts, 64—The ‘Abbasid Faubourg el-‘Askar, 65—‘Abbasid
Governors, Ibn-Memdud, 66—‘Abdallah ibn Tahir, 67—The
Caliph Mamun in Egypt, 68—Persecutions of Muslims and
Copts, 69—The Turkish Governors, 70—Their encouragement
of Art, 71—Ahmad ibn Tulun, 72—The new Faubourg el-
Katai‘, 75—The Aqueduct, 77—Mosque of Ibn-Tulun,
78—Sources of Saracen Architecture, 85—Ibn-Tulun’s
Wars, 86—Khumaraweyh’s Palaces, 87—Egypt recovered by
the Caliphs, 89—The Castle of the Ram, 90.
CHAPTER IV
_Misr_ 91-112
Misr-Fustat the Commercial Capital, 91—The Madara’y
Ministers, 92—The Ikhshid, 93—Mas‘udy in Egypt, 95—The
Island of Roda, 96—Divines at Misr, 97—Poets,
98—Kafur’s Court, 100—Mohammedan Revels, 102—Kafur’s
Government, 103—Misr in the 10th and 11th Centuries,
104—Nasir-i-Khusrau’s Description, 107—The Burning of
Misr, 110—Partial Recovery, Ibn-Sa‘id’s Description,
111.
CHAPTER V
_Cairo_ 113-163
The Shi‘a Revolution, 113—The Fatimid Caliphate,
116—el-Mo‘izz, 116—Conquest of Egypt, 117—Foundation of
el-Kahira, Cairo, 118—Effects of the Revolution,
119—The Copts under the Fatimids, 120—el-‘Aziz, 121—The
Azhar University Mosque, 123—The Palace-city, 125—The
Great Palace, 127—The Gates of Cairo, 129—Bab-Zuweyla,
129—William of Tyre’s description of the Fatimid Court,
130—The Port of Maks and the Fleet, 132—Wealth and Art
and Luxury of the Fatimids, 133—Mosque of el-Hakim,
137—The Caliph Hakim, 139—The Hall of Science,
142—Apotheosis of Hakim, 142—Military Tyranny and Loss
of Provinces, 144—Cairo in 1047—Cutting the Dam,
145—el-Yazury, 146—Spoliation by the Turks, 147—The
Seven Years’ Famine, 148—Bedr el-Gemaly, 149—The Second
Wall and Gates of Cairo, 150—Armenian Ministers,
154—The Rule of Vezirs, 157—Murders and Military
Despotism, 158—Ibn-Ruzzik, 159—Fatimid Architecture,
159.
CHAPTER VI
_Saladin’s Castle_ 164-192
Causes of the Invasion of Egypt, 164—Turks and
Crusaders, 167—Shawar and Dirgham, 168—Amalric and
Shirkuh in Egypt, 169—Saladin Vezir, deposition of the
Fatimid Caliph, 170—Saladin’s Campaigns, 172—His Work
at Cairo, 173—The New Walls, 174—The Citadel, 175—The
Dike of Giza, 180—Risings at Cairo, 181—The Head of
Hoseyn, 182—Saladin establishes Medresas or Orthodox
Colleges, 183—Ibn-Gubeyr’s Account, 184—The Hospitals,
186—Characteristics of Mosques and Medresas,
187—Results of the Restoration of Orthodoxy and
encouragement of Learning, 190.
CHAPTER VII
_The Dome Builders_ 193-254
Saphadin el-‘Adil, 193—Great Famine, 194—Invasion of
Crusaders, 195—Frederick II and Kamil, 196—The Mamluk
System, 197—Queen Sheger-ed-durr and the Bahry Mamluks,
198—Crusade of Louis IX, 201—(i) The Turkish Mamluks,
202—Their Wars against Mongols, 203, and Franks,
205—Revival of ‘Abbasid Caliphate, 206—Beybars, 206—The
Mamluk Court, 209—Turbulence of Emirs, 210—The House of
Kalaun, 211—En-Nasir, 212—Toleration of Christians,
216—Popular Fanaticism, 217—Incendiaries, 218—Nasir and
Abu-l-Fida, 220—Artistic Production, 220—Mosques,
223—Emirs’ Mosques, 224—Early Mamluk Style of
Architecture, 227—Sultan Hasan, 228—His Great Mosque,
231—(ii) The Circassian Mamluks, 235—Corruption,
236—Wars, 237—Cultivated Tastes, 238—Architecture,
238—Kait-Bey, 241—His Buildings, 245—Mosque _intra
muros_, 246—Wekala, 249—Mosques of Emirs and of Kady
Ibn-Muzhir, 250—The Modified Medresa, 250—Buildings of
el-Ghury, 253—Ottoman Conquest, 254.
CHAPTER VIII
_The City of the Arabian Nights_ 257-286
Expansion of Cairo, 257—Rise of Bulak, 258—Suburban
Mosques, 259—The Approach from Bulak, 260—The Thousand
and One Nights redacted in Cairo, 261—The Transit Trade
of Egypt, 263—Merchants’ Inns, 265—The Khan el-Khalily,
266—The Khan of Mesrur, 269—The Wekala Kusun and the
Flower Market, 270—Streets and Quarters, 271—The Art of
Silver Inlay, 272—Cairo Metal Work, 277—Venice,
279—Wood-carving, 281—Meshrebiya turning,
284—Characteristics of Saracenic Art, 285—Men of
Letters in the Mamluk Period, 286.
CHAPTER IX
_Beys and Pashas_ 287-314
Mamluk Emirs (Beys) still in power, 287—Pasha helpless,
288—Street Fights, 289—‘Othman Bey, 289—Rudwan el-
Gelfy, 290—The Sharaiby family, 292—Libraries,
295—State of Learning, 296—Fanaticism and Superstition,
297—Mosques of the Ottoman Period, 298—‘Aly Bey,
298—‘Abd-er-Rahman Kiahya, 298—Mohammad Bey Abu-dh-
Dhahab, 301—Mohammad ‘Aly, 302—Confiscation of Wakf
Trusts, 302—The Commission for the Preservation of the
Monuments of Arab Art, 303—Report to Lord Cromer,
303—Preservation, 305—Restoration, 309—Lord Cromer’s
Action, 313—Grants from the Public Debt Commissioners
and the Egyptian Government, 313.
_Rulers and Monuments of Cairo_ 317-322
_Table for converting Hijra Years into Anni Domini_ 323-327
_Index_ 329-340
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
_Lake of the Elephant: Birkat-el-Fil._
_O. B. Carter_ (c. 1830) _Frontispiece_
_Court of a Private House._
_J. A. Symington_ (1902) 15
_The Citadel._
_J. A. Symington_ 29
_Court of the Mosque of ‘Amr._
_J. A. Symington_ 45
_Gate of Kasr-esh-Shema‘ (Babylon)._
_O. B. Carter_ 51
_Tower of the Mosque of Ibn-Tulun._
_O. B. Carter_ 73
_Within the Mosque of Ibn-Tulun._
_J. A. Symington_ 81
_Detail of Ornament in Mosque of Ibn-Tulun._
_J. A. Symington_ 84
_Street in Old Misr._
_J. A. Symington_ 105
_Ruined Mosque of el-Hakim._
_J. A. Symington_ 135
_Gate of Succour: Bab-en-Nasr._
_O. B. Carter_ 151
_Minarets over Gate of Zuweyla._
_O. B. Carter_ 155
_Mosque of el-Guyushy._
_O. B. Carter_ 161
_Plan of Cairo before_ 1200.
_After Ravaisse, etc._ 165
_Castle of the Ram: Kal‘at-el-Kebsh._
_O. B. Carter_ 177
_Plan of Medresa._
_After Murray_ 190
_Island of er-Roda._
_Robert Hay_ (c. 1830) 199
_“Joseph’s Hall”: Palace of en-Nasir in Citadel, with
his Mosque in background._
_Robert Hay_ 213
_Aqueduct and House of the Seven Watermills._
_Robert Hay_ 221
_Mosque of Sultan Hasan._
_O. B. Carter_ 225
_Gateway of Sultan Hasan’s Mosque._
_O. B. Carter_ 229
_Tomb-Mosque of Barkuk and Farag._
_J. A. Symington_ 233
_Eastern Cemetery: so-called “Tombs of the Caliphs.”_
_J. A. Symington_ 239
_Mosque of Kait-Bey._
_J. A. Symington_ 243
_Tomb-Mosques._
_J. A. Symington_ 247
_Tombs of the Mamluks._
_J. A. Symington_ 251
_Sketch-plan showing growth of Cairo._
_After E. W. Lane_ (1835) 256
_Slave Market._
_O. B. Carter (figures by H. Warren)_ 267
_In the Darb-el-Ahmar._
_J. A. Symington_ 275
_Street near Bab-el-Khark._
_O. B. Carter_ 293
_A Muslim Graveyard._
_J. A. Symington_ 315
_Map of Cairo_ _At end_
The Story of Cairo
* * * * *
CHAPTER I
_The Two Cities_
THERE are two Cairos, distinct in character, though but slenderly
divided in site. There is a European Cairo, and there is an Egyptian
Cairo. The last was once El-Káhira, “the Victorious,” founded under the
auspices of the planet Mars, but it is now so little conquering, indeed
has become so subdued, that one hears it spoken of as “the native
quarters,” or even in Indian fashion as “the bazars.” In truth European
Cairo knows little of its mediæval sister. Thousands of tourists,
mounted on thousands of donkeys, do indeed explore “the native quarters”
every winter, but these do not belong to European Cairo; birds of
passage they are, not inhabitants. The true resident, who has his cool
shaded house and breezy balcony in the Isma‘ilíya quarter, surrounded by
hundreds of similar comfortable villas, does not by any chance ride
donkeys, and is only dragged to “the bazars” rarely and with obvious
reluctance by the importunity of some enthusiastic visitor. But even in
European Cairo there are signs that another Cairo, an Oriental, Muslim
Cairo, exists not far away. Let the English colony keep never so closely
to itself and ignore “the native quarters,” except as objects for just
government and wise reforms, it cannot walk abroad, or even open its
ears in its own chambers, without becoming conscious of the true
Oriental world in which it lives but of which it is not. Go to the Post
Office, a few minutes’ walk from most of the hotels, and you are at once
in a medley of East and West.
A German nursemaid, accompanied by the little daughter of the family, is
asking for letters at the _arrivée_ window, and an old sheykh in
_kaftán_ and turban is negotiating a money-order or a registered letter
at the next bureau. Over the way a row of public letter-writers sit at
their tables on the sideway, gravely imperturbable, awaiting illiterate
correspondents. In the street, omnibuses and tram-cars rumble by,
blowing strident horns; but the passengers who sit on the seats beneath
the awning are not Europeans—they are Egyptians, efendis, clerks,
shopkeepers, sheykhs, often simple fellahín come to town on business and
driving in from Bulák or Kasr-en-Nil. On the footpaths—always uneven and
often muddy, in curious contrast to the roads, which are kept clean by
circular brushes and little girl scavengers—the European element, Greek,
German, Italian, chiefly, is intimately blended with the Oriental:
Sudány women closely veiled with the white _burko‘_, which sets off
their swarthy brows and black eyes to advantage; Egyptian girls in blue
gowns and black veils hanging loose and allowing the well-formed neck
and line of cheek and chin to be seen, whilst concealing the only part a
woman scrupulously hides in the East, her mouth; horrible blear-eyed old
harridans, veiled with immaculate precision, squatting in rows against
the house-fronts; Bedawis striding along in the roadway with the striped
_kufíya_ wound round their heads; strings of camels tied together, laden
with _bersím_, the rich fodder of Egypt, and driven by the smallest of
urchins; petty Government clerks, or efendis, clad in _stambúly_ and
_tarbúsh_, hunched up on donkey-back; all classes and ages and sexes
mingled together in a jostling, perspiring, but good-tempered crowd; and
everywhere the pungent pervasive odour of the East.
Even in the European quarters you still meet the veritable Eastern
sights and sounds. As you look out of your hotel window you will see a
native musician sauntering by, twanging the lute of the country; then a
sound like the tinkling of baby cymbals informs you that the _sherbétly_
is going his round, with his huge glass-jar slung at his side, from
which he dispenses (to the unwary) sweet sticky drinks of liquorice
juice or orange syrup in the brass saucers which he clinks unceasingly
in his hand. Late at night sounds of Eastern life invade your pillow:
the “rumble of a distant drum” tells you that a wedding party is
perambulating the streets, and if you have the curiosity to sally forth
you will be rewarded by one of the characteristic sights of Cairo, in
which old and new are oddly blended. Probably a circumcision festival is
combined with the wedding to save expense; and the procession will be
headed by the barber’s sign, a wooden frame raised aloft, followed by
two or three gorgeously caparisoned camels—regular stage-properties
hired out for such occasions—carrying drummers, and leading the way for
a series of carriages crammed with little boys, each holding a neat
white handkerchief to his mouth, to keep out the devil and the evil eye.
Then comes a closed carriage covered all over with a big cashmere shawl,
held down firmly at the sides by brothers and other relations of the
imprisoned bride; then more carriages and a general crowd of
sympathizers. More rarely the bride is borne in a cashmere-covered
litter swung between two camels, fore and aft; the hind camel must tuck
his head under the litter, and is probably quite as uncomfortable as the
bride, who runs a fair chance of sea-sickness in her rolling palankin.
In the old days the bride walked through the streets under a canopy
carried by her friends, but this is now quite out of fashion, and
European carriages are rapidly ousting even the camel-litters. But the
cashmere shawl and the veil will not soon be abandoned. The Egyptian
woman is, at least in public, generally modest. She detects a stranger’s
glance with magical rapidity, even when to all appearance looking the
other way, and forthwith the veil is pulled closer over her mouth and
nose. When she meets you face to face, she does not drop her big eyes in
the absurd fashion of Western modesty; she slowly turns them away from
you: it is annihilating.
As soon as you have turned your back on the European suburb and the
hotel region, and escaped from the glass shop fronts and Greek dealers
of the Musky, the real Eastern city begins to dominate you. It is quite
easy to lose oneself in the quaint old streets of Muslim Cairo when only
an occasional passer-by reminds one that Europe is at the gates. A large
part of Cairo is very little spoilt: it is still in a great degree the
city of the Arabian Nights.
In that stall round the corner who knows but that the immortal Barber is
recounting the adventures of his luckless brothers to the impatient
lover on the shaving stool? At this very moment the Three Royal
Mendicants may be entertaining the fair Portress and her delightful
sisters with the story of their calamities, and if you wait till night
you may even see the “good” Harún er-Rashíd himself—though it is true he
lived at Baghdád—coming on his stealthy midnight rambles with prudent
Ga‘far at his heels and black Mesrúr to clear the way. A few streets
away from the European quarters it is easy to dream that we are acting a
part in the moving histories of the Thousand and One Nights, which do in
fact describe Cairo and its people as they were in the Middle Ages, and
as they are in a great measure still. In its very dilapidation the city
assists the illusion. The typical Eastern houses falling to ruins, which
no one thinks of repairing, are the natural homes of ‘Efríts and
mischievous Ginn, who keep away god-fearing tenants. But if in its
ruined houses, far more in what remains of its glorious monuments does
Cairo transport us to the golden age of Arabian art and culture. Among
its mosques and colleges and the scanty remnants of its palaces are the
purest examples of Saracenic architecture that can be seen in all the
once wide empire of Islam. Damascus and Ispahan, Agra and Delhi, Cordova
and Granada, Brusa and Constantinople, possess elements of beauty and
features of style which Cairo has not, and they enlarge and complete our
understanding of Arab art; but to view that art in its purity,
uncorrupted by the mechanical detail of the Alhambra, unspoilt by the
over-elaboration of Delhi, we must study the mosques and tombs of Cairo.
The blessed conservatism of the East has happily maintained much of the
old city in its beautiful ruinous unprogressive disorder. There are of
course new houses and rebuilt fronts and even glass window-sashes; the
exquisite _meshrebíyas_ with their intricate turned lattice work are
nearly all gone to make way for Italian _persiennes_, and the stone
benches in front of the shops have disappeared in deference to the
modern exigencies of carriages. But the general aspect of the streets
has not seriously altered in recent years, and the people who press
through the crowded lanes, or sit in their little cells of shops at the
receipt of custom, are unchanged. They dress as their ancestors dressed
ages ago; their ideas and education are much what they always were,
though the new schools are gradually infusing more modern notions; they
are still as calm and easy-going and procrastinating as ever. The only
conspicuous change is the dethronement of the time-honoured
_shibúk_,—the long pipe of meditation and stately leisure and “asphodel
and moly” and all that is implied in the ineffable dreamland of
_keyf_,—in favour of the restless undignified cigarette; but _nargílas_
and cocoa-nut pipes for hashísh are still in full play among the lower
classes. The tradespeople are the conservative element in Egypt, as
everywhere else. The upper classes are becoming every year less Oriental
in outward appearance and habits. They dance with “infidel” ladies, wear
Frank clothes, and delight in the little French pieces played in the
Ezbekíya garden. Even their national coffee cups are made in Europe, and
save for the red tarbúsh, and certain mental and moral idiosyncracies
difficult to eliminate and unnecessary to describe, the Egyptian
gentleman might almost pass muster in a Parisian crowd. It is the
tradesman who recalls the past, keeps up the old traditions, and walks
in the old paths. The course of the world runs slowly in the working
East, and the Cairene shopkeeper has placidly stood still whilst the
Western world joined in the everlasting “move on” of modern
civilization.
“We shall find this stand-still mortal in one of the main thoroughfares
of the city. Leaving the European quarter behind, and taking little note
of the Greek and Italian shops in the renovated Musky, we turn off to
the right into the Ghuríya—one of those larger but still narrow streets
which are distinguished with the name of _shari‘_ or thoroughfare. Such
a street is lined on either side with little box-like shops, which form
an unbroken boundary on either hand, except where a mosque door, or a
public fountain, or the entrance to another street interrupts for a
brief space the row of stores. None of the private doors or windows we
are accustomed to in Europe breaks the line of shops. For a considerable
distance all the traders deal in the same commodity—be it sugar-plums or
slippers. The system has its advantages, for if one dealer be too dear,
the next may be cheap; and the competition of many contiguous salesmen
brings about a salutary reduction in prices. On the other hand, it must
be allowed that it is fatiguing to have to order your coat in half-a-
dozen different places—to buy the cloth in one direction, the buttons in
another, the braid in a third, the lining in a fourth, the thread in a
fifth, and then to have to go to quite another place to find a tailor to
cut it out and sew it together. And as each dealer has to be bargained
with, and generally smoked with, if not coffeed with, if you get your
coat ordered in a single morning you may count yourself expeditious.
“In one of these little cupboards that do duty for shops, we may or may
not find the typical tradesman we are seeking. It may chance he has gone
to say his prayers, or to see a friend, or perhaps he did not feel
inclined for business to-day; in which case the folding shutters of his
shop will be closed, and as he does not live anywhere near, and as, if
he did, there is no bell, no private door, and no assistant, we may wait
there for ever, so far as he is concerned, and get no answer to our
inquiries. His neighbour next door, however, will obligingly inform us
that the excellent man whom we are seeking has gone to the mosque, and
we accordingly betake ourselves to our informer and make his
acquaintance instead.
“Our new friend is sitting in a recess some five feet square, and rather
more than six feet high, raised a foot or two from the ground; and
within this narrow compass he has collected all the wares he thinks he
is likely to sell, and has also reserved room for himself and his
customers to sit down and smoke cigarettes while they bargain. Of course
his stock must be very limited, but then all his neighbours are ready to
help him; and if you cannot find what you want within the compass of his
four walls, he will leave you with a cigarette and a cup of coffee, or
perhaps Persian tea in a tumbler, while he goes to find the
_desideratum_ among the wares of his colleagues round about.
“Meanwhile, you drink your scalding aromatic coffee and watch the throng
that passes by: the ungainly camels, laden with brushwood or green
fodder, which seem to threaten to sweep everything and everybody out of
the street;—the respectable towns-people, mounted on grey or brown
asses, ambling along contentedly, save when an unusually severe blow
from the inhuman donkey-boy running behind makes their beasts swerve
incontinently to the right or left, as though they had a hinge in their
middle;—the grandees in their two-horse carriages, preceded by
breathless runners, who clear the way for their masters with shrill
shouts—“Shemálak, ya weled!” (“To thy left, O boy!”) “Yemínik, ya Sitt!”
(“To thy right, O lady!”) “Iftah ‘eynak, ya Am!” (“Open thine eye, O
uncle!”) and the like;—the women with trays of eatables on their heads,
the water-carrier with goat-skin under arm, and the vast multitude of
blue-robed men and women who have something or other to do, which takes
them indeed along the street, but does not take them very hurriedly. In
spite of the apparent rush and crush, the crowd moves slowly, like
everything else in the East.
“Our friend returns with the desired article; we approve it, guardedly,
and with cautious tentative aspect demand, ‘How much?’ The answer is
always at least twice the fair price. We reply, first by exclaiming, ‘I
seek refuge with God’ (from exorbitance), and then by offering about
half the fair price. The dealer shakes his head, looks disappointed with
us, shows he expected better sense in people of our appearance, puts
aside his goods, and sits down to another cigarette. After a second
ineffectual bid, we summon our donkey and prepare to mount. At this
moment the shopman relents, and reduces his price; but we are obdurate,
and begin riding away. He pursues us, agrees almost to our terms; we
return, pay, receive our purchase, commend him to the protection of God,
and wend our way on.
“But if, instead of going on, we accompany our late antagonist in the
bargain to his own home, we shall see what a middle-class Cairene house
is like. Indeed, a middle-class dwelling in Cairo may sometimes chance
to be a palace, for the modern Pasha despises the noble mansions that
were the pride and delight of better men than he in the good old days of
the Mamlúks, and prefers to live in shadeless ‘Route No. 29,’ or
thereabouts, in the modern bricklayer’s paradise known as the Isma‘ilíya
quarter; and hence the tradesman may sometimes occupy the house where
some great Bey of former times held his state, and marshalled his
retainers, when he prepared to strike a blow for the precarious throne
that was always at the command of the strongest battalions. But all
Cairene houses of the old style are very much alike: they differ only in
size and in the richness or poverty of the decoration; and if our
merchant’s home is better than most of its neighbours, we have but to
subtract a few of the statelier rooms, and reduce the scale of the
others, to obtain a fair idea of the houses on either hand and round
about.
“The street we now enter is quite different from that we have left. We
have been doing our shopping in the busy Cheapside of Cairo, and in full
view of the lofty façade of the mosque of the Mamlúk Sultan El-Muáyyad.
Its two minarets stand upon a fine old gate called Bab Zawíla (or
commonly Zuweyla), which people now-a-days generally prefer to call the
Bab el-Mutawélly, because it is believed to be a favourite resort of the
mysterious Kutb el-Mutawélly, or pope (for the time being) of all the
saints. This very holy personage is gifted with powers of invisibility
and of instantaneous change of place: he flies unseen from the top of
the Kaaba at Mekka to the Bab Zuweyla, and there reposes in a niche
behind the wooden door. True believers tell their beads as they pass
this niche, and the curious peep in to see if the saint be there; and if
you have a headache, there is no better cure than to drive a nail into
the door; while a sure remedy for the toothache is to pull out the tooth
and hang it up on the same venerated spot. Perhaps pulling the tooth out
might of itself cure the ache; but the suggestion savours of impiety,
and at any rate it is safer to fix the molar up. The door bristles with
unpleasing votive offerings of this sort, and if they were all
successful the Kutb must be an excellent doctor.
“The street thus barred by the Bab Zuweyla is, for Cairo, a broad one;
and shops, mosques, wekálas (or caravanserais), and fountains form its
boundaries. In complete contrast, the street we are now to enter, as we
turn down a by-lane and then wheel sharply to the left, has no shops,
though there is a little mosque, probably the tomb of a venerated saint,
at the corner. Its broad bands of red and white relieve the deep shadows
of the lane, each side of which is composed of the tall backs of houses,
with nothing to vary the white-washed walls except the closely grated
windows. On either hand still narrower alleys open off, sometimes mere
_culs-de-sac_, but often threading the city for a considerable distance.
In these solitary courts we may still see the _meshrebíyas_ which are
becoming so rare in the more frequented thoroughfares. The best lattices
are reserved for the interior windows of the house, which look on the
inner court or garden; but there are not a few streets in Cairo where
the passenger still stops to admire tier upon tier and row after row of
meshrebíyas which give a singularly picturesque appearance to the
houses.
“The name is derived from the root which means to drink (which occurs in
‘sherbet’), and is applied to lattice windows because the porous water-
bottles are often placed in them to cool. Frequently there is a little
semi-circular niche projecting out of the middle of the lattice for the
reception of a _kulla_ or carafe. The delicately turned nobs and balls,
by which the patterns of the lattice-work are formed, are sufficiently
near together to conceal whatever passes within from the inquisitive
eyes of opposite neighbours, and yet there is enough space between them
to allow free access of air. A meshrebíya is, indeed, a cooling place
for human beings as well as water-jars, and at once a convent-grating
and a spying-place for the women of the harím, who can watch their
Lovelace through the meshes of the windows without being seen in return.
Yet there are convenient little doors that open in the lattice-work if
the inmates choose to be seen even as they see; and the fair ladies of
Cairo are not always above the pardonable vanity of letting a passer-by
discover that they are fair.
“In one of these by-lanes we stop before an arched doorway, and tie our
donkey to the ring beside it. The door is a study in itself. The upper
part is surrounded by arabesque patterns, which form a square decoration
above it, often very tasteful in the case of the older doorways.
Sometimes the wooden door itself has arabesques on it, and the
inscription ‘God is the Creator, the Eternal,’ which is a charm against
sickness and demons and the evil eye, and also serves as a _memento
mori_ to the master of the house whenever he comes home. There is no
bell, for the prophet declared that a bell is the devil’s musical
instrument, and that where a bell is the angels do not resort—and
sometimes there is no knocker, so we batter upon the door with our stick
or fist. It generally takes several knockings to make oneself heard; but
this is not a land where people hurry overmuch—did not our lord
Mohammad, upon whom be peace, say that ‘haste came from the devil’—so we
conform to the ways of the land, and console ourselves with the
antithetic text, ‘God is with the patient.’ At last a fumbling sound is
heard on the other side, the doorkeeper is endeavouring to fit a stick,
with little wire pins arranged upon it in a certain order, into
corresponding holes bored at the end of a deep mortice in the sliding
bolt of the door. These are the key and lock of Cairo. The sliding bolt
runs through a wooden staple on the door into a slot in the jamb. When
it is home, certain movable pins drop down from the staple into holes in
the sliding bolt and prevent its being drawn back. The introduction of
the key with pins corresponding to the holes in the bolt lifts the
movable pins and permits the bolt to be slidden back. Nothing could be
clumsier or more easy to pick. A piece of wax at the end of a stick will
at once reveal the position of the pins, and the rest is simple.
“Within is a passage, which bends sharply after the first yard or two,
and bars any view into the interior from the open door. At the end of
this passage we emerge into an open court, with a well of brackish water
in a shady corner, and perhaps an old sycamore. Here is no sign of life;
the doors are jealously closed, the windows shrouded by those beautiful
screens of net-like woodwork which delight the artist and tempt the
collector. The inner court is almost as silent and deserted as the
guarded windows which overlook the street. We shall see nothing of the
domestic life of the inhabitants; for the women’s apartments are
carefully shut off from the court, into which open only the guest rooms
and other masculine and semi-public apartments. After the bustle of the
street this quiet and ample space is very refreshing, and one feels that
the Egyptian architects have happily realized the requirements of
Eastern life. They make the streets narrow and overshadow them with
projecting meshrebíyas, because the sun beats down too fiercely for the
wide street of European towns to be endurable. But they make the houses
themselves spacious and surround them with courts and gardens, because
without air the heat of the rooms in summer would be intolerable. The
Eastern architect’s art lies in so constructing your house that you
cannot look into your neighbour’s windows, nor he into yours; and the
obvious way of attaining this end is to build the rooms round a high
open court, and to closely veil the windows with lattice blinds, which
admit a subdued light and sufficient air, and permit an outlook without
allowing the passing stranger to see through. The wooden screens and
secluded court are necessary to fulfil the requirements of the
Mohammedan system of separating the sexes.
“The lower rooms, opening directly off the court, are those into which a
man may walk with impunity and no risk of meeting any of the women. Into
one of these lower rooms our host conducts us, with polite entreaty to
do him the honour of making ourselves at home. It is the guest-room, or
_mandara_, and serves as an example of the ordinary dwelling-room of the
better sort. The part of the room where we enter is of a lower level
than the rest, and if it be a really handsome house we shall find this
lower part paved with marble mosaic and cooled by a fountain in the
middle; while opposite the door is a marble slab raised upon arches,
where the water-bottles, coffee-cups, and washing materials are kept.
“We leave our outer shoes on the marble before we step upon the carpeted
part of the room. It is covered with rugs, and furnished by a low divan
round three sides. The end wall is filled by a meshrebíya, which is
furnished within with cushions, while above it some half-dozen windows,
composed of small pieces of coloured glass let into a framework of
stucco, so as to form a floral pattern, admit a half-light. The two
sides, whitewashed where there is neither wood nor tiles, are furnished
with shallow cupboards with doors of complicated geometrical panelling.
Small arched niches on either side of the cupboards, and a shelf above,
are filled with jars and vases, and other ornaments. The ceiling is
formed of planks laid on massive beams and generally painted a dark red,
but in old houses the ceilings are often beautifully decorated. There
are no tables, chairs, or fireplaces, or indeed any of the things a
European understands to be furniture. When a meal is to be eaten, a
little table is brought in; if the weather be cold a brazier of red-hot
charcoal is kindled; instead of chairs the Cairene tucks his legs up
under him on the divan—an excellent method of getting the cramp, for
Europeans.
[Illustration: COURT OF A PRIVATE HOUSE]
“There is often another reception-room, raised above the ground, but
entered by steps from the court, into which it looks through an open
arched front; and frequently a recess in the court, under one of the
upper rooms, is furnished with a divan for hot weather. A door opens out
of the court into the staircase leading to the harím rooms, and here no
man but the master of the house may penetrate. ‘_Harím_’ means what is
‘prohibited’ to other men, and what is ‘sacred’ to the master himself.
The harím rooms are the domestic part of the house. When a man retires
there he is in the bosom of his family, and it would need a very urgent
affair to induce the doorkeeper to summon him down to anyone who called
to see him. Among the harím apartments there is generally a large
sitting-room, like the mandara, called the _ká‘a_, with perhaps a cupola
over it; and in front of the ká‘a is a vestibule, which serves as a
ventilating and cooling place, for a sloping screen over an open space
on the roof of this room is so turned as to conduct the cool north
breezes into the house in hot weather; and here the family often sleep
in summer.
“There are no bedrooms in a Mohammedan house, or rather no rooms
furnished as bedrooms, for there are plenty of separate chambers where
the inmates sleep, but not one of them has any of what we conceive to be
the requisites of bedroom furniture. The only fittings the Cairene asks
for the night consist of a mattress and pillow, and perhaps a blanket in
winter and a mosquito-net in summer, the whole of which he rolls up in
the morning and deposits in some cupboard or side room; whereupon the
bedroom becomes a sitting-room. There is another important department of
the harím—the bathroom—not a mere room with a fixed bath in it, but a
suite of complicated heated stone apartments, exactly resembling the
public Turkish baths. It is only a large house that boasts this luxury,
however, and most people go out to bathe, if they care to bathe at all.
“The inhabitants of a house, such as that described, lead a dreary
monotonous life; fortunately, however, they are not often conscious of
its emptiness. The master rises very early, for the Muslim must say the
daybreak prayers. A pipe and a cup of coffee is often all he takes
before his light mid-day meal, and he generally reserves his appetite
for the chief repast of the day—the supper or dinner—which he eats soon
after sunset. If he is in business he spends the day in more or less
irregular attendance at his shop, smokes almost incessantly either the
new-fangled Turkish cigarette, or the traditional _shibúk_, with its
handsome amber mouthpiece, its long cherry-wood stem, and red-clay bowl
filled with mild Gébely or Latakía tobacco. If he has no special
occupation, he amuses himself with calling on his friends, or indulges
in long dreamy hours in the warm atmosphere of the public bath, where
the vapour of the hot-water tanks, and the dislocation of each
particular joint in the shampooing, and the subsequent interval of
cooling and smoking and coffee, are all exceedingly delightful in a hot
climate. When he goes out, a man of any position or wealth never
condescends to walk; as a rule he rides a donkey, sometimes a horse; but
the donkey is far the more convenient in crowded streets. Indeed, an
Egyptian ass of the best breed is a fine animal, and fetches sometimes
as much as a hundred guineas; his paces are both fast and easy, and it
is not difficult to write a letter on the pummel of one of these ambling
mounts.
“While their lord is paying his calls or attending to his shop, the
women of his household make shift to pass the time as best they may. In
spite of popular ideas on the subject, Mohammedans seldom have more than
one wife, though they sometimes add to their regular marriage a left-
handed connexion with an Abyssinian or other slave-girl. Efforts,
however, are being made to put down the traffic in slaves, and if the
trade be really suppressed, as it is already in law, the Cairene will
become monogamous. The late Khedive himself set an excellent example in
this, as in most other respects, and the better sort of Muslims are, to
say the least, as moral as ordinary Christians. Facility of divorce is
the real difficulty. Men will not keep several wives, because it costs a
good deal to allow them separate houses or suites of rooms, and
plurality does not conduce to domestic harmony; but they do not hesitate
to divorce a wife when they are tired of her, and take a new one in her
place. It is said the caliph ‘Aly thus married and divorced two hundred
women in his time; and a certain dyer of Baghdád even reached the
astonishing total of nine hundred wives: he died at the good old age of
eight-five, and if he married at fifteen, he would have had a fresh
spouse for every month during seventy years of conjugal felicity.
Divorce was so easy that there seems no great reason why he should not
have married nine thousand. One lady is said to have reduced the
fatiguing ceremony of wedlock to extremely convenient dimensions. The
man said to her _Khitb_, and she replied _Nikh_, and the wedding was
over! Thus did she marry forty husbands, and her son Khárija was sorely
puzzled to identify his father. A governor of Upper Egypt was no mean
disciple of these illustrious leaders; but the habit has become more and
more uncommon.
“There would be much more excuse for the women to demand polyandria than
for the men to ask for polygynaecia; for while the husband can go about
and enjoy himself as he pleases, the women of his family are often hard
pushed to it to find any diversion in their dull lives. Sometimes they
make up a party and engage a whole public bath; and then the screams of
laughter bear witness how the girls of Egypt enjoy a romp. Or else the
mistress goes in state to call upon some friends, mounted upon the high
ass, enveloped in a balloon of black silk, her face concealed, all but
the eyes, by a white veil, and attended by a trusty manservant. These
visits to other haríms are the chief delights of the ladies of Cairo:
unlimited gossip, sweetmeats, inspection of toilettes, perhaps some
singers or dancers to hear and behold—these are their simple joys. They
have no education whatever, and cannot understand higher or more
intellectual pleasures than those their physical senses can appreciate:
to eat, to dress, to chatter, to sleep, to dream away the sultry hours
on a divan, to stimulate their husband’s affections and keep him to
themselves—this is to _live_, in a harím. An Englishwoman asked an
Egyptian lady how she passed her time. ‘I sit on this sofa,’ she
answered, ‘and when I am tired, I cross over and sit on that.’
Embroidery is one of the few occupations of the harím; but no lady
thinks of busying herself with the flower-garden which is often attached
to the house. Indeed, the fair houris we imagine behind the lattice-
windows are very dreary, uninteresting people; they know nothing, and
take but an indifferent interest in anything that goes on; they are just
beautiful—a few of them—and nothing more.
“In truth the Egyptian ladies cannot venture to give themselves airs;
they suffer from the low opinion which all Mohammedans entertain of the
fair sex. The unalterable iniquity of womankind is an incontrovertible
fact among the men of the East; it is part of their religion. Did not
the blessed Prophet say, ‘I stood at the gate of Paradise, and lo! most
of its inhabitants were the poor: and I stood at the gates of Hell, and
lo! most of its inhabitants were women?’ Is it not, moreover, a
physiological fact that woman was made out of a _crooked_ rib of Adam;
which would break if you tried to bend it, and if you left it alone it
would always remain crooked? And is it not related that when the Devil
heard of the creation of woman, he laughed with delight, and said, ‘Thou
art half of my host, and thou art the depositary of my secret, and thou
art my arrow with which I shoot and miss not!’ It is no wonder that a
learned doctor gave advice to his disciple, before he entered upon any
serious undertaking, to consult ten intelligent persons among his
particular friends, or if he have not more than five such friends, let
him consult each of them twice; or if he have not more than one friend,
he should consult him ten times, at ten different visits; if he have not
one to consult, let him return to his wife and consult her, and whatever
she advises him to do, let him do the contrary: so shall he proceed
rightly in his affair and attain his object. Following in the steps of
this pious Father, the Muslims have always treated women as an inferior
order of beings, necessary indeed, and ornamental, but certainly not
entitled to respect or deference. Hence they rarely educate their
daughters; hence they seek in their wives beauty and docility, and treat
them either as pretty toys, to be played with and broken and cast away,
or as useful links in the social economy, good to bear children and
order a household.”[1]
The fatal blot upon Muslim society is this contempt of women, which far
more than counterbalances the good effects of the Mohammedan doctrine of
the equality of all true believers in the sight of God, and the ease of
manner and independence of opinion which result from the sense of
fraternity in the sacred bond of Islám. The picture we have drawn of the
daily life of the Cairene is perhaps too sombre, and we should watch our
tradesman at his revels in order to understand the brighter side of his
life. It is true these excitements are strictly connected with his
religion, but so are the Roman Catholic holidays, and if one must
dissipate it is soothing to the conscience to do it under the auspices
of a saint. The Muslim, however, takes an unnatural delight in pious
celebrations. The wedding guest of Cairo has his own importunate Ancient
Mariner in the _Khatma_ or recital of the entire Korán, from cover to
cover, which a worthy bridegroom frequently provides for the
entertainment of his friends. When the people of Cairo wish to go in for
serious dissipation they visit the graves of their relations, and then,
in houses expressly reserved for cheerful mourners, they listen to the
chanting of the holy book. _Voilà un terrible humeur d’homme!_ _Tristes_
as we are said to be in England in our manner of amusing ourselves, even
an Ibsen audience would stand aghast at the Muslim’s staid diversions.
He certainly makes the most of curiously unpromising materials. The
feast of St Simon and St Jude does not perhaps suggest exhilaration to
an unimaginative Englishman, but your Cairene will intensely enjoy, in
his sedate way, the holidays of his religion. There are plenty of them,
and a Cairo _Mólid_ or “birthday” is not a one-day’s festival, like mere
Christian feasts, but lasts sometimes as long as nine days at a stretch.
Every tourist knows some of them, such as the Kiswa or Holy Carpet
procession, and the passing of the Mahmal with the pilgrim caravan to
Mekka, and they are worth seeing, if they happen to fall within the
“season”—for the Muslim year still retains the unreformed lunar
calendar, which shifts continually and carries the feasts round with it.
There is hardly a week in the year however without some special rite or
spectacle. It may be the _Ashúra_ or 10th of Moharram (the first month),
when people eat cakes in honour of Hoseyn, the martyred son of ‘Aly, and
pay their homage at the mosque of the Hasaneyn, where the martyr’s head
is supposed to rest, and watch the amazing antics of the dervishes.
“Since Hoseyn, in whose honour it is held (combining with his elder
brother, Hasan, to form the ‘Hasaneyn’), is especially the saint of the
heretical Persians, and has given rise, through no merit of his own, to
more schisms in the Mohammedan world than any other person, it is
strange that the Cairenes, who are almost all orthodox Sunnis, should
pay such particular reverence to this feast. But the truth is, they are
glad of any excuse for a holiday; and, after all, was not our lord
Hoseyn the grandson of the Prophet? and is he to be given over wholly to
those heretical dogs of Shi‘a? Whatever the argument, Hoseyn is deeply
revered in Cairo, and his Molid is one of the sights of the capital that
most delight the European visitor. Nothing more picturesque and
fairylike can be imagined than the scenes in the streets and bazars of
Cairo on the great night of the Hasaneyn. The curious thing was that in
the winter after Tell-el-Kebír, when I stood—for riding was
impossible—in the midst of the dense throng in the Musky, and struggled
into the by-street that leads to the Kady’s court and the mosque of the
Hasaneyn, there was not a sign of ill-humour or fanaticism in spite of
the presence of many Europeans. A more good-natured crowd was never
seen. It might have been expected that at least some slight
demonstration would have been made against the Europeans who wandered
about the gaily illuminated streets; but English ladies walked through
the bazars, English officers and tourists mingled in the throng and even
reached the doors of the sacred mosque itself without the slightest
molestation or even remark. Once or twice a woman might have been heard
sarcastically inviting some Christian to ‘bless the Prophet’; but if the
Christian charitably replied, ‘God bless and save him,’ she was
nonplussed; and even if he did not know the proper answer, nothing came
of it. The general good-nature inspired by the festival obliterated all
memories of war and heresy, and it may safely be asserted that no
English mob could have been trusted to behave in so orderly and friendly
a manner in the presence of a detested minority.
“The scene, as I turned into one of the narrow lanes of the great Khan
El-Khalíly, or Turkish bazar, which fronts the mosque of the Hasaneyn,
was like a picture in the Arabian Nights. The long bazar was lighted by
innumerable chandeliers and coloured lamps and candles, and covered by
awnings of rich shawls and stuffs from the shops beneath; while, between
the strips of awning, one could see the sombre outlines of the unlighted
houses above, in striking contrast to the brilliancy and gaiety below.
The shops had quite changed their character. All the wares which were
usually littered about had disappeared; the trays of miscellaneous
daggers and rings and spoons and whatnot, were gone; and each little
shop was turned into a tastefully furnished reception-room. The sides
and top were hung with silks and cashmeres, velvets, brocades, and
embroideries of the greatest beauty and rarity—costly stuffs, which the
most inquisitive purchaser never managed to see on ordinary occasions.
The whole of the sides of the bazar formed one long blaze of gold and
light and colour. And within each shop the owner sat surrounded by a
semicircle of friends, all dressed in their best, very clean and
superbly courteous—for the Cairo tradesman is always a gentleman in
mien, even when he is cheating you most outrageously. The very man with
whom you haggled hotly in the morning will now invite you politely to
sit down with him and smoke; at his side is a little ivory or mother-of-
pearl table, from which he takes a bottle of some sweet drink flavoured
with almonds or roses, and offers it to you with finished grace.
“Seated in the richly-hung recess, you can see the throng pushing by—the
whole population, it seems, of Cairo, in their best array and merriest
temper. All at once the sound of drums and pipes is heard, and a band of
dervishes, chanting benedictions on the Prophet and Hoseyn, pass through
the delighted crowd. On your left is a shop—nay, a throne-room in
miniature—where a story-teller is holding an audience spell-bound as he
relates, with dramatic gestures, some favourite tale. Hard by, a holy
man is revolving his head solemnly and unceasingly, as he repeats the
name of God, or some potent text from the Korán. In another place, a
party of dervishes are performing a _zikr_, or a complete recital of the
Korán is being chanted by swaying devotees. The whole scene is certainly
unreal and fairylike. We can imagine ourselves in the land of the Ginn
or in the City of Brass, but not in Cairo or in the nineteenth century.
“Outside the khan, dense masses of the people are crowding into the
mosque of the Hasaneyn, where specially horrible performances take
place, and where the tour of the shrine of Hoseyn must be made. Near by,
a string of men are entering a booth; we follow, and find tumblers at
work, and a performing pony, and a clown who always imitates the feats
of the gymnasts, always fails grotesquely, and invariably provokes roars
of laughter. In another booth Karakúsh is carrying on his intrigues:
this Egyptian Punch is better manipulated than our own, whom he nearly
resembles; but he is not so choice in his language or behaviour, and we
are glad before long to leave a place where the jokes are rather broad,
and certain saltatory insects unusually active. People of the lower
class however care nothing for these drawbacks; they laugh till their
sides ache at Karakúsh’s sallies, and whatever they see, wherever they
go, whomever they meet, whatsoever their cares and their poverty, on
this blessed night of the Hasaneyn they are perfectly happy. An Egyptian
crowd is very easily amused: the simplest sights and oldest jests
delight it; and it is enough to make a fastidious European regret his
niceness to see how these simple folk enjoy themselves upon so small an
incentive.”[2]
This is what one goes to Cairo to see, the real Eastern life in its
Eastern setting. A scene like this repays one for many dreary calls,
many tepid dances in the region of hotels. You may get hotel life, club
life, polo and tennis, and even golf, excellently at Cairo—the European
Cairo—but these things are common to all “winter resorts.” In the
“bazars,” among the people, you get something that the Isma‘ilíya
quarter cannot give, that no other place can quite rival, something that
painters love and that kindles the imagination. After all, the most
interesting things are always the unfamiliar, and the first plunge into
Egypt is a revelation of fresh ideas, new tones in colour, and the
pungent odours of a strange native life.
It is in the “bazars” that one feels most the shock of contact with the
unfamiliar; but, in a less intimate yet deeply impressive way, to drink
in the full inspiration of the Muslim city one must climb to the
ramparts of the Citadel about sunset and slowly absorb the wonderful
panorama that spreads below and around. Unhappily, to get there one
usually passes along the most terribly defaced street in all Cairo. The
worst destruction took place, one is thankful to remember, before
England took the reins of Egypt. It was Isma‘íl, under French influence,
who made that unspeakable atrocity, the “Boulevard Mohammad ‘Aly,” which
cut through some of the most beautiful quarters, ruined palaces and
gardens, and chopped off half of a noble mosque in order to preserve the
tasteless accuracy of its straight line. Along its side are ranged mean
and uneven offices and tenements, neither Europeanly regular nor
Orientally picturesque. Old wine and new bottles are in close connexion.
A Muslim school elbows a “Grog Shop for Army and Navy.” Under the shadow
of the stately mosque of Sultan Hasan an Arab barber is cutting hair
with a modern clipping machine. A gaily painted harím carriage, guarded
by eunuchs, stands at the door of the mosque: on the panel is a sham
coat-of-arms, that last infirmity of Turkish minds—though for that
matter heraldic bearings were used in Egypt at least seven hundred years
ago. Solemn sheykhs pace slowly along without any sign of surprise at
these strange sights. Overhead the guns boom out a salute, for it is the
Great Festival, the _‘Id el-kebír_, from Saladin’s Citadel; but the
garrison are not stalwart Turkmáns or wild Kurds, in picturesque garb
and with clanking spear and mace, such as the great Soldan led against
Richard of the Lion-heart, but British “tommies” unbecomingly attired in
khaki. The Citadel itself is an arsenal of modern arms and stores, and
English officers rule where once the Mamlúk Beys were massacred. Old and
new are ever clashing in the mediæval fortress, and Private Ortheris
mounts guard over the mosque of a Mamlúk Sultan.
But once we stand on the ramparts the flaring contrasts vanish and the
jarring note is still. All in that wide range beneath the eye is of the
East Eastern. The European touches are too small at such a distance to
mar the purely Oriental tone. Countless domes and minarets, a glimpse of
arched cloisters, a wilderness of flat-roofed houses, yellow and white
and brown, with sloped pents to admit the cool breezes below; a patch of
green here and there, with dark-leaved sycamores, revealing some of the
many gardens of the old city, and beyond, a fringe of palms and a streak
of silver where “the long bright river” rolls sleepily on between its
brown banks; in the distance, against the ridge of the Libyan horizon,
in the carmine glory of the sinking sun, stand the everlasting pyramids,
“like the boundary marks of the mighty waste, the Egyptian land of
shades.” One after the other the tall forms of slender minarets separate
themselves from the bewildering chaos of roofs and domes, and display
their varied grace. Each has its story of victory or exile, of famine
and invasion, of learning and piety, to tell. On the right, northwards,
the fine towers of Muáyyad above the Zuweyla gate recall a hundred deeds
and legends of that famous portal, once the main entrance of the
caliphs’ palace-city. Beyond them rise the minarets of the Nahhasín, a
perfect gallery of Saracen art, and again beyond, the turrets of Hákim’s
great quadrangle. In front in the foreground stands Sultan Hasan, the
largest and most imposing of Mamlúk mosques, and a little to the left
one looks into the vast arcaded square of Ibn-Tulún, with its queer
corkscrew tower overhanging the billowy mounds that reveal where Fustát
lay a thousand years ago. Still more to the left a line of arches shows
where the aqueduct that has brought water to the Citadel for five
centuries stretches to the Nile, and behind we can look down upon the
cluster of ruined domes and minarets of the southern Karáfa—the “Tombs
of the Mamlúks”—and catch a glimpse of the old fortress of Egyptian
Babylon and the mosque of the conqueror ‘Amr. Looking over the Mamlúk
minarets we can see the dim outlines of the cairns of Dahshúr and the
conspicuous form of Sakkára’s step-pyramid, separated from the Saracen
domes by only fifteen miles of space but five millenniums of time; and
as the glow of the sunset fades away the evening clouds gather in the
west and the desert beyond takes up their shades of grey and blue like a
vast mid-African ocean.
[Illustration: THE CITADEL]
Here we realize Cairo for the first time as a city of the Middle Ages,
and more than that, a city with an heritage from the dawn of history. It
is true it has not the exquisite setting of the seven-hilled queen of
the Bosporus; it is not even built about the Nile, which the silts of
centuries have breasted away from the walls it once laved: but as one
looks out from the battlements of the Castle one perceives that there
are other oceans than those of water, and that the capital of Egypt can
have no more fitting frame than the deserts which are her shield and the
pyramids her title-deeds to her inheritance from the remote past. “He
who hath not seen Cairo,” said the Jewish hakím, “hath not seen the
world. Her soil is gold; her Nile is a marvel; her women are as the
bright-eyed houris of Paradise; her houses are palaces, and her air is
soft with an odour above aloes, refreshing the heart: and how should
Cairo be otherwise when she is the Mother of the World?”
CHAPTER II
_The Town of the Tent_
IN the view from the Citadel one sees an essentially mediæval city, but
of all the Arab buildings there is not one that in its present state
dates back to the Arab conquest. Before the Muslims invaded Egypt in 640
there was no Cairo, and strictly speaking there was none till three
centuries later than that, when the Greek general laid the foundations
of the palace-city of the Fátimid caliphs and it received the name el-
Káhira, which Europeans twisted into Cahere, Caire, and Cairo. But this
is merely a pedantry of terms, and one might as well restrict London to
the City and refuse the name to Westminster and Mayfair. There was a
Muslim capital from the days of the conquest, and though it was not
called Cairo it was close to the present city, which is merely an
expansion of the original town. The history of its growth will appear as
we study its several stages and monuments, and for the moment a bare
enumeration of the successive foundations will suffice. First rose the
original Arab settlement, Fustát, the Town of the Tent, in 641. To this
was added in 751 a north-eastern suburb, the official residence of the
governors and their troops, hence named el-‘Áskar, “the Cantonments.” A
new royal faubourg, or small city, was built still more to the north-
east by the first independent Muslim King of Egypt, Ibn-Tulún, about
860, and was known by the name of el-Katái‘, “the Wards,” because it was
divided into separate quarters for different nations and classes. So far
the three towns were practically contiguous, and ‘Askar and Katái‘ were
but the Chelsea and St James’s of the City, the commercial capital,
Fustát.
The fourth foundation was still further to the north-east, and a
considerable vacant space was left between it and the almost destroyed
faubourg of Katái‘, in order to preserve the safety and seclusion of the
sacred caliphs for whom it was built in 969. This last was the true
Cairo, el-Káhira, but it was not the commercial and residential capital,
any more than ‘Askar or Katái‘ had been. Fustát, resting on the Nile
bank, was still the emporium of trade and the metropolis alike of
business and of culture, whilst Káhira was but a palace, a barrack, and
a seat of government. When the mediæval chroniclers, such as William of
Tyre, write of “Macer”—meaning Masr (properly Misr) the usual Arabic
name both for Egypt and for its capital—they refer not to Káhira but to
Fustát, or as it was commonly called Misr-el-Fustát. The Emír or Caliph
or Sultan might dwell and rule at any suburb he pleased to build, but
the old capital remained the real metropolis throughout. There the Kádis
sat in judgment in the “Old Mosque”; there the coins of the realm were
issued; and there resided the bulk of the citizens who were not attached
to the palace. It was only when Fustát was deliberately burned in 1168,
to save it from giving cover to the Crusaders, that Káhira took its
place as the real capital as well as the official centre of Egypt.
Saladin was the creator of Cairo as we know it. It was he who planned
the wall that was to enclose not only Káhira but the Citadel and what
remained of Katái‘ and Fustát, and from his time began the building over
the space intervening between the Citadel and the palace of Káhira which
gradually filled up the Cairo which we now see. The growth of the city
thus consisted mainly of three successive expansions towards the north-
east, accompanied by decay of abandoned suburbs, and ending in a general
enclosure of the chief inhabited portions. Since the days of Saladin,
whatever remained of Fustát has vanished, and only a straggling village
called Masr-el-Atíka or “Old Masr,” and known to Europeans as “Old
Cairo,” has risen near its site, which is easily traced by the immense
rubbish-heaps. On the other hand a new town has grown up between Káhira
and the Nile under European influences, but with this, pleasant winter
city as it is, the Mediæval Town has nothing to do.
The narrative of the Arab invasion of Egypt is in many points
exceedingly obscure, owing to the circumstances that the Arabs did not
begin to write history till more than two centuries later, and that our
only almost contemporary authority, John, bishop of Nikiu, has come down
to us in a corrupt translation. The Arabs under the command of ‘Amr ibn
el-‘Asy entered Egypt not more than 4000 strong in December 639, in the
caliphate of ‘Omar, the second successor of the prophet Mohammad; and
after taking Pelusium and Bilbeys by siege, and fighting a battle with
the Romans at Umm-Duneyn, a suburb which stood near the present ‘Abdin
palace, attacked the city of “Misr” or “Babylon of Egypt.” This city was
a northern extension or successor of the decayed but then still existing
Egyptian capital Memphis, about twelve miles distant from the present
Cairo, and had grown up under the protection of the Roman fortress of
Babylon. It was evidently strongly defended, for the Arab general had to
summon reinforcements, till his army mustered 12,000, before he could
attack it.
“‘Amr divided his forces into three corps, one of which he posted to the
north of Babylon; the second was stationed at Tendunyas [probably the
Umm-Duneyn of the Arabic writers], and the third withdrew northwards to
Heliopolis, in the hope of tempting the Romans out of their
fortifications, upon which the other two corps were to fall on their
rear or flank. The manœuvre succeeded. The Romans marched out of their
fortifications, and attacked the Saracens at Heliopolis, but, being
themselves taken in rear by the other divisions, were routed and driven
to the Nile, when they took to their boats and fled down the river. Upon
this the Muslims occupied Tendunyas, the garrison of which had perished
in the battle, except 300 men, who shut themselves up in the fort,
whence they retired by boat to Nikiu. The taking of Tendunyas was
evidently followed by, or synonymous with, the taking of the whole city
of Misr, except its citadel, which was blockaded; for John of Nikiu,
from whose almost contemporary chronicle this account is taken, mentions
no subsequent siege or conquest of the city of Misr, but only the
reduction of the fortress.”[3]
Whatever this city of Misr or Tendunyas may have been, it vanishes from
history as soon as it is conquered. The last we hear of it is in the
treaty of capitulation granted by ‘Amr, which ran as follows:—
“In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful, this is the
amnesty which ‘Amr ibn el-‘Asy granted to the people of Misr, as to
themselves, their religion, their goods, their churches and crosses,
their lands and waters: nothing of these shall be meddled with or
minished; the Nubians shall not be permitted to dwell among them. And
the people of Misr, if they enter into this treaty of peace, shall pay
the poll-tax, when the inundation of their river has subsided, fifty
millions. And each one of them is responsible for [acts of violence
that] robbers among them may commit. And as for those who will not enter
into this treaty, the sum of the tax shall be diminished [to the rest]
in proportion, but we have no responsibility towards such. If the rise
of the Nile is less than usual, the tax shall be reduced in proportion
to the decrease. Romans and Nubians who enter into this treaty shall be
treated in the like manner. And whoso rejects [it] and chooses to go
away, he is protected until he reach a place of safety or leave our
kingdom. The collection of the taxes shall be by thirds, one third at
each time. For [sureties for] this covenant stand the security and
warranty of God, the warranty of His Prophet, and the warranty of the
Caliph, the commander of the faithful, and the warranty of the [true]
believers. . . . Witnessed by ez-Zubeyr and his sons ‘Abdallah and
Mohammad, and written by Wardan.”
The Arab historians connect this treaty—which has all the appearance of
being an authentic document, literally copied—expressly with the
surrender of the city of Misr after the battle of Heliopolis; but as
Misr means Egypt as well as its capital the document itself only proves
that the Arab conqueror accorded very generous terms to the people of
Egypt; it says nothing explicit as to the town of Misr, the name of
which was shortly to be transferred to Fustát, whilst the place thereof
was known no more. The only explanation seems to be that the Egyptian
city decayed as the Arab town grew, and that the population migrated to
the neighbouring and more prosperous settlement. The remains of walls
south of “Old Misr” may represent part of the site. The disappearance of
an Egyptian town is unhappily far from unprecedented. Memphis itself has
vanished, all save a few traces of walls and fallen statues; “hundred-
gated” Thebes survives only in her temples; and the reason is that the
ancient Egyptian built his abode of perishable sun-dried brick, and
lavished his massive stone work only upon the tombs of the great dead
and the temples of the immortal gods.
Whatever became of the city, a fortress of Babylon stands to this day.
Its reduction cost the Arabs a seven months’ siege. The battle of
Heliopolis was won in the late summer of 640, and it was not till April
641 that the fortress was conquered. A leading part in the surrender of
the place is ascribed to a mysterious personage, “the Mukawkis,” as the
Arabs termed the governor of Egypt.[4] According to the Arab traditions
it was he who negotiated the treaty cited above, which secured to the
Egyptians freedom of religion and security of life, and when the
Byzantine emperor Heraclius repudiated the treaty, the Mukawkis stuck to
his word and threw in his lot with the Arabs, whose valour and simple
earnestness deeply impressed him. When his envoys returned from an
embassy to the Saracens’ camp, he asked them what manner of men the
Muslims were, and they answered, “We found a people who love death
better than life, and set humility above pride, who have no desire or
enjoyment in this world, who sit in the dust and eat upon their knees,
but frequently and thoroughly wash, and humble themselves in prayer; a
people in whom the stronger can scarce be distinguished from the weaker,
or the master from the slave.” Such a character was new to the
Egyptians, who had long suffered under the corruption and luxury of the
Eastern Roman Empire, and, whatever part the Mukawkis personally may
have played in what has been called the betrayal of Christian Egypt, it
is certain that the population abetted the invaders.
Although Christianity had been the official religion of Egypt since the
Edict of Theodosius in 379, there was still a strong leaven of the old
local cults, and, more important still, there was a vigorous tendency to
nationalism both of church and state. The rule of Byzantium had never
been gracious to the Egyptian province; the Orthodox Church had been
tyrannous; and when at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 the Eutychian
heresy maintained by the Egyptian bishops was formally condemned, the
schism became irrevocable. From that time forward there were two
churches in Egypt, the State Church (or Orthodox Greek), supported from
Constantinople, and known as the Melekite or “Royalist,” and the
national church, afterwards called Jacobite, and generally known as the
Coptic Church. Copt is etymologically the same word as Egyptian (Greek,
Aiguptios; Arabic, Kibt and Kubt; English, Copt), and the Coptic Church
means nothing less than the Church of Egypt as separated by the adoption
of the heresy of Eutyches. The Egyptian Christians were as much Copts
before as after the Council of Chalcedon; but it was their devotion to a
metaphysical definition, which very few of them could possibly
understand, that made them a distinct church, and to this they owe at
once their misfortunes and their historical interest. By their adhesion
to the first Nicæan doctrine of the single nature of Christ they exposed
themselves to persecution and courted isolation, and sharing in none of
the developments of the other churches, they preserved in their scanty
and neglected community, unchanged for nearly fifteen hundred years, the
ancient tradition and ritual of the fifth century. It was their
implacable hatred of the Royalists that threw them into the arms of the
Muslim invaders. By the advice of their exiled patriarch they helped the
Arabs from the moment of their setting foot upon Egyptian soil. Eager to
rid themselves of Byzantine rule, and still more of the Royalist
hierarchy, they embraced they knew not what as a preferable alternative;
and after the Mukawkis, aided, according to tradition, by a _catholicos_
(probably Cyrus, Royalist patriarch of Alexandria), had succeeded in
obtaining a generous amnesty from the Arab general, the Copts rendered
every aid to the Muslims, assisted them with labour at bridge-making,
and brought them supplies. They soon discovered that they had only
exchanged masters, but the Arab, despite his haughty assumption of
superiority and his occasional outbursts of persecution, was a gentler
tyrant than the Roman of the Lower Empire.
Deprived of all support from the population, the Roman garrison of
Babylon surrendered in April 641. The Delta was quickly overrun, and the
Romans fell back upon Alexandria, which, distracted by factions and
deprived of competent leaders, yielded to panic, and eagerly accepted
‘Amr’s magnanimous terms. By the surrender of the Roman capital in
October 641, the Arab conquest of Egypt was complete. There was no
further resistance worthy the name. The Muslims spread over the land up
to the first cataract of the Nile, and Egypt became a province of the
caliphate.
On his return from Alexandria ‘Amr founded the Town of the Tent. The
great port on the Mediterranean was no suitable capital for Arab tribes,
whose inexperience magnified the terrors of the deep. Alexandria,
moreover, was liable at the period of Nile inundation to be cut off from
the centre of Arab power at Medina, and the caliph ‘Omar, not yet
inspired by dreams of a vast Muslim empire, was chiefly anxious to keep
in touch with the army of Egypt. ‘Amr indeed wished to retain Alexandria
as the capital. “Behold an abode made ready for us,” he said. But when
the caliph heard of it, he asked, “Will there be water between me and
the army of the Muslims?” and the answer was, “Yes, O commander of the
faithful, there will be the Nile,” so he set his face against
Alexandria. He regarded the new conquest as a barrack rather than a
colony. ‘Amr accordingly was bidden to choose a more central position,
and found it some ten miles north of the remains of the ancient capital
of Memphis, on the site of the camp which lay before the castle of
Babylon. An old canal, the Amnis Trajanus, had formerly connected
Babylon with the Red Sea at Suez, running past Bilbeys and the Crocodile
Lake, and this was immediately cleared of silt and reopened, so that
tribute and corn were sent by water to Arabia, and close relations were
thus maintained with the caliph.
The Town of the Tent owes its name to a pretty legend, which may very
probably be true. When ‘Amr led his Arabs against the old capital of
Egypt, he pitched his tent on the spot where his mosque now stands.
After the surrender of the castle of Babylon he marched upon Alexandria;
but when the soldiers went to strike his tent, they found that a dove
had laid her eggs within and was sitting on her nest. ‘Amr at once
declared the spot sacred, and ordered them not to disturb her; and when
on the return from the conquest of Alexandria the army set about
building quarters for themselves, ‘Amr bade them settle around his still
standing tent, and the first Arab city of Egypt was ever afterwards
known as el-Fustát, “the Tent,” or Misr-el-Fustát, or simply Misr. The
whole space between the Nile and the hill Mukattam, on a spur of which
stands the present Citadel, was bare at that time. There was nothing but
“waste land and sown fields,” and no buildings except some churches or
convents, and the Roman fortress of Babylon, or Babelyún, known to the
Arabs to this day as the Kasr-esh-Shema‘ or “Castle of the Beacon,”
because (says the Topographer, el-Makrízy) “this Kasr was illuminated on
the summit with candles [in Arabic _shema‘_] on the first night of every
month,” to serve as a kalendar; but it is possible, as Dr Butler has
suggested, that the name is merely a corruption of Kasr-el-_Khemi_, the
“Castle of Egypt,” and that the beacon story was invented to explain
it.[5]
Why ‘Amr did not occupy the old city of Misr we do not know: everything
connected with that vanished town is a mystery. Elsewhere the Arabs had
no scruple about taking possession of older cities, such as Damascus and
Edessa; but in Egypt they preferred to take fresh ground. Misr may have
been too small; or it is possible that the caliph’s orders that they
were not to acquire property and take root in the country led to the
original occupation of the bare stretch of land between Babylon and the
Mukattam hills. The first settlement undoubtedly resembled a temporary
camp rather than a city. They wanted plenty of space to separate the
various tribes who composed the Arab army, and who, despite their Muslim
brotherhood, were liable to recall their ancient jealousies. The site
they chose was ample and almost unencumbered. The tract was known as the
three Hamras or “red” spots[6]—the Nearer, the Middle, and the Further
Hamra—apparently from the red standard which was set up in the midst.
The Arab clans divided the three tracts amongst them and laid out their
settlements, from the fortress to where the mosque of Ibn-Tulún now
stands. In the midst was the general’s house, and close to it rose the
first mosque built in Egypt, the “Mosque of Conquest,” the “Crown of
Mosques,” as it was proudly called, but known later as the “Old Mosque,”
and now as the Mosque of ‘Amr. It was originally a very plain oblong
room, about 200 feet long by 56 wide, built of rough brick, unplastered,
with a low roof supported probably by a few columns, with holes for
light. There was no minaret, no niche for prayer, no decoration, no
pavement. Even the pulpit which ‘Amr set up was removed when the caliph
wrote in reproach, “Is it not enough for thee to stand whilst the
Muslims sit at thy feet?” For it was the duty of the conqueror to recite
the prayers and preach the Friday sermon in this humble building. It
soon became too small for the growing population of Fustát, and was
enlarged in 673 by taking in part of the house of ‘Amr; and at the same
time raised stations—the germ of the minaret—were erected at the corners
for the muézzins to recite the call to prayer. Twenty-five years later
the entire mosque was demolished by a later governor who rebuilt it on a
larger scale. So many and thorough have been the repairs and
reconstructions that there is probably not a foot of the original
building now in existence. What we see to-day is practically the mosque
rebuilt in 827 by ‘Abdallah ibn Táhir, and restored by Murád Bey in
1798, just before he engaged the French in the “battle of the Pyramids”
at Embába. It is four times the size of the original mosque, and
different in every respect.[7]
The “Old Mosque,” as the Topographer calls it, was intensely revered in
early times. It was there that the chief Kady held his court, and
learned men congregated in its arcades. It was a rallying point for
orthodoxy in times of schism and obtrusive heresies. When Fustát was
burned in 1168 the mosque escaped, though much injured, and Saladin
restored it; “where he found wood and stone he left marble.” But it was
as hopeless to maintain its popularity, when the town it belonged to was
in ashes, as it would be to induce the dwellers in Belgravia to attend
the services at Bow Bells. Fustát mostly in ruins, the congregation
dispersed, and the mosque of ‘Amr fell upon evil days. Ibn-Sa‘íd, a
Moorish traveller of the thirteenth century, found the sacred building
covered with cobwebs, and scrawled over with the ribald _graffiti_ of
loafers and vagabonds, the remains of whose victuals littered the floor.
There were few worshippers, and much unseemliness. “Musicians, and ape-
leaders, and conjurers, and mountebanks, and dancing-girls,” says the
historian Gabárty in the eighteenth century, desecrated the court, and
so decrepit did the building become that even these abandoned it. If
Murád Bey had not been “anxious about his soul,” for very good reasons,
and made peace with his conscience by spending some of his ill-gotten
gains upon the pious work of restoration, the “Crown of Mosques” would
have disappeared altogether. In the early part of the nineteenth century
it was still a favourite place of prayer for the people of Cairo on the
last Friday of the Fast of Ramadán. “It is believed that God will
receive with particular favour the prayers which are offered up in this
ancient mosque; therefore, when the Nile is tardy in rising, and the
people fear a scanty inundation and a consequent scarcity, the principal
Sheykhs and Imáms and learned and devout Muslims of the metropolis are
ordered to betake themselves to the mosque of ‘Amr to pray for an
increase of the river, together with the priests of the various
Christian churches and their congregations, and likewise the Jews; each
of these persuasions arranged by itself, without the mosque. Public
prayers were thus offered up for rain in this consecrated spot by
Muslims, Christians and Jews, in a time of unusual drought about twenty
years ago [_i.e._ 1825-8], and on the following day it rained.”[8]
[Illustration: COURT OF THE MOSQUE OF ‘AMR]
The outside of the oldest mosque in Egypt is not impressive. Among the
rubbish-hills that mark the site of the Town of the Tent, its long grey
walls, without windows or the least attempt at ornament, look dreary,
and the two plain minarets are equally unpretentious. But within,
despite decay and the loneliness of neglect, the vast empty court of
some forty thousand square feet, surrounded by colonnades, and the
forest of columns supporting the roof of the east end, the special place
of prayer, wholly dominate all mean details. Crowded with worshippers in
the rhythmic bowings of the Muslim ritual it must have been a wonderful
and solemn vision. The arches are of various ages, and the columns,
taken from churches, show the most diverse capitals, not always put the
right side up; the arcades do not run parallel to the walls, like
cloisters round a cathedral close, but open at right angles into the
court. Wooden beams stretch from column to column to support hanging
lamps, of which eighteen thousand were lighted every night in former
times, and the effect in the long vistas must have been superb. Those
nights of illumination are long over, and the conqueror’s mosque is a
melancholy ruin, the loneliness of which appeals to the imagination to
people it with the zealous groups of scholars and divines, fanatics and
doctors learned in the law, fakírs and holy men, who once bowed before
its deserted _kibla_. Not even the mark of the blessed Prophet’s
_kurbág_ on the grey marble of the pillar, which, urged by the
blow—despite all considerations of chronology—flew through the air from
Mekka when ‘Amr was building the mosque, nor the twin test columns
between which only true believers can squeeze (and even a Turkish
soldier stuck and almost died), avail to attract worshippers to the old
shrine except on very special occasions. Yet it is prophesied that the
fall of the mosque of ‘Amr will be the sign of the downfall of Islám,
and it is strange that a superstitious people are not more careful of
their omens.
The original mosque of the Arab conqueror has gone, but at least its
representative stands on the hallowed site. One cannot say as much for
Fustát, the Town of the Tent, which he founded. Whatever may remain of
this great city, which was the capital and the river-port of Egypt for
five centuries, lies hidden under the wilderness of sand-hills which
cover the débris and kitchen-middens of the mediæval town. Here, after a
strong wind has stirred the sand, you may sometimes chance to pick up
curious fragments of glass and pottery, Roman lamps, coins, glass-bottle
stamps with inscriptions recording the names of eighth century
governors, and such-like relics of what was once Fustát. Of its houses,
its governors’ palaces, its baths and schools, not a stone or brick
remains. The “granaries of Joseph” certainly date back at least to that
later Joseph, Saladin, for Benjamin of Tudela saw them in 1170; but
Masr-el-Atíka, or “Old Cairo,” is built on land which was covered by the
Nile in the days when Fustát was the capital. The rest is desolation. We
shall catch many glimpses of its history in chapters to come, and read
the descriptions of it written by Persian and Moorish travellers from
the east and the west, but such descriptions do not enable us to realize
the vanished Arab city.
One monument, however, of the age of the conquest still survives, but it
is not Arab. The Roman fortress of Babylon, the “Castle of the Beacon,”
stands where it once overlooked the Muslims’ tents and saw the Arab
capital growing up beneath its walls. To understand why it was called
Babylon, or as some say Bab-li-On, “the gate of On,” we must go to
Mataríya, a few miles north of Cairo, where stands a solitary obelisk,
sole relic of On or Heliopolis, the “City of the Sun.” In the plain of
Mataríya, before this lonely stone, the Turks fought the final battle
that won Cairo from the Mamlúks in 1517, and here Kléber gained his
victory in 1800 over the Turks. There stood the famous temple of On of
which Potipherah, the father of Joseph’s wife, was priest; here Pianchi,
the Ethiopian priest-king, eight centuries B.C., washed at the “Fountain
of the Sun,” and made offerings of white bulls, milk, perfume, incense,
and all kinds of sweet-scented woods, and entering the temple “saw his
father Ra [the sun-god] in the sanctuary.” Heliopolis was the university
of the most ancient civilization in the world, the forerunner of all the
schools of Europe. Here, in all probability, Moses was instructed by the
priests of Ra in “all the wisdom of the Egyptians”; here, too, Herodotus
cross-questioned the same priesthood with varying success; here Plato
came to study, and Eudoxus the mathematician to learn astronomy; and
here Strabo was shown the houses where the famous Greeks had lived. Of
this seat of learning and focus of religion nothing but the obelisk
remains. “The images of Beth-Shemesh” (the “House of the Sun”) have
indeed been “broken,” and “the houses of the Egyptians’ gods” have been
“burned with fire.”[9]
Beside the obelisk is an ancient sycamore, riven with age and hacked
with numberless names, beneath which tradition hath it that the Holy
Family rested in their flight into Egypt, and it is hence known as the
“Virgin’s Tree.” Near by is a spring of fresh water—a rare sight in this
brackish land—which, it is said, became sweet because the Bambino was
bathed there. From the spots where the drops fell from his swaddling
clothes, after they, too, had been washed in this sacred spring, sprang
up balsam-trees, which, it was believed, flourished nowhere else. There
is no evidence for these fancies, and, of course, the sycamore is but a
descendant of the supposed original, as it was not planted till after
1672. But the circumstances that a temple was built by the Hebrew Onias
for the worship of his countrymen near here, and that Jewish gardeners
were brought here for the culture of the balsam-trees, give the tale a
certain fitness.
Heliopolis is no more, but its guardian fortress, the “gate of On” still
defies time and the restorers’ hands, and the name of Babylon of Egypt,
applied to the capital (Fustát) as well as the fort, appears frequently
in the mediæval chronicles and romances. When Richard Cœur de Lion
defeated Saladin, the romance relates,
“The cheff Sawdon off Hethenysse
To Babyloyne was flowen, I wysse.”
Whether or not there is any foundation for the tradition reported by
Strabo and Diodorus that the castle was first built by exiles from the
greater Babylon of Chaldæa, the present fortress dates from the third or
possibly the second century of our era. The exterior is imposing, though
the walls have been injured, and the sand has buried their feet. The
greater part of the oblong outline is still sufficiently
distinguishable, and five bastions and two circular towers are well
preserved. The walls are built in the usual Roman manner, five courses
of stone alternating with three of brick—the origin, probably, of the
striped red and yellow decoration of the Muslim mosques and houses—and
their massive aspect even now makes one realize how much the capture of
such a stronghold must have meant to the early Arabs.
[Illustration: GATE OF KASR-ESH-SHEMA‘]
When we enter the stronghold the strange character of the fortress grows
upon us. Passing through narrow lanes, narrower and darker and dustier
even than the back alleys of Cairo, we are struck by the deadly
stillness of the place. The high houses that shut in the street have
little of the lattice ornament that adorns the thoroughfares of Cairo;
the grated windows are small and few, and but for an occasional heavy
door half open, and here and there the sound of a voice in the recesses
of the houses, we might question whether the fortress was inhabited at
all. Nothing, certainly, indicates that these plain walls contain six
sumptuous churches, with their dependent chapels, each of which is full
of carvings, pictures, vestments and furniture, which in their way
cannot be matched. A Coptic church is like a Mohammedan harím—it must
not appear from the outside. Just as the studiously plain exterior of
many a Cairo house reveals nothing of the latticed court within,
surrounded by rooms where inlaid dados, tiles, carved and painted
ceilings, and magnificent carpets, glow in the soft light of the stained
windows, so a Coptic church makes no outward show. High walls hide
everything from view. The Copts are shy of visitors, and the plain
exteriors are a sufficient proof of their desire to escape that notice
which in bygone days aroused cupidity and fanaticism.
After passing through a strong gateway, and traversing a vestibule, or
ascending some stairs, you find yourself in a small but beautifully
finished basilica, gazing at a carved choir-screen that any cathedral in
England might envy. In the dim light you see rows of valiant saints
looking down at you from above the sanctuary and over the screens, and
great golden texts in Coptic and Arabic, to the glory of God; while
above, the arches of the triforium over the aisles show where other
treasures of art are probably to be found. The general plan of a Coptic
church is basilican, but there are many points of wide divergence from
the strict pattern; the Byzantine feature of the dome is almost
universal, and sometimes the whole building is roofed over with a
cluster of a dozen domes. The church consists of a nave and side aisles,
waggon-vaulted (exactly like the early Irish churches, and like no
others), and very rarely has transepts, or approaches the cruciform
shape. The sparse marble columns that divide the nave from the aisles
generally return round the west end, and form a narthex or counterchoir,
where is sunk the Epiphany tank, once the scene of complete immersions,
but now used only for the feet-washing of Maundy Thursday. The church is
also divided cross-wise into three principal sections, besides the
narthex. The rearmost is the women’s place, whom the judicious Copts put
behind the men, and thereby prevent any disturbance of devotions much
more effectually than if the two sexes were ranged side by side as in
some Western churches. A lattice-work screen divides the women’s portion
from the men’s, which is always much larger and more richly decorated,
and the men’s division is similarly partitioned off from the choir by
another screen, while the altars, three in number, are placed each in a
separate apse, surmounted by a complete (not semicircular) dome, and
veiled by the most gorgeous screen of all, formed of ivory and ebony
crosses and geometrical panels, superbly carved with arabesques, and
surmounted by pictures and golden texts in Coptic and Arabic
letters.[10] During the celebration the central folding doors are thrown
back, the silver-embroidered curtain is withdrawn, and the high altar is
displayed to the adoring congregation, just as it is in the impressive
ceremonial of St Isaac’s cathedral at St Petersburg. The carved doors
and the silver-thread curtain, the swinging lamps and pendent ostrich
eggs, prepare us for something more gorgeous than the nearly cubical
plastered brick or stone altar, with its silk covering, and the
invariable recess in the east side, which originally had a more mystic
signification, but is now only used for the burying of the cross in a
bed of rose-leaves on Good Friday, whence it will be disinterred on
Easter-day. The Coptic altar stands detached from the wall of the
sanctuary, which is often coated with slabs of coloured marble, like the
dados one sees in the mosques, or with mosaic of the peculiar Egyptian
style; while above are painted panels or frescoes representing the
twelve apostles, with Christ in the midst in the act of benediction.
Over the altar spreads a canopy or baldacchino, which is also richly
painted with figures of angels. The central sanctuary with its altar is
divided off from the side altars by lattice screens.
A curious part of the furniture is the Ark, which holds the chalice
during the rite of consecration; and scarcely less interesting is the
flabellum, or fan for keeping gnats off the chalice, which is often
exquisitely fashioned of repoussé silver. Similar fans are represented
in the Irish Book of Kells. There is never a crucifix, but reliquaries
are not uncommon, though their place is not on the altar. The Coptic
church forbids the worship of relics, but every church has its bolster
full of them, and the devout believer attaches considerable importance
to their curative properties. Sometimes the most beautiful object in
metal-work in a Coptic church is the silver textus-case—corresponding to
the Irish _cumhdach_—in which the copy of the Gospels is supposed to be
sealed up, though generally a few leaves alone remain inside. It is
often a fine example of silver chasing and repoussé work, and is
reverently brought from the altar where it reposes to the officiating
deacon, who places it on the lectern while he reads from another copy.
The lectern itself is a favourite subject for decoration. That from the
Mu‘állaka church, now in the Coptic cathedral at Cairo, is covered with
the beautiful inlaid and carved panelling which is familiar in the doors
and pulpits of mosques.
Of the six churches contained within the fortress of Babylon, three are
of the highest interest; for, though the Greek church of St George,
perched on the top of the round tower, is finely decorated with Damascus
and Rhodian tiles and silver lamps, the Roman tower itself, with its
central well, great staircase, and curious radiating chambers, is more
interesting than the church above it. Of the three principal Coptic
churches, that of St Sergius, or Abu-Sarga, is the most often visited,
on account of the tradition that it was in its crypt that the Holy
Family rested when they journeyed to the land of Egypt. The crypt is
certainly many centuries older than the church above it, which dates
from the tenth century. The church itself is notable for a fine screen,
and close to it a remarkable specimen of early Coptic figure-carving,
with representations of the nativity and of warrior saints in high
relief. Another example of this style of deep carving exists in the
triforium of the church of Saint Barbara.
Besides Abu-Sarga and Kadísa-Barbára, there remains a third and very
interesting Coptic church to be mentioned. This is suspended between two
bastions of the Roman wall, over a gate with a classical pediment and a
sculptured eagle. It is called from its position the Mu‘állaka or
“hanging” church. It is remarkable in many ways, partly for being the
oldest of the Babylon churches, and partly on account of the entire
absence of domes. The Mu‘állaka has other peculiarities: it has
absolutely no choir—the daïs in front of the shallow eastern apses has
to serve the purpose; and it is double aisled on the north side.—The
carved screen in the north aisle has the unique property of being filled
in with thin ivory panels, which must have shone with a rosy tint when
the lamps behind were lighted. The sculptured pulpit is especially
beautiful; it stands on “fifteen delicate Saracenic columns, arranged in
seven pairs, with a leader.” Not the least curious part about the
“suspended” church is its hanging garden, where the bold experiment of
planting palms in mid air has succeeded in perpetuating the tradition
that it was here that the Virgin first broke fast with a meal of dates
on her arrival in Egypt.
This is not the place to enter into the doctrine and ritual of the
Coptic church. The appalling Lenten fast of the Copts, which lasts
fifty-five days, and involves total abstinence from food from sunrise to
sunset during each of those days, no doubt suggested the only less
rigorous Muslim fast of Ramadán. The Coptic sacrament of matrimony has
certain elements of the grotesque in it; but most of the ceremonial of
the church possesses a dignity and the sweet savour of antiquity which
must redeem any minor absurdities. No one can stand unmoved in a Coptic
church during the celebration of the Mass, or hear the worshippers shout
with one voice, just as they did some fifteen hundred years ago, the
loud response, “I believe This is the Truth,” without emotion. Through
fiery persecution they have clung to their truth with a heroism that is
only the more wonderful when we consider their weakness; and however
partial and ignorant their interpretation of truth, we cannot withhold
the respect that is the due of those who have come out of great
tribulation and remained steadfast to their faith.
CHAPTER III
_The Faubourgs_
BY the Arab conquest in 640 Egypt became a province of the caliphate,
and was ruled, like the other provinces, by governors appointed by the
caliphs. The first four successors of Mohammad retained Medina, the
Arabian city of his adoption, as their seat of government; but after the
murder of ‘Aly, the fourth caliph, the dynasty of the Omayyads
transferred the centre of power to Damascus. From Damascus therefore
came most of the thirty governors who held rule over the land of Egypt
during the ninety years of the Omayyad caliphate. Some of them were sons
or brothers of the reigning caliphs, and most were naturally court
favourites, inexperienced in the art of government, and ignorant of
everything save their religion and their language. The object of the
sovereign pontiff at Damascus was to get as much revenue as he could out
of the subject provinces, and Egypt especially was regarded in the light
of a valuable milch-cow. ‘Amr, the conqueror, was the first governor,
and from his new capital of Fustát he sent out his officers and
collected about £6,000,000 from a population estimated at from six to
eight millions. When the old warrior died at the age of ninety and was
buried in the Mukattam hills he is said to have left seventy sacks of
_dinárs_[11] or something like ten tons of gold, which his conscientious
sons declined to inherit.
However this may be, it is certain that the governors looked chiefly to
the revenue, and did little for the country but draw the not very
burdensome land and capitation taxes, and accumulate such pickings as
might be safely diverted to their own use. A governor whose average
tenure of office was three and a half years, and whose future livelihood
often depended wholly on his savings, was under serious temptation to
make the most of his brief opportunities. There were good _wális_ and
bad, but the shortness of their tenure and their absolute dependence
upon the caliph at Damascus restricted their powers and energies, and
they generally contented themselves with keeping order and rendering
tribute to their pontifical Cæsar. The position was not easy. There were
some thousands of Arab soldiers at Fustát and Alexandria and some other
towns, constantly increased, however, by the troops brought into the
country by successive governors; but all the rest of the population was
Christian and resolved to remain so. Indeed, any wholesale conversion
was much to be deprecated, since it implied the loss of the poll-tax of
a guinea a head which was levied only from non-Muslims. Still, it was
dangerous to be in so marked a minority, and we find that about ninety
years after the conquest, a governor, despairing of any considerable
accession of native Egyptians to the Muslim ranks, was driven to import
5000 Arabs into the Delta. It was only by very slow degrees and after
much intermarriage and many partial immigrations that Egypt became
Muslim, and for a long time the Arabs were practically confined to the
large towns.
Fustát itself must soon have attracted a numerous Coptic population from
the decaying Egyptian towns in the neighbourhood, not only in wives for
the conquerors, but in officials. All the details of government were
naturally in the hands of the subject people. The desert Arabs knew
nothing beyond the patriarchal rule of the clan, and they adopted
everywhere the system they found prevailing in a conquered territory.
Roman offices were translated into Arabic equivalents, and the Copts, a
race of born clerks and accountants, managed all the departments. For
half a century the government books and public documents were written in
Coptic. Usefulness does not necessarily compel toleration, and the
Christians did not always escape persecution in spite of their official
services. They were better treated, however, than is sometimes imagined.
Grateful for their assistance in the stress of the invasion ‘Amr granted
privileges to the Jacobites and recalled their exiled patriarch. Another
governor allowed the Copts to build a church at Fustát beside the bridge
that connected the capital with the island of Roda, and a third, ‘Abd-
el-‘Azíz, son of the caliph Marwán, bought the monastery at Tamweyh from
the monks for over £10,000 when he wanted a country house. He went there
in order to be cured of elephantiasis in the sulphur springs of Helwán,
between Cairo and Memphis, and it is curious to consider how nearly this
modern health-resort (now moved further towards the desert) became the
capital of Egypt. ‘Abd-el-‘Azíz was so charmed with the climate of
Helwán that he built mosques there (695), a palace, known as the “Golden
House” from its gilt dome, and a glass winter-garden, planted trees,
made a lake and aqueduct, and constructed a Nilometer. Hitherto the
lower Nile had been measured at Memphis, but in 716 a new Nilometer was
set up on the island of Roda, where a second was afterwards built at the
upper end of the island in 861. Subsequent governors, however, did not
share the ideas of ‘Abd-el-‘Azíz either in regard to the charms of
Helwán or in relation to the Copts, and we read of a vexatious system of
passports, badges for monks, fines and tortures, and destruction of
sacred pictures, which excited such indignation that the people rose in
rebellion in the east of the Delta, and the Christian king of Nubia
marched into Egypt to demand the release of an imprisoned patriarch.
These Muslim persecutions were not a whit more cruel than the
contemporary Christian persecutions of the Jews, but this does not make
them the more defensible. The monks seem to have especially excited the
fanaticism of the early Muslims, whose puritanism found no place for
monastic rules. In later times the Shí‘a caliphs of Cairo took very
kindly to the Coptic monks, but it was not so in the cruder and fiercer
age of the Arab conquests. Monasticism was a potent force in Egypt from
very early days. The followers of St Mark in the third century had
settled in scattered communities all over the Delta, and had already
begun to formulate what is known as “the Egyptian rule.” We do not yet
know how much we owe to these remote hermits. Some have held that Irish
Christianity, the great civilizing agent of the early Middle Ages among
the northern nations, was the child of the Egyptian Church. Seven
Egyptian monks are buried at Disert Ulidh, and there is much in the
ceremonies and architecture of early Ireland that reminds one of still
earlier Christian remains in Egypt. Everyone knows that the handicraft
of the Irish monks in the ninth and tenth centuries far excelled
anything that could be found elsewhere in Europe; and if the Byzantine-
looking decoration of their splendid gold and silver work and their
superb illuminations can be traced to the teaching of Egyptian
missionaries, we have more to thank the Copts for than has been
imagined. That Arab architecture owes to them much of its decorative
charm is among the commonplaces of the history of art.
Such considerations naturally could not influence a people so wholly
dead to artistic ideas as the Arabs. To them the Coptic monks were
merely candidates for clerkships and owners of secret hoards to be
squeezed for the benefit of the faithful. Any thought of fellowship or
amity was out of the question, and the fact that persecution was not
more general and consistent must be ascribed to the indolence or good
nature of individual governors, and to the prudent maxim that deprecates
the slaughter of the goose that lays golden eggs. Now and again we read
of cruel massacres and tortures, and destruction of churches, and next
we hear of permission granted for the building or restoration of a
church. We find the Copts quietly meeting in the fortress of Babylon,
which they always occupied, to elect a patriarch; and almost at the same
moment appear notices of humiliating sumptuary rules, a distinguishing
garb of some ridiculous colour, and wooden effigies of the devil hung
over Coptic doors. Every now and then some rising, or a mere street
quarrel, would be made the pretext for a wholesale massacre, when many
churches were razed to the ground.
In spite of persecution, in spite of the apostasy of the weaker
brethren, the Church still preserved a painful existence. There is
something truly heroic in the constancy of these ignorant people—for the
Coptic priesthood was never famous for learning—to the faith of their
forefathers. They still persevered in the celebration of the rites of
their religion, though the loop-holed walls, massive doors, and secret
passages of their surviving churches testify to the perils that attended
such solemnities. From time to time many of them waxed rich, as the
gorgeous adornments of these churches show; for their masters could not
do without their skill in reckoning and scriveners’ work. Aided by this
monopoly, and supported by a dogged adherence to their ancient faith,
the Copts present to this day the curious spectacle of a people who have
stood still for ages, and, through many centuries of varying
persecution, have preserved their individuality and their traditions.
They are still a people apart, less mixed with alien blood than any
other inhabitants of the Nile valley; their features recall those of the
ancient Egyptians, as we see them on the monuments, much more than do
the faces of the Muslim population. And not only in person but in
language the Copts are a remnant of ancient Egypt. Their tongue,
preserved in their liturgy and recited to-day in their churches, is the
lineal descendant of the language of the hieroglyphics and of the
Rosetta stone. For ordinary purposes of course they use the Arabic of
their neighbours, but the sacred speech of their religion is still
partly understood by the priests, and retains its place of honour before
the Arabic translation in the services of the church. By another curious
freak of conservatism they preserve this ancient language, not in the
script that belonged to it—the cursive development of the picture
writing of the monuments—but in the bold uncial character of early Greek
manuscripts. A people of the race of the Pharaohs, speaking the words of
Ramses, writing them with the letters of Cadmus, and embalming in the
sentences thus written a creed and liturgy which twelve centuries of
persecution have not been able to wrest from them or alter a jot, are
indeed a curiosity of history.
The Omáyyad caliphs were superseded by the ‘Abbásids in 750, and Fustát
was the scene of the final struggle. Marwán, the last caliph of the
fallen dynasty, fled to Egypt, and setting fire to Fustát and the bridge
that joined it to the island of Roda, escaped to the west bank. His
precautions were vain. The ‘Abbásid general and the men of Khurasán soon
found the means of crossing, and Marwán’s head was sent round the towns
in evidence of the change of power. Usurpers have an invincible
repugnance to dwelling in the houses of the usurped. The ‘Abbásid
caliphs left Damascus and built themselves a famous new capital at
Baghdád; and their governors in Egypt, abandoning the House of the
Emírate at Fustát, established a new official suburb, a Versailles of
the Egyptian Paris, on the place where the pursuing army had encamped,
and named it el-‘Askar or “the Cantonments.” The site was a little to
the north-east of Fustát, on a part of the Further Hamra, which had been
occupied by three tribes at the time of the Arab conquest, but had since
been abandoned and become desert. Here a faubourg grew up, which
extended from Fustát to the hill of Yeshkur, on which the mosque of Ibn-
Tulún now stands. A mosque was soon built, and a palace for the governor
as well as barracks for his troops. Streets and quarters and large
mansions clustered round the new fashionable centre, where the sixty-
five _wális_ who represented the ‘Abbásid caliphs for 118 years had
their seat of government. One of them, Hátim, in 810 built himself a
summer palace called the “Dome of the Air” (Kubbat-el-Hawa) on a spur of
the Mukattam, where the Citadel of Cairo is now built, and thither the
emírs of Egypt often resorted to enjoy the cool breeze. The new faubourg
was merely the quarter of the officials and court circles, and did not
diminish the importance of Fustát as the metropolis of Egypt.
Not a trace is left of this suburb, and the record of the governors who
lived there is almost equally fleeting.[12] They had a more difficult
task than their predecessors under the Omayyads, and had to suppress
insurrections of Mohammedan schismatics as well as risings among the
Arab tribes and the Copts. Fustát bore unpleasant witness to the revolts
in the thousands of rebels’ heads that were exhibited, and the courage
of hesitating heretics was damped by the sight of their leader’s skull
hung up in the mosque of ‘Amr. The history of the century from 750 to
860 is one long chronicle of “sedition, privy conspiracy and rebellion,
false doctrine, heresy and schism,” but the disturbances hardly affected
the prosperous capital. The vagaries of some of the governors were much
more vexatious to the quiet citizens. Abu-Sálih ibn Memdúd, in 779, was
a middlesome martinet, who showed great energy in putting down
brigandage in the country, and was so satisfied with his measures that
he convinced himself of the impossibility of theft in the towns.
Confiding in this belief he ordered the people of Fustát to leave their
doors and shops open all night, with no more protection than a net to
keep the dogs out; he abolished the office of the watchman who used to
guard the bathers’ clothes at the public baths, and proclaimed that if
anything were lost he would replace it himself. It is said that when a
man went to the bath he would call out “O Abu-Sálih, take care of my
clothes!” and no one would dare to touch them. Such security argued
great vigilance on the governor’s part, but his absurd laws of dress and
general interference irritated the people, and his severity was worse
than the evils it put down.
A story is told of the famous caliph Harún-er-Rashíd, which would
scarcely invite respect for his nominees. One governor of his time, Musa
the ‘Abbásid, “was a man of great official experience, and well-disposed
towards the Copts, whom he allowed to rebuild their ruined churches.
When it was reported that he was harbouring designs against the caliph
[whom, as one of the family, he might possibly succeed], Harún
exclaimed, with his usual levity, ‘By Allah, I will depose him, and in
his place I will set the meanest creature of my court.’ Just then ‘Omar,
the secretary of the caliph’s mother, came riding on his mule. ‘Will you
be governor of Egypt?’ asked Ga‘far the Barmecide. ‘Oh, yes,’ said
‘Omar. No sooner said than done, ‘Omar rode his mule to Fustát, followed
by a single slave carrying his baggage. Entering the governor’s house
(at ‘Askar), he took his seat in the back row of the assembled court.
Musa, not knowing him, asked his business, whereat ‘Omar presented him
with the caliph’s dispatch. On reading it, Musa exclaimed in Koranic
phrase, ‘God curse Pharaoh, who said, Am I not King of Egypt?’ and
forthwith delivered up the government to ‘the meanest creature.’”
On the other hand a really capable ruler was sometimes sent from
Baghdad. Such was ‘Abdallah the son of Táhir, governor of Khurasán in
northern Persia (where he afterwards founded a dynasty), whose task in
Egypt was to drive out a troublesome multitude of refugees from Spain,
who had seized Alexandria, and, joined by a hot-headed Arab tribe, set
the government at defiance. ‘Abdallah, in the course of his mission, was
compelled to attack the preceding governor, who refused to be
superseded, and Fustát was blockaded (826). A curious incident of the
leaguer was the arrival one night in the invader’s camp of a thousand
slaves and a thousand slave girls, each of whom brought a thousand
dinárs in a purse. ‘Abdallah refused the bribe, and starved the garrison
out. Unfortunately, when his work was done he returned to Persia, and
Egypt lost a rare example of “a just and humane governor, a man of
learning, and a staunch friend to poets.” A reminiscence of his rule may
still be tasted at any Cairo hotel in the ‘Abdalláwi melons which he
first introduced. A greater than he visited ‘Askar when the caliph
Mamún, son of Harún-er-Rashíd, and himself a noted patron of learning
and philosophy, came in person in 832 to put down a determined revolt of
the Copts in the Delta, and did the work so thoroughly and so
relentlessly that there never again was a national movement amongst
them; and partly by their conversion to Islam, partly by the settlement
of Arabs on the land and in the villages, instead of only in the large
cities, Egypt began at last to become preponderantly a Mohammedan
country. It was the first time that an ‘Abbásid caliph had visited the
Nile, the praises of which poets had constantly been dinning in his
ears; and when el-Mamún surveyed the view from the “Dome of the Air,” he
was frankly disappointed. Using the same phrase from the Korán as the
superseded governor, he exclaimed, “God curse Pharaoh for saying Am I
not king of Egypt? If only he had seen Chaldæa and its meadows!” “Say
not so,” rejoined a divine, “for it is also written, ‘we have brought to
nought what Pharaoh and his folk reared and built so skilfully,’ and
what must have been those things which God destroyed, if these be but
their remnants!”[13]
The caliph’s visit, if it put an end to Coptic insurrection, brought
other troubles in its train. His interest in metaphysical and
theological speculation, which encouraged the study of Greek philosophy
at Baghdád, led him among other things to adopt the doctrine of the
createdness of the Korán, which was flat against all orthodox Muslim
theory. The hated doctrine was made a test question for the kádis or
theological judges, and the consequences to those who indulged
conscientious scruples were distressing. A non-conforming chief kády of
Fustát was shorn of his beard—the worst indignity he could suffer—and
whipped through the city on an ass. The orthodox professors of the
Hánafy and Sháfi‘y schools were driven out of the mosque of ‘Amr in
disgrace. The contumely was the less deserved inasmuch as in those days
the judges were the one healthy feature of the Egyptian government.
Upright and incorruptible, as a rule, and independent of the governor,
the chief kády, who may be called the lord chancellor and primate of
Egypt in one, was a firm if narrow interpreter and administrator of the
sacred law, and would resign his office sooner than submit to his
judgments being overruled. He was not, however, disposed to check his
people’s fanaticism, and the suppression of the Christian revolt was
followed by worse persecution than ever. An orthodox reaction began
after Mamún’s death, and a new caliph issued a number of petty
regulations for the humiliation of the Copts (850). They were ordered
“to wear honey-coloured clothes with distinguishing patches, use wooden
stirrups, and set up wooden images of the devil or an ape or dog over
their doors; the girdle, the symbol of femininity, was forbidden to
women, and ordered to be worn by men: crosses must not be shown, nor
processional lights carried in the streets,” and so forth. The object of
course was to furnish opportunities for fines and extortion.
There is no need to dwell further upon the period of Arab rule at Fustát
and ‘Askar. The Arab governors left little trace, and though it is to be
regretted that not a single specimen of their buildings has come down to
us, as links in the history of Saracenic art, it is not probable that
these edifices were remarkable. The Arabs have never done anything in
art by themselves. What is called “Arab art” in Spain was due to a
mixture of other and more gifted races, and in Egypt we find no
Mohammedan art until the caliphs began to appoint Turks as Governors.
One hears a great deal about the misgovernment of the Turk in the
present day; but be it good or bad, it is never denied that he can
govern. In the Middle Ages it would almost appear that the Turks were
the only people who possessed the art of governing. The greatest ruler
of Western Asia in the eleventh century—the Seljúk emperor, Melik
Shah—was a Turk. The so-called Moghuls of India, Babar and Akbar, were
Turks. When Europe was split up by jealous and ignoble rivalries, the
great Turkish sultans of Constantinople wielded power from the Danube to
the Indian Ocean, and from the Caucasus to the Atlas. Most curious it is
that wherever there was Turkish rule in the Middle Ages, art and letters
flourished. Indeed, in many parts art can hardly be said to have
reawakened till the Turk came to inspire it. It was not that he could do
anything notable himself in art or letters, for at least among the
Turkish rulers of Egypt—and with an interval of less than two hundred
years its rulers have been almost all Turks for the past eleven
centuries—it would be hard to point to many who were distinguished for
cultivation; it was rather that their strong hand preserved the order
that is essential to the work of culture, and their unscrupulous levies
produced the money, that was needed for the beautiful and grandiose
buildings in which they loved to see their power and wealth reflected.
Many of them probably had a genuine love of art, most of them were fond
of luxury and display, and delighted to surround themselves with the
costly products of exquisite workmanship; and a good many, no doubt,
believed that the endowment of sanctuaries might expiate the sins of a
life, remembering the words of the Prophet, “Whosoever builds for God a
place of worship, be it only as the nest of a grouse, God buildeth for
him a house in Paradise.” Whatever the cause, the fact remains that the
influence of the Turk is found in the artistic energy of every part of
the East from the Bosporus to the Ganges. It was to the Turks of Delhi
and Agra that we owe the Kutb Minár, the Taj, the intricate graces of
Fathpur Sikri; Turks built the Atala Mesjid at Jaunpur, the mosques of
Ahmadabad, of Gaur, of Bijapur; Seljúk Turks were the founders of the
noble buildings of Kóniya, Kaysaríya, Sivás, and other cities of Asia
Minor; Othmanly Turks built the shrines of Brusa and the imperial
mosques, second indeed, but only second, to St Sophia at Constantinople.
In Egypt we find the same thing: the first example of distinctively
Saracenic art appears only when the Turk assumed the sceptre. Up to 856
every governor of Egypt was an Arab, and, with the doubtful exception of
the mosque of ‘Amr, not a single monument attests their public spirit.
From 856 the governors were Turks, and twenty years later rose the
mosque of Ibn-Tulún, the first and most remarkable monument of Arab art
in the country.
It would take us far from Cairo to explain how the Turks came to be
rulers of Egypt. The movement was part of that overflow of the peoples
of Central Asia which has been going on from the beginning of history;
but it was assisted by the policy of the caliphs. Alarmed at the growing
power of provincial dynasts in Persia, and threatened by turbulent Arab
tribes in Mesopotamia, the ‘Abbásids imported a guard of mercenaries
recruited from the slave markets of the Oxus, and for a while rejoiced
in the protection of these stalwart young Turks. The old question, _Quis
custodiet?_ soon arose, and the luxurious and effeminate caliphs of
Baghdád realized too late that in purchasing these valiant slaves they
had virtually condemned themselves to slavery. The Turkish captain of
the bodyguard became the _maire du palais_ of the Baghdád _roi
fainéant_, the offices of State were seized by the Turks, and the
government of the western provinces was confided to their friends. At
first they contented themselves with the profits without the cares of
office, and a series of Turkish emírs, living at Baghdád or elsewhere in
Mesopotamia, held the fief and drew the surplus revenue of Egypt through
Arab deputy-governors. But in 856 the deputy as well as the fieffee was
a Turk, and in 868 the Turkish fieffee Bakbak sent his stepson, Ahmad
ibn Tulún, to govern Egypt as his representative.
Ahmad, the son of Tulún, was thirty-three years of age when he arrived
at Fustát, and combined in a remarkable degree the military and
administrative ability of his race with the culture of his adopted
civilization. He had studied under the learned professors of Baghdád,
and even journeyed to Tarsus for the benefit of special lectures. In
matters of Arabic philology and Koranic doctrine he was critically
expert. But beyond this he was a man of boundless energy, an unerring
judge of character, who knew how to choose and use his subordinates. His
justice, if stern, was incorruptible, and his generosity was superb.
“Give to every one who holds out the hand” was his motto, and every
month he devoted a thousand dinárs to charity. He came to Egypt
penniless, save for a loan from a friend; but when he died he left ten
million dinárs in the treasury, an immense establishment of slaves and
horses, and a hundred ships of war. Yet he accomplished his economies
without increasing the taxes. Indeed he abolished various imposts, and
his revenues were due chiefly to the pains he took to encourage
cultivation and to give the fellahín better security in their land. For
the first time since the Arab conquest Egypt became a powerful and
sovereign State. Ahmad soon threw over all save a nominal dependence on
the caliphate, and after overcoming intrigues and subduing three
rebellions in Egypt, he marched into Syria, and occupied the whole
country as far as Tarsus and the Euphrates, fought the armies both of
the caliphate and of the Romans of the Cilician frontier, and united
under his sole authority the broad stretch of territory from Barka in
Libya to the borders of the Byzantine empire in Asia Minor, and from the
Euphrates to the first cataract of the Nile.
[Illustration: TOWER OF THE MOSQUE OF IBN-TULUN]
Side by side with this imperial policy Ahmad expended infinite labour
and wealth upon the embellishment of his capital. “The government house
at el-‘Askar, the official suburb of Fustát, was too small to house his
numerous retinue and army. He was not content, either, with a mere
governor’s palace. In 870 he chose a site on the hill of Yeshkur [at the
north-east extremity of ‘Askar, next to the House of the Emirate],
levelled the graves of the Christian cemetery there, and founded the
royal suburb of el-Katái‘, or ‘the Wards,’ so called because each class
or nationality (as household servants, Greeks, Sudánis) had a distinct
quarter assigned to it. The new town stretched from the present Rumeyla
beside the Citadel to the shrine of Zeyn-el-‘Abidin, and covered a
square mile. The new palace was built below the old ‘Dome of the Air,’
and had a great garden and a spacious enclosed horse-course or Meydán
adjoining it, with mews and a menagerie; the government house was on the
south of the great mosque, which still stands, and there was a private
passage which led from the residence to the oratory of the emír. A
separate palace held the harím, and there were magnificent baths,
markets, and all apparatus of luxury.”[14]
The generals and officers built their houses round about, and great
mansions soon covered the new site. The bazars were even better than at
Fustát, well built and filled with choice wares. The Meydán, where Ahmad
and his captains played mall or polo, became the favourite resort of the
town, and if one asked anybody where he was going the answer was sure to
be “To the Meydán.” It was entered by a number of gates, restricted to
special classes, such as the Gate of the Nobles, the Gate of the Harím,
or named after some peculiarity, as the Gate of Lions, which was
surmounted by two lions in plaster, the Sag Gate, made of teak, the Gate
of ed-Darmún, so called because a huge black chamberlain of that name
mounted guard there. Only Ahmad himself could ride through the central
arch of the great triple gate: his 30,000 troops passed through the side
arches. On review days he stationed himself on a daïs and watched the
crowd come in by the Polo Gate (Bab es-Sawáliga) and pass out by the
Gate of Lions, above which he had a balcony, whence on the night of the
great festival he could survey the whole faubourg and see what the
people were about. The view from this belvedere reached to the gate of
Fustát and to the Nile, and it was a favourite resort of the emír.
The palace was supplied with water from a spring in the southern desert
by means of an aqueduct, the traces of which may still be seen—not that
of many arches running from the Citadel to the Nile, which belongs to a
much later date. The people, in Eastern fashion, naturally found fault
with the quality of the pure water to which their own muddy wells and
turgid Nile had not accustomed them. Rumours of this reached Ibn-Tulún,
and he sent for the learned doctor Mohammad Ibn ‘Abd-el-Hakam to resolve
these suspicions. “I was one night in my house,” he related, “when a
slave of Ibn-Tulún’s came and said, ‘The emir wants thee.’ I mounted my
horse in a panic of terror, and the slave led me off the high road.
‘Where are you taking me?’ I asked. ‘To the desert,’ was the reply; ‘the
emir is there.’ Convinced that my last hour was come, I said, ‘God help
me! I am an aged and feeble man: do you know what he wants with me?’ The
slave took pity on my fears and said, ‘Beware of speaking
disrespectfully of the aqueduct.’ We went on till suddenly I saw torch-
bearers in the desert, and Ibn-Tulún on horseback at the door of the
aqueduct, with great wax candles burning before him. I forthwith
dismounted and salaamed, but he did not greet me in return. Then I said,
‘O emir, thy messenger hath grievously fatigued me, and I thirst; let
me, I beg, take a drink.’ The pages offered me water, but I said, ‘No, I
will draw for myself.’ I drew water while he looked on, and drank till I
thought I should have burst. At last I said, ‘O emir, God quench thy
thirst at the rivers of Paradise! for I have drunk my fill, and know not
which to praise most, the excellence of this cool, sweet, clear water,
or the delicious smell of the aqueduct.’ ‘Let him retire,’ said Ibn-
Tulún, and the slave whispered, ‘Thou hast hit the mark.’”
The monument which has immortalized Ibn-Tulún, however, is his mosque,
the only building of all his sumptuous little city that has survived the
buffets of civil war and the slow detrition of neglect. It is the most
interesting monument of Mohammedan Egypt, and forms a landmark in the
history of architecture. Two features specially distinguish it: it was
built entirely of new materials, instead of the spoils of old churches
and temples, and it is the earliest instance of the use of the pointed
arch throughout a building, earlier by at least two centuries than any
in England. They are true pointed arches, with a very slight return at
the spring, but not enough to suggest the horse-shoe form. The
Topographer relates how Ahmad lighted upon a treasure in the Mukattam
hills, at a place called “Pharaoh’s Oven,” and resolved to build with it
a mosque large enough to hold the vast congregations that then
overcrowded the mosque of el-‘Askar. He chose for the site the flat-
topped rocky hill of Yeshkur, a sure place for prayers to be answered,
since it was believed to be the spot where Moses held converse with
Jehovah. Here the foundations were laid in 876 (263 A.H.), and two years
later the work was finished and public prayers were held in the presence
of the emír. Ibn-Tulún was at first in a difficulty how to procure the
three hundred columns needed to support the arcades, but his architect,
who was a Christian and doubtless a Copt,[15] and was at the time in
prison for some offence, wrote to him that he would undertake to build
him a mosque of the size he required without columns. He was brought
before the emír who said, “Woe to thee! what is this that thou sayest
respecting the building of the mosque?” “I will draw the plan for the
prince,” answered the Christian, “that he may see it with his eyes, with
no columns save the two beside the _kibla_.” They brought him skins and
he drew the plan. Such a design was evidently quite new in mosque
building, but Ahmad saw its merits at once, arrayed the designer in a
robe of honour, and gave him 100,000 dinárs to carry out his plan. When
it was done he gave him 10,000 more, and the total cost is stated to
have amounted to 120,000 dinárs or about £63,000. The use of brick
arches and piers, instead of marble columns, was due partly to the
emír’s reluctance to deprive the Christian churches of so many pillars,
but even more to his anxiety to make his mosque safe from fire. He was
told that if he built it of “mortar and cinders and red brick well
burnt” it would resist fire better than if constructed of marble, and
the fact remains that the mosque has withstood the conflagrations that
devastated the rest of the faubourg. The adoption of the new plan of
brick piers, instead of columns, led to the employment of the pointed
arch, and the exclusion of marble suggested the plaster or stucco
decoration which still preserves its original admirable designs.
Five rows of arches form the cloister at the Mekka or south-east side,
and two rows on the other sides; arches and piers are alike coated with
gypsum, and the ornaments on the arches and round the stone grilles or
windows are all worked by hand in the plaster. The difference between
the soft flexuousness of this work, done with a tool in the moist
plaster, and the hard mechanical effect of the designs impressed with a
mould in the Alhambra is striking: it is the difference between the
artist and the artisan. On the simple rounded capitals of the engaged
columns built at the corner of each arch there is a rudimentary bud and
flower pattern, and on either side of the windows between the arches
facing the court, which also are pointed and have small engaged columns,
is a rosette, and a band of rosettes runs round the court beneath the
crenellated parapet. The inner arches are differently treated. “Round
the arches and windows runs a knop and flower pattern, which also runs
across from spring to spring of arch beneath the windows, and a band of
the same ornament runs all along above the arches, in place of the
rosettes, which only occur in the face fronting the court; over this
band and likewise running along the whole length of all the inner
arcades is a Kufic inscription carved in wood, and above this is the
usual crenellated parapet. The arcades are roofed over with sycamore
planks resting on heavy beams. In the rearmost arcade the back wall is
pierced with pointed windows, which are filled, not with coloured glass,
but with grilles of stone forming geometrical designs with central
rosettes or stars.”[16]
The general form of the mosque is similar to that of ‘Amr as restored,
the form of every mosque in Cairo from the ninth to the thirteenth
century. The great square court, covering three acres of ground, gave
room for the largest assembly, whilst the covered arcades offered
shelter from the sun to the ordinary congregation and to the groups of
students, ascetics, and beggars who have always made their home in
mosques. The south-east arcade or _liwán_, with its deeper aisles, was
the special sanctuary,[17] where the _mihráb_ or niche in the wall
showed the direction (_kibla_) of Mekka, towards which the prayers of
the faithful must turn, and the pulpit (_minbar_) and platform (_dikka_)
gave the preacher and the precentors vantage to make their voices heard
throughout the crowd of worshippers. So far there is nothing original
about the mosque. The form may have been adopted by the Arabs from
ancient Semitic temples, or the great court may represent the atrium of
the Byzantine basilica and the liwán the basilica itself, only supported
on pillars instead of vaulted roofs, with a relic of the apse in the
concave _mihráb_; but it was too obviously suited to the requirements of
the climate to need any curious derivation.
[Illustration: WITHIN THE MOSQUE OF IBN-TULUN]
The dome and minaret, so characteristic of later Cairo mosques, are here
wanting. The odd-looking corkscrew tower with external winding
staircase, like the Assyrian ziggurat, has a fellow in the tower of
Samarra on the Tigris, from which it was doubtless copied, but the upper
part has probably been restored; though the tower of Ibn-Tulún was
certainly in existence in 1047, when it is mentioned by Násir-i-Khusrau.
But it is hardly a minaret in the common sense of the term.[18] There is
no dome, because the dome has nothing to do with prayer, and therefore
nothing with a mosque.[19] “It is simply the roof of a tomb, and only
exists where there is a tomb to be covered, or at least where it was
intended that a tomb should be. Only when there is a chapel attached to
a mosque, containing the tomb of the founder or his family, is there a
dome, and it is no more closely connected with the mosque itself than is
the grave it covers: neither is necessary to a place of prayer. It
happens, however, that a large number of the mosques of Cairo are
mausoleums, containing a chamber with the tomb of the founder, and the
profusion of domes to be seen, when one looks down upon the city from
the battlements of the Citadel, has brought about the not unnatural
mistake of thinking that every mosque must have a dome. Most mosques
with tombs have domes, but no mosque that was not intended to contain a
tomb ever had one in the true sense. The origin of the dome may be
traced to the cupolas which surmount the graves of Babylonia, many of
which must have been familiar to the Arabs [and still more to the
Turks], who preserved the essentially sepulchral character of the form
and never used it, as did the Copts and Byzantines, to say nothing of
Western architects, to roof a church or its apse.”
[Illustration: DETAIL OF ORNAMENT IN MOSQUE OF IBN-TULUN]
But if there is little originality in the shape of the mosque, its
pointed arches and its decoration are worth studying. Pointed arches
occur also in the second Nilometer on the island of Roda, as rebuilt in
861, some fifteen years earlier than the mosque of Ibn-Tulún, and the
architect of this building is stated to have been a native of Ferghána
on the Iaxartes. There is nothing to prove that this arch was derived
from the Coptic style. On the other hand the bold and free plaster
decoration, designed by the Coptic architect, was undoubtedly borrowed
from the ornament of his countrymen. The Arabs have never been artists
or even skilled craftsmen. They imported Persians and Greeks to build
for them and decorate their houses and mosques, but above all they
employed the Copts, who have been the deft workmen of Egypt through
thousands of years of her history. A comparison of the plaster work of
Ibn-Tulún with the Coptic carvings preserved in the Cairo Museum of
Antiquities and those from the tombs of ‘Ayn-es-Síra in the Arab Museum
shows clearly the source of the floral decoration, which belongs to the
Byzantine school of Syria and Egypt. The Kufic inscriptions carved in
the solid wood are a purely Arab addition, and one that afterwards
developed into a leading decorative feature in Saracenic art.[20] The
geometrical ornament of the open grilles is also Byzantine, as M.
Bourgouin has established in his exhaustive treatise on the _entrelacs_,
but it is not certain that they belong to the original building, and the
star polygons suggest that the grilles may have been part of the later
restoration.[21]
Home interests did not interfere with Ibn-Tulún’s imperial ambitions. He
played a conspicuous part in Mesopotamian politics, and almost succeeded
in getting the caliph into his hands. The oppressed head of Islam would
have gladly escaped from his tyrannous brother el-Muwaffak, but the
scheme failed, and Egypt lost the opportunity of becoming the seat of
the caliphate. The result was that the ambitious emir was publicly
cursed in every mosque of Mesopotamia. He also failed to capture the
sacred city of Mekka, but his reign ended in some glorious campaigns
against the Roman emperor, in which the Egyptian forces defeated the
enemy near Tarsus, killed (it is said) 60,000 Christians, and captured
immense spoils of gold and silver crucifixes, jewels, and sacred
vessels. The success turned the general’s head, and Ahmad himself had to
march north to bring his viceroy to obedience. “It was a severe winter,
and his opponent dammed the river, flooded the country, and nearly
drowned the besieging army at Adhana. Ibn-Tulún was forced to retire to
Antioch, where a copious indulgence in buffalo milk, following upon the
exposure and privations of the campaign, brought on a dysentery. He was
carried in a litter to Fustát, where he grew worse. In sickness the
fierce emir was a terror to his doctors. He refused to follow their
orders, flouted their prescribed diet, and when he found himself still
sinking, he had their heads chopped off, or flogged them till they died.
In vain Muslims, Jews, and Christians offered up public prayers for his
recovery. Korán and Tora and Gospel could not save him; and he died in
May, 884, before he had reached the age of fifty.”
His sumptuous capital received many notable additions from his successor
Khumáraweyh, who fully shared his father’s passion for splendid building
as well as his imperial policy. He enlarged the palace, and turned the
Meydán into a garden, which he planted with rare trees and exquisite
roses. The stems of the trees were thought unsightly, and he coated them
with sheets of copper gilt, between which and the trunk leaden pipes
supplied water not only to the trees but to the canals and fountains
that irrigated the garden by means of water wheels. There were beds of
basil carefully cut to formal patterns, red, blue, and yellow water-
lilies and gilliflowers, exotic plants from all countries, apricots
grafted upon almond trees, and various horticultural experiments. A
pigeon-tower in the midst was stocked with turtle-doves, wood-pigeons,
and all sorts of birds of rich plumage or sweet song, who made a
cheerful concert as they perched on the ladders set against the walls or
skimmed over the pools and rivulets. In the palace he adorned the walls
of his “Golden House” with gold and ultra-marine, and there set up his
statue and those of his wives in heroic size, admirably carved in wood,
and painted and dressed to the life with gold crowns and jewelled ears
and turbans. In front of the palace he laid out a lake of quicksilver,
by the advice of his physician, who recommended it as a cure for his
lord’s insomnia. It was fifty cubits each way, and cost immense sums.
Here the prince lay on an air-bed, linked by silk cords to silver
columns on the margin, and as he rocked and courted sleep his blue-eyed
lion Zureyk faithfully guarded his master. Long after the palace had
disappeared people use to come and dig for the costly mercury that had
formed the emir’s cradle.
There was also a pavilion as large as the “Dome of the Air,” with a new
device in curtains, and splendid carpets, and a view over gardens, town,
and Nile. In another kiosk, built by his father, men chanted the Korán,
proclaimed the hours of prayer, and recited verses sacred and profane,
pious and amorous, _tristes et gais, tour à tour_, whilst the prince sat
at table with his ladies, surrounded by musicians. As the solemn call to
prayer echoed through the merry din, he would lay aside his cup and bow
his head to the earth in prostration, for he was an orthodox though very
irregular Muslim. The Topographer[22] expatiates for pages on the
wonders of Khumáraweyh’s menagerie of lions and lionesses, leopards,
elephants and giraffes; his vast stables, for which whole districts were
set apart to grow the necessary fodder; the lavish luxury of his
kitchen, which cost £12,000 a month; and the splendour of his household
troops, recruited from the predatory Arabs of the Delta. So brave, so
terrible, and so gallant a figure was this superb prince that his
subjects dared not speak, much less sneeze, as he passed by. It is
melancholy to think that of all this glory nothing remained after a few
years but the traces of the quicksilver.
“Neither the lion nor his bodyguard of vigorous young Arabs could save
the voluptuous prince from the jealousies of his harím. Early in 896
some domestic intrigue ended in his being murdered at Damascus. His
murderers were crucified, and amid loud lamentations his body was buried
beside his father’s, not far from his stately palace, under Mount
Mukattam. Seven Korán readers were engaged in reciting the sacred book
at the tomb of Ibn-Tulún, and when the bearers brought the body of
Khumáraweyh and began to lower it into the tomb, they happened to be
chanting the verse, ‘Seize him and hurl him into the fire of Hell.’”
His dynasty did not long survive him. Two young sons were ill able to
withstand the efforts of the caliph to recover the rich provinces of
Syria and Egypt which Ahmad and his son had held in sovereign power for
thirty years. In 905 the ‘Abbásid general, Mohammad ibn Suleymán,
entered Katái‘, massacred the black troops of the Tulúnids, and
demolished the beautiful faubourg. ‘Askar became once more the seat of
government, as it had been under earlier ‘Abbásid emirs, but Katái‘,
what was left of it after the invading army had plundered it for four
months, gradually decayed; its hundred thousand houses (if we are to
believe the historians) fell by degrees, and the prodigious famine and
anarchy of the time of Mustansir in the eleventh century finished the
ruin. We shall hear of this terrible reign of chaos in a later chapter;
but though it is anticipating the course of the story the final
destruction of the two faubourgs must be noted here. These quarters had
become so ruinous by 1070 that a wall was built all the way from the new
palace of Káhira to Fustát—or in other words from the Gate of Zuweyla to
near the mosque of ‘Amr—in order that the caliph, when he rode out,
might not be distressed by the sight of the dead cities. The ruins of
Katái‘ and ‘Askar became as it were a quarry from which people got the
materials for building elsewhere; the whole space between the new Cairo
and Fustát reverted to a state of desert, except for a few gardens and
country houses, and though, after 1125, the people began to build houses
outside the gate of Zuweyla, the rest of the site of the faubourgs
remained unoccupied, save about the mosque of Ibn-Tulún, down to the day
when Makrízy wrote in 1424.
It was no wonder that the place beside the hill of Yeshkur, known as the
“Castle of the Ram,”[23] where “Pharaoh’s Seat” once stood, and Abraham
slew his sacrifice, became the haunt of the Ginn. In the eighteenth
century an ancient sarcophagus, belonging to a lady of the XXVIth
Dynasty, still occupied the site of the Mastaba Fara‘ún, and anything
brought there, were it but a handful of dates, immediately turned into
gold. But now the alchemy is exhausted, the sarcophagus is in the
British Museum, where no such miracle has been known to happen, and even
the Ginn have deserted the spot.
CHAPTER IV
_Misr_
ON the downfall of the House of Tulún Egypt reverted to the dependent
position of a province of the Baghdád caliphate. “The Wards” having been
laid low by the conquerors, the new governors took up their residence in
‘Askar, but the name was soon dropped, and the “cantonments” became
merged in the city of Fustát or Misr. During the whole time of the rise
and decay of the official suburbs, Misr, the real metropolis of Egypt,
had been increasing in prosperity. The segregation of the troops and
palace officials at the faubourgs, whilst depriving the towns-folk of a
certain amount of trade, relieved them from the violence of the black
soldiery and the tyranny of the bureaux, and left them free to pursue
their commerce. A large part of the Indian and Arabian trade with
Europe, which afterwards developed to great importance, passed through
Misr, and the quays were laden with the wares of many foreign lands. It
is true, for thirty years after the ruin of the Tulúnids, Egypt and its
capital were a prey to military despotism, and the caliphs’ generals,
weakly controlled from distant Baghdád, did what seemed best in their
own eyes. These were wild times in Misr, when a hotheaded youth, el-
Khalángy, upholding the claims of the fallen dynasty with the
enthusiastic approval of the mob, drove out the hated troops, seized the
capital and Alexandria, and even defeated a fresh army from Baghdád,
till, after eight months of amazing impudence, he was betrayed and
executed (906). As if this were not enough diversion for a generation,
the schismatic Fátimid caliphs of Kayrawán offered the good people of
Misr the spectacle of an African army marching through Egypt, and even
attacking the camp across the river at Gíza, where the Baghdád army of
occupation, under the command of Dukas the Greek, lay timidly
intrenched. The Africans were at last driven out (920), but the state of
the country did not improve. The Turkish governor had to quarter his
troops in his own palace for his protection, and, when he died, “his son
was hooted out of the country by the army clamouring for arrears of pay;
the treasurer Madará‘y was in hiding; rival governors contended for
power, mustered their troops, and skirmished over the distracted land;
and a fearful earthquake, which laid many houses and villages low,
followed by a portentous shower of meteors, added to the terror of the
populace.”
The people who profited most in the confusion were the lords treasurers,
who seem to have done what they pleased with the revenue. Three members
of the talented family of Madará’y, taking their name from their
original village of Madaráya, near Basra on the Tigris, successively
held the lucrative post of treasurer or comptroller of the taxes, and
one of them enjoyed this office not only under Khumáraweyh and his two
sons, but also under some of the caliphs’ governors, and afterwards
under two of the succeeding dynasty. In spite of several reverses of
fortune, Mohammad Madará’y contrived to scrape together the not
contemptible income of over £200,000 a year, without counting his rents.
But if he largely received, he greatly gave. Every month he distributed
a hundred thousand pounds’ weight of meal to the poor; he freed many
thousands of slaves, endowed charitable and religious foundations, and
spent from £60,000 to £80,000 on each of his twenty-one annual
pilgrimages to Mekka; for he was a devout man, diligent in prayer and
fasting, with the Korán ever in his hand. It was said of his vast
charity during the pilgrimage that there was not a soul in Mekka who did
not sleep in repletion by his beneficence. Madará’y and the great judge
Ibn-Harbaweyh, who used to receive seated even the state visits of the
governors, were two bright exceptions in a crowd of petty tyrants.
At last another strong Turk took the reins. If Mohammad “the Ikhshíd,”
who derived his title from his ancestors the kings of Ferghána on the
Iaxartes, did not leave any monument in Misr to rival that of his great
predecessor Ibn-Tulún, and if his cautious policy was content with a
kingdom extending no further than Damascus, instead of to the Euphrates,
he at least restored order in Egypt, kept the African invaders at a
distance, waged on the whole successful war in Syria, and maintained
kingly state in his beautiful palace in the “Garden of Kafúr,” west of
the present Nahhasín. A delightful trait of chivalry is recorded in his
war with Ibn-Ráik, a Turkish chief, who dominated Syria for a time. This
emír was “so distressed to find the corpse of one of the Ikhshíd’s
brothers among the slain that he sent his own son to his adversary as an
atonement, to be dealt with as he chose. Not to be outdone in
generosity, the Ikhshíd clothed the intended sacrifice in robes of
honour, and sent him back in all courtesy to his father. Of course the
youth married the daughter of his chivalrous host.”
In the summer of 935 the people of Misr saw the procession of the
Ikhshíd’s war-vessels advancing up the Nile from Damietta, and occupying
the island of Roda, which was connected with the city by a bridge of
boats; and in August the troops entered the capital and plundered it for
two days, till called to order by their stern master. After the anarchy
of the past thirty years the firm if rapacious hand of the new ruler was
a grateful change, and the enthusiastic son of el-Khaláty, who jumped
upon the carved wooden horse that stood before his palace, and let fly a
pigeon sweetly anointed with musk and rosewater at the new emír,
expressed the sentiments of the people.[24] The Old Mosque of ‘Amr
recovered its former importance as the chief place of worship, and the
Ikhshíd furnished it with beautiful new rush-mats, lamps and perfumes,
and himself attended the service in state on the last night of Ramadán,
clad in white, and followed by five hundred squires carrying maces and
torches. On the following day, the Lesser Festival, he held a review,
after the example of Ibn-Tulún. The army, numbering 400,000, marched by
all day long, followed by the household corps of 8000 mamlúks in shining
armour, beneath the daïs at the gate of the Government House. On the
second day of the feast the emír attended the prayers at the mosque, and
held open house for the people. When the caliph sent the Ikhshíd an
official robe of honour, with necklace and bracelets, the streets and
bazars were decked with rich cloth and rugs, and the doors of the Old
Mosque were covered with gold brocade, as the emír dressed in his new
robe pranced in stately procession to the Wednesday prayers.[25]
Those were glorious days in Misr, and the people almost forgot the
immense confiscations and severities of the new régime in the enjoyment
of its refulgence. Arabic literature began to flourish in the capital
beside the Nile, though still far from rivalling the intellectual
supremacy of the caliphs’ city on the Tigris, where Persian influences
had produced a quickening of varied studies that were long in finding
their way to the more orthodox capital of Egypt. Arabic learning was
still in its infancy in the days of the Ikhshíd. Poetry indeed had never
died, though it had become mannered and imitative; but history had only
begun to be written, science was scarcely touched upon save in the
distorted form of astrology, and the great names of Arabic literature
had hardly begun to make themselves known. The lives of the Prophet were
gradually being enlarged into wider histories, and two of the earliest
and the most famous chroniclers, Tabary and Mas‘údy, were contemporaries
of the Ikhshíd. Mas‘údy indeed visited Egypt in 942, and though, greatly
to our loss, he does not describe the capital as he saw it, he gives a
vivid account of the “Night of the Bath,” a Christian festival adopted
by the Muslims, which shows us how the people of Misr could make merry.
“The Leylat el-Ghitás,” he says, “is one of the great ceremonies and the
people all go to it on foot on the 10th of January. I was present in 350
[942 A.D.] when the Ikhshíd lived at his house called “The Elect” in the
island that divides the Nile. He commanded that the bank of the island
and that of Fustát should be illuminated each with a thousand torches,
besides the illuminations of private people. Muslims and Christians by
hundreds of thousands thronged the Nile on boats or looked from kiosks
over the river or from the banks, all emulous for pleasure and outdoing
each other in their display and dress, gold and silver vessels and
jewels. The sound of music was heard all about, with singing and
dancing. It was a splendid night, the best in all Misr for beauty and
gaiety. The doors of the separate quarters were left open [instead being
barred as usual at sunset], and most people bathed in the Nile confident
in its power [on that night] of preventing and curing all
illnesses.”[26]
The traveller tells how people came to the Ikhshíd and begged to be
allowed to dig for treasure, the clue to which they said they had found
in ancient manuscripts; but when permission was given the treasure-
seekers found only caves full of statues of bone and dust—in short, they
had opened some mummy-pits. Mas‘údy mentions the two Nilometers on the
island of Roda, which he calls “the island of the shipbuilders;” the
first built by Osáma and still in general use; the second made, or
rather restored, by Ibn-Tulún, being used only for very high Niles; and
he saw the bridges connecting Misr with the island and the island with
Gíza on the west bank. He met merchants from Constantinople at Misr, but
of the city itself he tells us nothing. From Ibn-Sa‘íd and others,
however, we learn that the Ikhshíd built a new dockyard at Misr, which
took the place of the inconvenient docks on the island of Roda, where a
garden and pleasure-house were laid out instead; and it was
characteristic of his parsimony that when the estimate was laid before
him he exclaimed, “What? Thirty thousand dinárs for a pleasure-garden!”
and immediately cut the cost down to five thousand. As the dockyard of
Roda was superseded by that of Misr, so was the latter replaced by the
port of Maks, a mile lower down the river, in the next generation. The
Ikhshíd’s economical pleasure-house on the island has left no traces;
but Roda was a favourite resort of successive rulers, and his building
was doubtless pulled down to make way for the Hawdag or “litter-
pavilion” of el-Amir and the more elaborate constructions of the
Ayyúbids.
The great business of men of learning in those days was the
interpretation of the sacred law as laid down in the Korán, in the
traditions of the Prophet, and in the decisions of the canonical
theologians. A Mohammedan lawyer was necessarily a divine, since the law
depended on revelation, and the earliest scholars of Misr were chiefly
theological jurisconsults. Of the four recognized schools of
orthodoxy—the Hánafy, Máliky, Sháfi‘y and Hánbaly—the Málikis and the
Sháfi‘is each had fifteen porticoes in the mosque of ‘Amr, to only three
for the Hánafis, and the great court rang with their disputes. To us
their distinctions may seem trivial, but to the Muslims of that age they
were quite as vital as the _filioque_ was to the Orthodox Eastern Church
or the difference between ἐκ and ἐν to the Copts. The divines waxed so
furious in their arguments in the Old Mosque that the Ikhshíd was
obliged for a season to take away their rush mats and cushions and close
the mosque except at prayer time. Mosques were then, as some are still,
the academies of Islam, and not merely divinity schools. In the old days
before Mohammad the Arabian poets used to recite their verses at the
great fairs before critical audiences of their countrymen. In Mohammedan
times the criticism of authors was equally public but in a different
fashion. “When a man had produced something he thought particularly
good, he hastened to the mosque to share it with his critics. He was
sure to find them there, doctors learned in the law, poets,
commentators, seated cross-legged on their carpets in the arched
porticos round the court, expounding the refinements of style to a
circle of squatting students. To this audience he would recite his
latest achievement, proud but tremulous. It must have been a searching
ordeal, for the listeners were some of them rivals and all of them keen
critics, on the alert for the least flaw, the slightest halt in the
rhythm, the smallest lapse from the purity of the classical idiom. They
had, too, a way of expressing their opinions which was more forcible
than kind. There was a hot debate, much citing of precedents and quoting
of the Masters, exploring of memory, and examination of texts. The new
comer defended his diction and produced his authorities; the rest cut
him up in remorseless verbal vivisection.”[27]
It was not only theology that echoed in the Mosque of ‘Amr in the days
of the Ikhshíd. Though the long list of worthies whose biographies Ibn-
Sa‘íd unrolls in his “String of Trinkets of the Fustát Bride” consists
preponderantly of lawyers and divines, men primed with serried
precedents and tenacious of the authentic tracing of traditions, these
were not all. There were the family of Tabátaba, famous descendants of
‘Aly, poets every one, whose verse is full of the love of nature and of
love itself, and not a little of the joys of wine, always forbidden but
not the less dear to the poets of all ages of Islám. Did not one of
these poets sing something like this?—
Grigs chirp in the sand,
The moon is on high,
The breeze curls the runnel,
Clouds fleck the sky,
Great trees swing with joy
And merrily crack:
Now brim me the beaker
E’er life turns its back!
No friendship’s so knit
That time cannot split.
There was Abu-l-Fadl of the distinguished family of el-Furát, who,
though a mighty authority on traditions, did not disdain, any more than
many other learned doctors, to write a good verse now and then, though
his vein might be serious:—
Whose soul is dark, a quiet life is his, no night’s unease;
When the storm breaks, it spares the low but fells the tallest trees.
Even Mansúr the lawyer condescended to a somewhat staid vein of verse,
though it was he who stirred up such a turmoil by his pronouncement on
the question of the legal maintenance of divorced wives in the days of
governor Dukas that he had to be protected by troops, and there was a
terrible scene of swords drawn and knives about his bier when the people
believed that he had been murdered by a judge who disagreed with him.
The Kády el-Bakár, the aged court poet, had such a fund of delightful
anecdote that the Ikhshíd would often send for him of an evening and beg
for a story, “were it only a finger’s length.” It was this genial old
bard who wrote the lines about the morning cup and the enjoyment of that
good comrade, life, ending
Allah! give me not peace! O God, I ask not content—
Only a waist to embrace and a wine cup never spent!
Misr had its merits in this respect, for ez-Zeyneby wrote:—
My home is in Fustát; blame me ye who chide.
Where the Muskat vines are, there do I abide.
Egypt, I’ll not leave thee: reason need I hide?
The celebrated author el-Musébbihy comes rather later, for he was not
born till 977, but his work is typical of the tenth century in Egypt.
Thirty books he wrote, numbering nearly forty thousand pages, and their
subjects ranged over poetry and criticism, the history of Egypt and
religion, treatises on wine and joviality, on choice repasts and
cookery, on astrology and demons, dreams, wishes and oaths, anecdotes
and maxims, besides subjects that are best described as “curious.”
Literature owed much to the pleasure-loving court of the Abyssinian
slave Kafúr (_i.e._ “Camphor”), who after the Ikhshíd’s death in 946
ruled the land for twenty-two years, first as regent over his late
master’s two sons, who lived and died in luxurious and inactive
obscurity, and for the last two or three years as titular prince of
Egypt. There are few quainter figures in history than this jolly black
eunuch, with his huge paunch, his bandy legs, and his immense cloven
underlip, of which his guest, the poet el-Mutanebby, last of the classic
Arabians, made such fun when he found that his panegyrics of the black
prince brought him less returns—large as they were—than he expected.
“Kafúr was at once the Lucullus and the Maecenas of his age. He had
contrived to acquire some cultivation, as most clever slaves did, and he
loved to surround himself with poets and critics, and listen to their
discussions of an evening, or make them read him the history of the
caliphs of old.” Serious scholars attended his réunions. There might be
seen el-Kindy, the chronicler of the “Excellencies of Egypt” (Fadáil
Misr), to whom Makrízy owed so much; el-Bakhtary the learned grammarian,
as well as Ibn-el-‘Ásim, whose light lyrics won him the title of the
“castanettist of the soul.” Kafúr could appreciate them all. Like all
blacks he delighted in music. He had control of vast sums of money, and
he scattered it liberally among his literary friends, who repaid him in
fulsome flattery. When the “castanettist of the soul” explained in
choice verse that the frequent earthquakes of the time were due to
Egypt’s dancing for joy at Kafúr’s virtues, the pleased Ethiopian threw
him a thousand dinárs. On his table, “Camphor” was lavish; he had the
black’s jolly sensuality. The daily provision for his kitchen consisted
in 100 sheep, 100 lambs, 250 geese, 500 fowls, 1000 pigeons and other
birds, and 100 jars of sweets. The daily consumption amounted to 1700
lb. of meat, besides fowls and sweets, and 50 skins of liquor were
allowed to the servants alone. A favourite drink was quince-cider, for
which the kády of Asyút sent 50,000 quince-apples every season.[28]
In spite of a stern and unimaginative religion, in spite of fatalism and
all its paralysing effects, the mediæval Arabs managed to enjoy life,
just as their forefathers of the desert did. The wonderful thing about
this old Mohammedan society is that it was what it was in spite of
Mohammedanism. With all their prayers and fasts and irritating ritual,
the Muslims of the Middle Ages contrived to amuse themselves. Even in
their religion they found opportunities for enjoyment. They made the
most of the festivals of the faith, and put on their best clothes and
made up parties—to visit the tombs, perhaps, but to visit them
cheerfully—and they “tipped” all their servants that they too might go
out and amuse themselves in the gaily illuminated streets filled with
dancers and singers and reciters, or in the mosques where the dervishes
were performing their strange and revolting rites. Such diversions gave
a relish to life,—even though a man had his destiny inscribed in the
sutures of his skull and some ascetic souls found a consolation in
staring at a blank wall till they saw the name of Allah blazing on it.
But the great amusement of the mediæval Muslim was feasting. It is true
the Arabs did not understand scientific cookery or æsthetic gastronomy;
they drank to get drunk and ate to get full. We read of a public banquet
where the table was covered with 21 enormous dishes, each containing 21
baked sheep, three years old and fat, and 350 pigeons and fowls, all
piled up together to the height of a man, and covered in with dried
sweetmeats. Between these dishes were 500 smaller _plats_, each holding
seven fowls and the usual complement of sweetmeats. The table was strewn
with flowers and cakes of bread, and two grand edifices of sweetmeats,
each weighing 17 cwt., were brought in on shoulder poles. A man might
eat a sheep or two without being too remarkable. And if he ate hugely,
he washed it down with plenty of wine, in spite of all the Prophet’s
laws. The Arab’s cup held a good pint, and he refilled it pretty often.
Hence the majority of the banquets described in the Arabian histories
end under the table, or would do so if there were any tables of the
right kind.
There are redeeming points, however, in all this gluttony and
sottishness. The Arabs did not tope moodily in solitude. They liked a
jovial company round them, and plenty of flowers and sweet scents on the
board; they dressed very carefully, and perfumed their beards with civet
and sprinkled themselves with rosewater; while ambergris, burning in a
censer, diffused a delicious fragrance through the room. Nor was the
feast complete without music, and the voices of singing-men and singing-
women. A ravishing slave-girl, with a form like the Oriental willow and
a face like the full moon, sang soft sad Arabian melodies to the
accompaniment of the lute, till the guests rolled over with ecstasy. And
rarely was a banquet considered perfect without the presence of a
wit—such a wit as no longer exists; no mere punster, though he could pun
on occasion, but a man of letters, well stored with the literature of
the Arabs, able to finish a broken quotation, and of fine taste in his
compositions and recitations. It was, indeed, the heyday of literary
men. So intense was the devotion of the caliphs and vezírs to poetry and
song, that they would refuse nothing to the poet who pleased them. A
beggar who gave an answer in a neatly-turned verse would have his jar
filled with gold; and a man of letters who made a good repartee was
likely to have his mouth crammed with jewels, and his whole wardrobe
replenished. One poet left behind him a hundred complete suits of robes
of honour, two hundred shirts, and five hundred turbans.
But Kafúr was much more than an epicure and a dilettante. Strong as a
horse, but gentle as a giant, his hard work and unfailing good-humour
were phenomenal. He was no mean statesman and devoted much time and
pains to the management of public business, working often far into the
night, and then throwing himself on his knees, crying, “O God, give no
created thing power over me!” His justice, clemency, open-handedness,
and piety were renowned, and though he left immense wealth in gold and
precious stones, slaves and beasts, he used his possessions in a large-
minded and charitable spirit. He died in 968, and on his grave at
Damascus was written—
“How fares it with thee, Kafúr, alone in the grave amid the rattle of
the hail, who once didst revel in the din of battling hosts?
Men’s feet now trample over thy head, where of old the lions of the
sandy waste crouched before thee.”
The warlike epitaph was not very apposite, for Kafúr, brave as he was,
cannot be described as a successful general, in spite of two victories
in his earlier days in Syria. It was to the credit of his statesmanship
and his officers that the whole of the kingdom, now extending to the
northern frontier of Syria and including the Higáz with the holy cities
of Mekka and Medína, was preserved in undiminished prosperity and rarely
ruffled peace throughout his regency and reign, and this in spite of
several bad Niles and consequent scarcity, portentous earthquakes, and a
disastrous fire which consumed 1700 houses in Misr in 954. The big black
eunuch knew how to keep order. Unhappily, like most great autocrats, he
left no successor, and the weakness of the government of the new prince,
the infant grandchild of the Ikhshíd, invited the invasion which the
Fátimid caliphs had long been preparing.
We have no description worth quoting of the city of Misr during this
prosperous period. The traveller Ibn-Hawkal gives a brief account of it
a little later (978), and estimates its size as about a third of
Baghdád. He notes its handsome markets, its narrow streets, with brick
houses of five and even seven storeys high, large enough for two hundred
people to live in, and the gardens and pleasure-grounds surrounding the
city. The Mosque of ‘Amr in its midst was still the most striking of its
buildings, which shows that there were as yet no great palaces or
government houses. Kafúr’s own palace was outside, probably in the park
called the “Garden of Kafúr,” though at one time he built a new palace,
at the cost of 100,000 dinárs, by the pool of Karún, near the mosque of
Ibn-Tulún; but the miasma from the stagnant water soon caused its
desertion. The capital was of course very differently situated from the
present Cairo. The Nile had then hardly begun the slow shifting of its
bed towards the west which resulted in the formation of the island of
Bulák or el-Gezíra. The river in the Ikhshíd’s time flowed under the
walls of the castle of Babylon, skirted el-‘Askar, and passed by the
points now known as the Bab-el-Luk and Bab-el-Hadíd.[29] All the
districts of Masr-el-‘Atíka, Kasr-el-‘Eyny, Kasr-ed-Dubára, and Bulák
were then under water, and the capital spread along the banks of the
Nile and stretched inland to near the mosque of Ibn-Tulún.
[Illustration: STREET IN OLD MISR]
The best description is that of the Persian Násir-i-Khursau, who visited
Misr in 1047, eighty years after Kafúr’s death, it is true, but it is
not probable that very important changes had taken place in the
interval. He knows nothing of el-Katái‘, and from his description of
Misr as a city built on high ground, and other indications, it is
evident that in his day “the Wards” faubourg was included in Misr and
that there were still houses there in spite of the devastation that
followed the fall of the House of Tulún. The mosque of Ibn-Tulún “on the
outskirts of the town” was then as now surrounded by a double wall more
solid than any the traveller had seen except at Amid and Mayyafarikin,
and a minaret was certainly standing at that time.[30] There were
altogether seven mosques in the old city, of which that of ‘Amr was the
chief, with its _mihráb_ covered with white marble on which was engraved
the entire text of the Korán, and its court crowded with professors and
students and a multitude of people of all kinds, who used it as a
general meeting place for business. It had lately been purchased by the
Fátimid caliph Hákim, of whom we shall hear presently, for 100,000
dinárs (the mosque of Ibn-Tulún had cost him only 35,000), and he had
made some restorations and presented a magnificent silver lamp carrying
seven hundred lights. So huge was this work of art that a door had to be
broken down to get it into the mosque. The chief kády still held his
court there.
Outside, the gates opened into the bazars. On the north was the Street
of Lamps, the like of which the traveller had seen nowhere else; he was
amazed at the cut rock-crystal, tortoise-shell, and other delicate work
he saw there displayed, besides ivory tusks, ostrich feathers, and other
products of the Sudán and Abyssinia. On one day, to be precise, the 18th
of December 1048, he counted the following flowers and fruits and
vegetables in the markets of Misr: red roses, lilies, narcissi, bitter
and sweet oranges, lemons, apples, jasmine, melons, _dastbuyas_,
bananas, olives, dates, grapes, sugar-cane, mad-apples, gourds,
_badrangs_, onions, garlic, carrots, and beetroot, though they belonged
to different seasons: “but Egypt,” he adds, “is a land of great extent
which produces the fruits both of hot and cold climates, and the
products of all the provinces are brought to the capital and are readily
sold in the markets.” Pottery he found manufactured of so fine a quality
that he could see his hand through it, and so skilfully coloured that it
resembled the iridescent fabric called _bukalamún_. There was also a
green transparent glass of costly price. (All this is amply confirmed by
the fragments which have been found among the rubbish heaps of the old
city.) He saw great bowls of Damascus copper; one woman owned five
thousand of them which she let out at a franc (dirhem) a month at the
borrower’s risk. He was pleased to discover that there was no need to
carry one’s bottle or paper to the bazars of the druggists or
ironmongers: they themselves supplied the wherewithal to contain their
wares; and what was more extraordinary, the shopkeepers sold at a fixed
price, instead of haggling for a bargain, and if one of them cheated he
was set on a camel and marched through the bazar to the ringing of a
bell, crying aloud, “I have deceived and am punished! May the like
chastisement befall other liars!” All the shopkeepers rode on donkeys
from their houses to their shops, and asses stood for hire at the street
corners to the number (he was told) of 50,000. Only soldiers rode
horses.
The city stretched along the Nile bank, and kiosks and pavilions
overlooked the river, whence one could draw up water by a rope. Sakkás
carried it then as now in great pitchers on their backs, or on camels.
Some of the houses were seven storeys high, and on the top of one of
these was a terrace garden of orange and other fruit trees, watered by a
sákiya turned by a bull that had been conveyed to the housetop when a
calf. The houses were so large (30 cubits square) that 350 people could
occupy a single house. Some of the covered streets and bazars had to be
constantly lighted by lamps, since no sunlight penetrated to them. To
cross to the island there was a bridge of thirty-six boats, but at that
time there was no second bridge connecting Roda with Giza, and one had
to take a boat or ferry. Fortunately there were more boats to be had at
Misr than either at Baghdád or Basra. The inhabitants of the city, says
Násir-i-Khusrau, were enjoying great prosperity in 1048, and in honour
of a royal accouchement they decorated the town with such splendour that
he would not hope to be believed if he described it. Indeed, he never
knew so peaceful and orderly a country as Egypt, and tells the story of
a rich Christian he met at Misr, who owned innumerable cargoes and vast
estates, and who, when appealed to by the vezír in a year of scarcity,
informed him that he had enough corn in his granaries to supply the
capital for six years. The rents of the occupiers of a single khan or
inn, called the Dar-el-Wezír, brought in 12,000 dinárs a year, and there
were said to be two hundred such buildings.
The city which the Persian philosopher described in 1047-8 was probably
little changed in the remaining century of its prosperity. The
foundation of Káhira, or Cairo proper, had once more separated the
official and court circles from Misr, eighty years before the visit of
Násir-i-Khusrau, and yet the old capital retained its flourishing
position as the commercial metropolis. There is no reason to suppose
that it decayed during the hundred and twenty years that were left to
it. We have already anticipated the course of history, in describing
Misr in the eleventh century, and it will be well to finish the subject
by relating its destruction in the twelfth. In 1168 Amalric, the Latin
King of Jerusalem, advanced upon Cairo, intent upon the conquest of
Egypt, which the Crusaders believed to be essential to their safety in
Palestine. In November he took Bilbeys, and stained his name by
massacring every man, woman, and child. Fear of similar atrocities and
the danger of affording the invader valuable cover close to Cairo
induced Sháwar, the vezír of the Fátimid caliph of Egypt, to order the
burning of Misr. On the 12th of November, “twenty thousand naphtha
barrels and ten thousand torches were lighted. The fire lasted fifty-
four days, and its traces may still be found in the wilderness of
sandheaps stretching over miles of buried rubbish on the south side of
Cairo. The people fled ‘as from their very graves’; the father abandoned
his children, the brother his twin; and all rushed to Cairo for dear
life. The hire of a camel for the mile or two of transit cost thirty
pieces of gold”[31] in that crisis of panic. The smoke rose in dense
black clouds to the sky, and compelled the invaders to camp at a
distance. The cruel measure may have been necessary, though Cairo was
saved by other means; but as we look out upon the desolate sandhills
that mark the site of the vanished Town of the Tent and recall the peace
and prosperity witnessed by the Persian traveller, it seems as if a
thousand Crusaders in Cairo would be a lighter sacrifice than the loss
of the old city of Misr.
Though the town never really recovered from the fatal day of its
burning, it must not be supposed that no efforts were made to rebuild
it. People are not so easily transplanted from their old seats, and as
soon as the Crusaders were driven away the inhabitants began to search
for their blackened homes and tried to make them fit to live in. Ibn-
Gubeyr, the Spanish Arab, who visited Misr in 1183, only fourteen years
after the great fire, found a less melancholy scene than we should be
led to expect from the account of the fifty-four days’ burning. He was
comfortably entertained at the Inn of Master Worthy (Funduk Aby-th-
Thaná) in the Street of Lamps,—so called because formerly inhabited by
nobles who had each a lamp before his door—which still stood close to
the Mosque of ‘Amr, and though there were sad signs of the late
destruction, the people had rebuilt many of the ruined houses, “and the
new buildings are in continuous lines which form a great city with the
remains of the former town lying beyond and all around it, close by,
showing how great was its extent in earlier days.”[32] The attempt to
restore the old city did not succeed. A sign of the diminishing
population is seen in the fact that although ten colleges were founded
in and about Misr by Saladin and his successors, in the belief that the
town would recover, not a single mosque for congregational worship was
built there after the great fire. Cairo was rapidly taking its place,
and when Ibn-Sa‘íd visited Misr about 1240 he was distressed at its
blackened walls, ruined houses, and general state of dirt and neglect.
There were still plenty of people in the narrow crooked streets, and
pedlers hawking their wares among the students and children in the Old
Mosque, which was covered with cobwebs and littered with refuse; the
slovenly quays of Fustát were still frequented by much shipping, and
there were sugar and soap factories still at work.[33] But the ruin was
universal, the final decay had set in, and the glory of Misr was
transferred to Cairo.
CHAPTER V
_Cairo_
THE foundation of Cairo proper, as distinguished from the earlier city
of Misr and its faubourgs, marks a revolution infinitely more profound
than a mere change of dynasty or shifting of site. The Fátimid conquest,
which created the new city, was a revolution in religion, in statecraft,
and in culture. The theological differences that had turned the mosque
of ‘Amr into a bear-garden in the time of the Ikhshíd were hair-
splittings compared with the breach between the old orthodoxy and the
heresy of the newcomers. In its inner essence, Shi‘ism, the religion of
the Fátimids, is not Mohammedanism at all. It merely took advantage of
an old schism in Islám to graft upon it a totally new and largely
political movement. The schism arose out of the succession to the
caliphate, and resolved itself into the old antagonism between the
theories of popular election and divine right. The orthodox party (or
Sunnis) held that the election of the first three caliphs, Abu-Bekr,
‘Omar and ‘Othmán, was constitutional in Islám; the Shí‘a maintained
that the divine right of succession to the Prophet’s mantle rested with
his own family, that is to say with his daughter Fátima’s husband ‘Aly
and their offspring, the only surviving descendants of Mohammad. ‘Aly in
turn became the fourth caliph, but he was bitterly opposed, and in the
end murdered; his children, the Prophet’s grandsons, were ousted from
the succession; one of them, Hoseyn, endeavouring to assert his rights,
was defeated and slain, and the tragedy of the “martyrdom” at Kerbela
has ever since excited the deepest passions of the Shí‘a at the annual
representations of the Persian Passion Play in the month of Moharram.
The ruthless persecution of the “holy family” by the Omayyad caliphs
stimulated an enthusiastic sympathy with their misfortunes, but since
none of their descendants showed any political genius, the occasional
risings in favour of the ‘Alids were scarcely more important than the
last attempts in Scotland to revive the claims of the Pretender. The
movement would probably have died out as an element in politics, and
become a mere tradition or sentiment, but for the new development given
to it in the ninth century by an obscure Persian, half conjurer, half
eye-doctor, named ‘Abdallah, son of Meymún. This man, who abhorred the
Arabs and their caliphs, devised a scheme by which the very religion of
Islám should become the instrument of its own destruction, and the
Persians should recover their power by the unconscious aid of their
conquerors. His doctrine, whilst making use of the ‘Alid sentiment of
divine right, was such that not only the enthusiasts who still wept over
the tragedy of Kerbela, but all shades of dissenters from rigid
Mohammedanism might embrace. He taught that God has always been
incarnate in some spiritual leader or “Imám,” such as Adam, Abraham, and
so on to ‘Aly. The world has never been without an Imám; but—and here
came the stroke of genius—the Imám is not always visible in the flesh.
The series of spiritual leaders descended in apostolic succession from
‘Aly was broken, but not the less was there a hidden Imám, who would
reveal himself to mankind in his own good time. When he appeared all
would recognize “the Mahdy,” and abandon the self-styled caliphs who
usurped his authority. Meanwhile those who awaited his coming must
strive to prepare men for it. Though the Imám be hidden, his doctrine
must be zealously preached, and in the absence of the mysterious being
in whom the secrets of the Most High are deposited, his missionaries
must go forth and call men to the truth.
A widespread and admirably organized propaganda was instituted; a secret
society, skilfully graduated in advancing degrees of initiation, worked
underground throughout the Mohammedan world, but with special success in
Arabia, Mesopotamia, and North Africa. The _dá‘is_ or missionaries were
carefully chosen and trained to teach such doctrines as their converts
could bear. To the rude and uneducated they would preach what seemed the
plain lessons of the Korán, always coupled with the imminent approach of
that mysterious and attractive personality, the Mahdy. To the
philosophic they would use arguments suited to their special views, and
leading them up through the progressive stages of initiation, would
finally land them in a philosophy of complete negation. These
missionaries had nothing in common with Muslims: they were atheists
among themselves, and all things to all men. Their aims were
political—to upset Islám through itself, to dispossess the Muslims, and
to grasp their power. They made use of all forms of religion
indifferently; all were equally false to them, and all were serviceable
tools to their purpose. They cared not what means they used to secure
proselytes, to whom they confided only so much of their system as they
could safely assimilate. They employed the hallowed name of ‘Aly, and
preached the immediate advent of a Messiah, not because they believed in
either or in any caliphate or spiritual incarnation, but because if the
multitude is to be made to dance one must harp on some string, and these
strings happened to twang harmoniously in the ears of the people.
Three signal successes rewarded the brilliant propaganda of the Shí‘a
(or Isma‘ílian) missionaries. The first was the Carmathian domination of
Arabia, Mesopotamia and Syria, in the ninth and tenth centuries; the
second was its offshoot, the Fátimid caliphate of North Africa and
Egypt; the last was the dreaded Wehmgericht of the Isma‘ílians or
“Assassins” in Persia and the Lebanon. Here we have chiefly to do with
the second, though both the Carmathians and the Assassins had their
influence upon Egypt.
The Fátimid caliphate, taking its name from ‘Aly’s wife, the daughter of
the Prophet, was the most powerful and conspicuous result of Shí‘a
proselytism. Among the credulous Berbers the missionary had an easy
field of conquest, and when he produced a reputed descendant of ‘Aly and
Fátima in the person of “the Mahdy” ‘Obeydallah at Kayrawán, the Arab
capital of what is now called Tunisia, in 910, the revolution was
triumphant. The whole of Barbary, from Fez in Morocco to the frontier of
Egypt, which he twice invaded, bowed before the sway of the Mahdy.
Inheriting by conquest the possessions of the Aghlabid dynasty of Tunis,
who for more than a century had been the great naval power of the
central Mediterranean and held Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and Malta, the
Fátimid fleets ravaged the coasts of France and Italy, plundering,
burning, and kidnapping wherever they went. The fourth caliph of the
Mahdy’s line, el-Mo‘izz, the conqueror of Egypt, was a singularly able,
upright, politic, and intelligent man, an orator, a linguist who knew
Greek as well as Arabic and the Berber tongue, and to all appearance a
just and honest Muslim of the Shí‘a sect.[34] There was so careful a
distinction between esoteric and overt doctrine among the Shí‘a that it
is impossible to be certain, but the probability is that Mo‘izz, like
most of his successors, did not share the extreme views of the advanced
degrees of the initiate, but held Koranic doctrines tempered by ‘Alid
views and allegorical interpretation.
Such was the Fátimid caliph who, after a progress throughout his African
dominions, and carrying his arms even to the shore of the Atlantic
(959), at length resolved to achieve the conquest of Egypt, which his
grandfather had vainly attempted, and which was the goal of his own
ambition. The barren land and unruly tribes of Barbary were not to be
compared with the fertile valley and splendid commerce of Egypt, and his
plans were carefully laid for the invasion. The conquest was an easy
triumph. Gawhar, his Roman slave from the Eastern empire, led his
100,000 men from Kayrawán in February 969. Alexandria capitulated on
liberal terms. The Egyptians, exhausted by a distressing famine followed
by plague (of which more than half a million people died in and around
Misr), led by no competent chief, despoiled by a mutinous soldiery, and
influenced by secret sympathizers with the Fátimids, made scarcely an
effort to resist. There were a few skirmishes at Giza, and then Gawhar
forced the passage of the Nile, the defenders fled, and the women of
Misr implored mercy. A full amnesty rewarded submission, pillage was
interdicted, and the Fátimid army rode into Misr on the 5th of August.
“That very night Gawhar laid the foundations of a new city, or rather
fortified palace, destined for the reception of his sovereign. He was
encamped on the sandy waste which stretched north-east of Fustát, on the
road to Heliopolis, and there, at a distance of about a mile from the
river, he marked out the boundaries of the new capital. There were no
buildings, save the old ‘Convent of the Bones,’ nor any cultivation
except the beautiful park called ‘Kafúr’s Garden,’ to obstruct his
plans. A square [about 1200 yards each way] was pegged out with poles,
and the Maghraby astrologers, in whom Mo‘izz reposed extravagant faith,
consulted together to determine the auspicious moment for the opening
ceremony. Bells were hung on ropes from pole to pole, and at the signal
of the sages their ringing was to announce the precise moment when the
labourers were to turn the first sod. The calculations of the
astrologers were, however, anticipated by a raven, who perched on one of
the ropes and set the bells jingling, upon which every mattock was
struck into the earth, and the trenches were opened. It was an unlucky
hour: the planet Mars (el-Káhir) was in the ascendant; but it could not
be undone, and the place was accordingly named after the hostile planet,
el-Káhira, ‘the martial’ or ‘triumphant,’ in the hope that the sinister
omen might be turned to a triumphant issue. Cairo, as Káhira has come to
be called, may fairly be said to have outlived all astrological
prejudices. The name of the ‘Abbásid caliph was at once expunged from
the Friday prayers at the old mosque of ‘Amr; the black ‘Abbásid robes
were proscribed, and the preacher, in pure white, recited the _khutba_
for the Imám Mo‘izz, _emír el-muminín_, and invoked blessings on his
ancestors, ‘Aly and Fátima and all their holy family. The call to prayer
from the minarets was adapted to Shí‘a taste. The joyful news was sent
to the Fátimid caliph on swift dromedaries, together with the heads of
the slain. Coins were struck with the special formulas of the Fátimid
creed—‘‘Aly is the noblest of [God’s] delegates, the vezír of the best
of apostles’; ‘the Imám Ma‘add calls men to profess the Unity of the
Eternal’—in addition to the usual dogmas of the Mohammedan faith. For
two centuries the mosques and the mint proclaimed the shibboleth of the
Shí‘a.”[35]
But the change was far more than a substitution of one creed for
another: indeed, thanks no doubt to the politic tolerance of the
conqueror and the discreet avoidance of extreme Shí‘a doctrines, the
people accepted the new régime without any outburst of orthodox
fanaticism, except when the new comers flaunted the Moharram festival in
memory of the Kerbela “martyrs” in their very faces. The majority
remained unconverted to the new formulas; at least they welcomed the
restoration of orthodoxy two centuries later with equal phlegm. The real
change was political. Cairo was no longer the capital of a province of
the old caliphate, or even of a virtually independent principality
connected with that caliphate: it was the capital of a rival Power, and
that power a Mediterranean Empire. It is true the empire soon lost its
outlying African provinces and European islands, and shrank to the
dimensions of the principality of Ibn-Tulún; but the strength and the
wealth and commerce of the Fátimid kingdom were something new. The
rivalry between Cairo and Baghdád, between the vigorous young caliphate
of the Shí‘a and the decaying hierarchy of the Sunnis, had far-reaching
effects in politics and in civilization. The naval power and European
connexions of the Fátimids introduced a new element into foreign policy,
gave a stimulus to trade, and modified in various ways the civilization
of Egypt and Syria.
On the other hand undoubtedly the isolation of Cairo tended to a
development of a separate culture which was not to its advantage. Heresy
cut it off from the great centres of intellectual life in the Arabian
world, from Baghdád, Damascus and Cordova. The old intercourse, which
brought students and professors of all parts of the Muslim empire
together in the mosques of every great city, was impossible in a capital
where the mosques were in the hands of heretics. Hence Cairo was out of
intimate touch with the progress of Muslim studies in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries, and few of the leaders of Arabic thought or
literature were found under Fátimid rule. In some branches, such as
philosophy and physical and medical science, one would expect to find
good results from the influence of Shí‘a free-thinking, and undoubtedly
some progress was made, especially by Jewish and Christian physicians;
but these exceptions do not outweigh the general loss entailed by
isolation from the rest of the intellectual world. A little later the
heretics of Cairo might have profited much by their intercourse with
Europe, but in the tenth and eleventh centuries Europe had little to
teach.
The class that gained most by the change of government was that of the
Christian Copts. Hitherto they had had their ups and downs according to
the disposition and rapacity of different Arab and Turkish governors;
but with the advent of the Fátimid caliphs they entered upon a period of
unusual toleration and even favour. The new rulers, with one notorious
exception, were exceedingly well disposed towards their Christian
subjects, and many churches were built or restored during their reigns.
The caliph el-‘Azíz, son of Mo‘izz, who reigned from 975 to 996, had a
Christian wife, two of his brothers-in-law were Melekite patriarchs, and
the Jacobite patriarch Ephraim and Severus bishop of Ushmuneyn were his
particular friends. The bishop was encouraged to come to the palace and
discuss theology with the chief kády, and the patriarch was allowed to
restore the church of St Mercurius (Abu-s-Seyfeyn, “the two-sworded”)
outside Misr. “In ancient times,” we are told by an Armenian writer,
“there had been a church dedicated to Saint Mercurius, on the bank of
the river, but it was ruined and turned into a storehouse for sugar-
canes. Then, in the time of this patriarch, enquiries were made about
the creed of the Christians, whether they believed in the truth or in a
lie. So the Christians assembled and went out to the mountain, and the
Muslims and Jews went out at the same time on account of a certain
event. Many of the Muslim _sayyids_ came forward, and prayed, and cried
_Allahu akbar_, and implored the assistance of God, but no sign appeared
to them. Then the Jews followed them, and still no result followed. Then
the patriarch came forward, and the tanner, for whom God had performed a
miracle, followed him; and all the orthodox people followed them. They
prayed to the most high God, and burnt incense, and cried _Kyrie
eleison_ three times; and God showed his wonders, and the mountain
moved: namely, that part of the Mukattam hills which is near the hill of
Al-Kabsh, between Cairo and Misr. This miracle took place through the
faith of the tanner, who had plucked out his eye in the presence of
Al-‘Aziz and the chief men of his government and the kadis of the
Muslims. When Al-‘Aziz had witnessed this great miracle, he said: ‘It is
enough, O patriarch; we recognize what God has done for you’; and then
he added: ‘Desire of me what thou choosest, and I will do it for thee.’
The patriarch, however, refused with thanks; but Al-‘Aziz begged him to
ask for something, and did not cease until the patriarch had asked for a
certain church which had fallen into ruin. So Al-‘Aziz commanded that
this church should be restored for the patriarch, and it is said to have
been the church of Saint Mercurius.”[36] The patriarch would not accept
the offer of money for the restoration, but paid for it himself, and the
work was carried out under a guard of the caliph’s troops to protect the
Christians from the “common people of the Muslims,” who had no patience
with such concessions to the “polytheists.”
One of the vezírs or prime-ministers of ‘Azíz was a converted Jew,
another was the Christian Ibn-Nestorius. The Muslims naturally resented
this unusual toleration, and lampooned the caliph, but the harím was on
the side of the Christians, and as usual had its way. Even under the
caliph Hákim, the exception referred to, who certainly at one time
persecuted the Copts cruelly, the great posts of state were still held
by Christians; and though there was much confiscation and extortion
under the vezír Yazúry in the middle of the eleventh century, it seems
to have arisen more from fiscal necessities than from religious
antipathy. The great influence of the Armenian vezírs in the latter part
of that century evidently promoted a good feeling, for in the twelfth we
find the caliph Háfiz receiving lectures in history twice a week from
the Armenian patriarch, and several of the later caliphs would visit the
shaded gardens of Coptic monasteries, where they were hospitably
welcomed by the monks and made suitable returns for their cheer. We read
of handsome contributions for the support of convents and churches. The
far from exemplary caliph Ámir even had a monk for his right-hand man,
and used often to use a pavilion which he had built at a monastery near
Giza as a hunting lodge, paying 1000 dirhems to the monks at every
visit. He took pleasure in standing in the priest’s place in their
church, but scrupulously entered backwards in order to avoid the
appearance of bowing when passing through the low door. The last of the
Fátimid caliphs, el-‘Ádid, had also his favourite monastic retreat in
the convent of the Virgin some miles out of Cairo, where he would take
the air and gaze upon the “blessed Nile.”[37]
If the churches were cared for, the mosques were not neglected; and
though the Fátimid period is not rich in the multitude of mosques
erected by private benefactors which distinguishes the later Mamlúk
period, it boasts at least the two greatest congregational mosques
(_gámi‘_) of Cairo proper, both of which were among the early
preoccupations of the new dynasty. Gawhar’s first step, after beginning
the walls of the palace-city of Káhira, was to lay the foundations of
the mosque which stands to this day, known to all the world as el-Azhar,
“the Resplendent.” The day of its foundation was Sunday the 3rd of
April, 970, and it was finished on the 24th of June, 972. In 988 it was
specially devoted to the use of the learned and became what it has been
ever since, one of the chief Universities of Islám. Here to this day
multitudes of students gather from all parts of the Muslim world, from
the Gold Coast to the Malay States, each nation to the special _riwák_
or portico assigned to its use, and here they receive from learned
sheykhs instruction in the various branches of the old Arabic
curriculum—theology, exegesis, traditions, jurisprudence, grammar,
prosody, logic, rhetoric, algebra, etc. Over nine thousand students
still (1901) attend the lectures of 239 professors in the Azhar, and not
one of them is called upon to pay a piastre in fees. The learned men of
Cairo and many foreign cities willingly impart their knowledge without
reward, and eke out a living by private tuition and copying manuscripts.
The foreign students not only pay no fees but receive rations of food
from certain bequests. One may regret the limited scope and fanatical
tendency of the Azhar lectures, but at least it is a noble example of
free education, open to the poorest, no matter what his race or
language, and given to all without distinction of class. The knots of
students sitting round their master in earnest attention, or swaying to
and fro as they commit his dicta to memory, are a spectacle not easily
forgotten. In every detail they carry us back to the Middle Ages of
Arabic culture, and show us a zeal for learning, neither tainted by
prize-hunting nor cramped by examinations, which may teach even Western
universities something that they lack.
Very little of the Azhar represents the original building. It has been
repeatedly restored, and was largely reconstructed in the eighteenth and
the middle of the nineteenth century, and, though there are some fine
Kufic friezes and keelform (Persian) arches characteristic of the
Fátimid period, its present aspect is modern. The square court, however,
covers the same ground as it did when in 973 the caliph Mo‘izz, after
making his splendid entry, preceded by the coffins of his ancestors,
into the new city built by his faithful general, and totally ignoring
the old metropolis then _en fête_ for his reception, himself conducted
the prayers on the festival following the fasting month, delivered the
_Khutba_ or sermon with his wonted unction, and then headed the
procession of his troops, escorted by his four sons in armour, and
preceded by two elephants, back to the palace which Gawhar had prepared
for him. The fortified enclosure which has given its name to Cairo,
though sometimes called _el-Medína_, “the City,” was never intended to
be an Egyptian metropolis. It was to be the residence of the caliph and
his court, his slaves and officials, and his African troops. The public
of Misr had no access to it; none might pass through the gates without a
permit, and even ambassadors from foreign states were obliged to
dismount and were led into the palace between guards after the Byzantine
custom. Káhira was in fact a royal compound or enclosure, not a public
city. Its high walls and guarded gates symbolized the seclusion and
mystery in which the sacred person of the caliph was wrapped, and its
familiar epithet “the Guarded City” (el-Káhira el-Mahrúsa) illustrates
its privacy.
The original walls were built of large bricks, nearly two feet long and
fifteen inches broad, and the thickness of the walls was such that two
horsemen could ride abreast upon them. The Topographer in 1400 measured
the last fragment of this first wall, and says that none of it
afterwards remained to be seen.[38] The original enclosure was about 100
feet smaller every way than the later enclosure built in 1087, and we
may easily realize the length of the city of Gawhar by remembering that
the present Bab-el-Futúh (with the mosque of el-Hákim) and the Bab-
Zuweyla (with the mosque of el-Muayyad) stand a little outside the
original enclosure; whilst its breadth extended from the Bab-el-
Ghureyyib beyond the Azhar on the east to the Khalíg or canal on the
west. The western boundary running beside the canal is still recorded in
the street called Beyn-es-Sureyn, “Between the walls,” at the top of the
Musky. The enclosure was thus about 1200 yards each way, and formed an
area of less than half a square mile.
About the centre was the square called Beyn-el-Kasreyn, “Between the
Palaces,” a name still preserved in the original site in part of the
street known as the Coppersmiths’ Market (Suk-en-Nahhasín), now flanked
by several noble mosques of much later date. The name explains itself:
the square, which was far broader than the present thoroughfare, and
formed a parade ground on which ten thousand troops could be marshalled,
separated the two palaces which faced it, and served as the meeting
place of the city. The Great Palace of Mo‘izz lay on the east—the Khán-
el-Khalíly stands on a corner of its vast ground, and the Hasaneyn at
another corner—and the Lesser West Palace, built by ‘Azíz a little
later, faced it on the other side (where the Máristán of Kalaún occupies
a portion of its site), and on the back looked upon the spacious “Garden
of Kafúr,” where the Ikhshíd once had his pleasure-house. Makrízy
devotes nearly two hundred pages to the description of these wonderful
palaces. “We read of four thousand chambers;—of the Golden Gate which
opened to the Golden Hall, a gorgeous pavilion where the caliph, seated
on his golden throne, surrounded by his chamberlains and gentlemen-in-
waiting (generally Greeks or Sudánís), surveyed from behind a screen of
golden filigree the festivals of Islám;—of the Emerald Hall with its
beautiful pillars of marble;—the Great Diván, where he sat on Mondays
and Thursdays at a window beneath a cupola;—and the Porch where he
listened every evening while the oppressed and wronged came below and
cried the _credo_ of the Shí‘a till he heard their griefs and gave
redress.”
These various buildings composing the Great Palace were not the work of
a single year or of one ruler. Gawhar began the palace on the same night
that he marked out the foundations of the city, in July 969; two gates
were finished in the following March, and a wall was carried round the
palace in 970-1. Writing of the wall three-quarters of a century later,
Násir-i-Khusrau says that from outside the city the palace of the
caliphs looked like a mountain, by reason of its lofty mass of
buildings; but when one drew near one could see nothing of it on account
of its high wall.[39] This original palace was designed by the caliph
Mo‘izz himself, but it did not comprise half the splendid halls
described by the Topographer. The next caliph ‘Azíz built the “Golden
Hall” and the “Great Diván,” as well as the smaller Western Palace and
the Pearl Pavilion in Kafúr’s Garden. Later caliphs and vezírs added and
altered, and the “Splendid Palaces” (el-Kusúr ez-Záhira), as they were
collectively called, included numerous separate mansions or suites of
rooms of various dates. The Great Palace alone had ten gates, besides a
subterraneous passage by which the caliph could cross on his mule, led
by slave girls, to the Western Palace, which was specially reserved for
the harím. In the eleventh century there were twelve thousand servants
in the Palaces, and including the women the inmates were reckoned at
thirty thousand.
M. Ravaisse has reconstructed the Fátimid palaces, and even drawn plans
of them from the Topographer’s descriptions, in two elaborate
memoirs,[40] and though some of the details must be regarded as
tentative and open to revision, the general results probably represent
the actual arrangement of the Fátimid city. According to these
interesting researches the Great East Palace comprised principally three
large quadrangles of unequal sizes forming three quarters of a square,
the fourth or N.E. quarter being occupied by the Court of the Festival,
an open space between the Great Palace and the Palace of the Vezírs,
where the people could make merry on the ‘Id days. This Great Palace,
flanked by the Vezirate and the Azhar, covered the space from the
present Khan-el-Khalíly and Hasaneyn to the Gemalíya street (where the
monastic mosque of Beybars the Gashnekír stands). The various halls,
apartments, and court offices were arranged about the quadrangles, and
stables and stores formed outbuildings. On the other side of the Beyn-
el-Kasreyn, the West Palace ran from where the Maristán now stands to
the Hárat Bargawán, with two wings jutting forward at each end to
enclose the Beyn-el-Kasreyn; whilst the space between the West Palace
and the west wall was filled by the spacious Garden of Kafúr with its
various kiosques looking on the canal. The rest of the city enclosure,
outside the palaces, was occupied by the quarters (Hára) of the various
divisions of the Fátimid army, such as the Gawdaris, the Deylemis, the
Kitáma, the Barkis, the Utúfis, the Zawíla, and the north and south
Greek quarters (Hárat-er-Rúm), and so forth. The gates of the city were
the (old) Gates of Succour, Bab-en-Nasr, and of Conquests, Bab-el-Futúh,
on the north; the Gate of the Bridge (B.-el-Kántara) leading to Gawhar’s
bridge over the canal, the B.-el-Farag, also called the Gate of the
Sha‘ríya (a Berber tribe), and the Gate of Sa‘áda, named after a general
of el-Mo‘izz, and the Wicket Gate (Bab-el-Khawkha) on the west, opening
to the canal; the old double Gate of Zuweyla[41] on the south; and on
the east the Burnt Gate (B.-el-Mahrúk, so called because burnt down by
some fugitive Mamlúks in the thirteenth century), the New Gate (B.-el-
Gedíd, built by Hákim), and the Gate of the Barka troops (B.-el-
Barkíya), now known as the B.-el-Ghureyyib.
Some of the modern superstitions connected with the Gate of Zuweyla have
been mentioned before, but it has always been a haunted spot, and the
fact that executions took place just outside did not improve its
reputation. The Topographer records that the original gate, which stood
beside the “oratory of Shem, the son of Noah,” consisted of two arches,
one of which was known as the “Gate of the Arch.” This was the gate
through which el-Mo‘izz entered when he made his state progress into the
new city of Káhira, and all the people followed his example: but the
other arch was considered unlucky and no one cared to go under it. “This
[second] gate no longer remains,” says Makrízy, “nor is there any trace
of it, but the place where it stood is called el-Haggarín, where musical
instruments, as drums, lutes, and such-like are sold; and it is still
notorious among the people that whoever passes that way will not
accomplish his wishes. Some say that the reason of this saying is
because it is the place of sale for musical instruments, which are held
in disrepute, and the abode of musicians and male and female singers;
but the case is not as they pretend, for the saying was current among
the people of el-Káhira from the time when el-Mo‘izz entered, before
this place was a market for musical instruments and the haunt of the
disorderly.”[42]
Such topographical details are chiefly interesting to the antiquary. We
must search the records of travellers for more graphic descriptions.
Strangers unfortunately were rare in so jealously secluded a sanctum as
the Fátimid palace, and there are consequently few travellers’ pictures
to add to the researches of the Topographer. The Persian Násir-i-Khusrau
was indeed admitted in 1047, but he is disappointingly discreet in his
account, and we gain only a confused but gorgeous impression of the
great throne-room with hunting-scenes carved on the gold throne, which
was screened by gold lattice and approached by silver steps. The best
description occurs in William of Tyre’s account of the mission of the
Crusaders in 1167, when Amalric was posing as the protector of the
caliph, though it may well be that the palace had greatly changed in the
two centuries that had passed since its foundation. “The introduction of
Christian ambassadors to the sacred presence, where few even of the most
exalted Muslims were admitted, was unprecedented; but Amalric was in a
position to dictate his own terms. Permission was granted, and Hugh of
Cæsarea with Geoffrey Fulcher the Templar were selected for the unique
embassy. The vezír himself conducted them with every detail of oriental
ceremony and display to the Great Palace of the Fátimids. They were led
by mysterious corridors and through guarded doors, where stalwart
Sudánis saluted with naked swords. They reached a spacious court, open
to the sky, and surrounded by arcades resting on marble pillars; the
panelled ceilings were carved and inlaid in gold and colours; the
pavement was rich mosaic. The unaccustomed eyes of the rude knights
opened wide with wonder at the taste and refinement that met them at
every step;—here they saw marble fountains, birds of many notes and
wondrous plumage, strangers to the western world; there, in a further
hall, more exquisite even than the first, ‘a variety of animals such as
the ingenious hand of the painter might depict, or the license of the
poet invent, or the mind of the sleeper conjure up in the visions of the
night,—such, indeed, as the regions of the East and the South bring
forth, but the West sees never, and scarcely hears of.’
“At last, after many turns and windings, they reached the throne room,
where the multitude of the pages and their sumptuous dress proclaimed
the splendour of their lord. Thrice did the vezír, ungirding his sword,
prostrate himself to the ground, as though in humble supplication to his
god; then, with a sudden rapid sweep, the heavy curtains broidered with
gold and pearls were drawn aside, and on a golden throne, robed in more
than regal state, the caliph sat revealed.
“The vezír humbly presented the foreign knights, and set forth in lowly
words the urgent danger from without, and the great friendship of the
king of Jerusalem. The caliph, a swarthy youth emerging from
boyhood,—_fuscus, procerus corpore, facie venusta,_—replied with suave
dignity. He was willing, he said, to confirm in the amplest way the
engagements made with his beloved ally. But when asked to give his hand
in pledge of faithfulness, he hesitated, and a thrill of indignation at
the stranger’s presumption ran through the listening court. After a
pause, however, the caliph offered his hand—gloved as it was—to Sir
Hugh. The blunt knight spoke him straight: ‘My lord, troth has no
covering: in the good faith of princes, all is naked and open.’ Then at
last, very unwillingly, as though derogating from his dignity, the
caliph, forcing a smile, drew off the glove and put his hand in Hugh’s,
swearing word by word to keep the covenant truly and in all good
faith.”[43]
There is no doubt that the Fátimid caliphs were the most sumptuous
monarchs that ever ruled in Egypt. Mo‘izz himself was no sybarite. He
attended personally and assiduously to the details of administration,
looked to the justice of the law courts, managed the army upon which his
power depended, and built a new dock at Maks, lower down the river than
the former dockyards of Roda and Misr, and near the present Ezbekíya.
Maks remained the dock and port of Cairo until the shifting of the Nile
bed brought Bulák to the surface. Six hundred ships were soon afterwards
built there, and some of Mo‘izz’s vessels were seen in 1047 by Násir-i-
Khusrau beached at Maks, and were found to measure about 275 feet in
length by 110 feet in the beam.[44] But hard-working and prudent as he
was, he loved display. He would go in state to cut the dam of the canal,
and spent large sums on the brocaded covering for the Kaaba at Mekka—the
holy city now acknowledged his supremacy—which was exhibited to the
people at the annual Feast of Sacrifice. The palace buildings were all
planned by his own hands; Gawhar had only been his clerk of the works;
and the profusion of the new city argued the luxurious taste and the
prodigious resources of the caliph. The wealth of the Fátimids recorded
by the historians seems almost incredible. We read of two daughters of
Mo‘izz, one of whom left about a million and a half in gold (2,700,000
dinárs), whilst the other’s numerous jewel-rooms and coffers,
containing, among others, five sacks of emeralds, 3000 silver vessels,
and 30,000 Sicilian embroideries, exhausted forty pounds of wax in
sealing them up for her executors. Mo‘izz himself bought a silk curtain
from Persia for nearly £12,000, on which the countries of the world were
depicted and their cities; and his wife spent much treasure in 966 on
her mosque in the Karáfa, designed by el-Hasan the Persian and decorated
by Basra painters.
One advantage of heresy was the toleration of artistic ideas that were
abhorrent to the orthodox, and the Fátimids encouraged, if not portrait
painting, at least the representation of human beings in art, which was
held to be distinctly forbidden by the Prophet.[45] The mosque of the
cemetery called the Karáfa, however, transcended anything ever attempted
before in Egypt, if we except the stories of Khumáraweyh’s palace in
“the Wards.” Its plan was the ordinary square quadrangle surrounded by
cloisters, like the Azhar, but the decoration was remarkable. The
fourteen square doors leading into the _liwán_ or sanctuary were
surmounted by arches resting on triple marble columns, painted blue,
red, and green; the ceilings were also painted in various colours by
artists from Basra. Opposite the middle door was an arch on which a
bridge was painted, with steps of various colours, which looked real.
Painters used to come to see it, but they could not copy it. We read of
two rival artists, el-Kasír and Ibn-‘Azíz of Chaldæa, protégés of the
vezír el-Yazúry, who painted figures, the first of a dancing girl in a
white dress, standing against the black background of an arch, seeming
as though she stood inside it, and the second a similar girl in red who
appeared to be standing out in front of a yellow arch. There was in a
house in the Karáfa a picture by el-Kettámy, one of the decorators of
this mosque, which represented Joseph in the pit so that he seemed to
stand out in relief.[46]
The money to pay for the outgoings of the palace, with its twenty to
thirty thousand inmates, and all the luxury it implied, was partly
obtained by a more rigorous collection of the taxes and arrears than
heretofore, and by the substitution of a central tax office in the old
emírate house next to the mosque of Ibn-Tulún in place of the wasteful
and corrupt system of local collectors and tax-farmers. In a single day
the city of Misr (still in its prime) contributed from £26,000 to
£62,000 in taxes, according to the season. All taxes had to be paid in
the new Fátimid coinage, and the ‘Abbásid money was put out of currency.
The next caliph el-‘Azíz was noted for his judgment in gems, and set a
number of new fashions in gold-thread turbans, jewelled harness scented
with ambergris, and gold-inlaid armour for his horses, and luxuries for
the table, such as truffles from Mukattam and fish fresh from the sea.
Like Khumáraweyh he was fond of strange beasts, and imported birds and
animals from the Sudán. But he shared with his father the statesmanlike
qualities that no luxury could enfeeble. He built a fleet to fight the
emperor Basil; personally waged a successful campaign in orthodox Syria,
which never became reconciled to the Fátimid supremacy; and he gave
Egypt an interval of unbroken peace. His name was commemorated in the
Friday prayer in the mosques from Arabia to the Atlantic, and he never
failed to stand before the people in the Azhar and conduct the service
as their spiritual as well as temporal head.
[Illustration: RUINED MOSQUE OF EL-HAKIM]
The mosque known as el-Hákim’s owed its foundation at the close of 990
to el-‘Azíz and his vezír Ibn-Killis, who completed it sufficiently to
hold the Friday prayers there a year later. The decoration, minarets,
and other accessories were not finished till the reign of his son el-
Hákim, who set the work in hand in 1003, and placed the final
inscription on the pulpit in March 1013. Hence this second
congregational mosque of Káhira, originally known as the “New Mosque” or
“The Brilliant” (el-Anwar, in obvious imitation of the name of el-
Azhar), took its most usual title from el-Hákim. In the course of its
history it has suffered even worse indignities than the Old Mosque of
‘Amr. When the Crusaders occupied Cairo in 1167 they turned part of the
mosque of el-Hákim into a church. Under the Ayyúbid restoration of
orthodox Islam, the Azhar was disused for a time, as being the chief
seat of heresy, and the mosque of el-Hákim became the official place of
worship. Afterwards it seems to have been used for stables, and in the
summer of 1303 it was terribly shattered by a great earthquake, and
restored in the following year by Beybars the Taster. By the time that
the Topographer wrote his account of it about 1420, the mosque was again
in ruins, by fire and neglect, and its roof was crumbling piece by
piece. Since then it has fallen on still more evil days. Its court has
served in turn as a rope-walk, a drying ground, a common throughfare, a
playground, which you entered through a café, a brewery, or a bead
factory. The only honourable use it has been turned to is that of a
Museum of Arab Art, which for the past twenty years has occupied part of
the arcades of the east end, where the noble arches and Kufic
inscriptions still preserve something of their ancient grandeur, and
formed a fit shrine for many beautiful and curious works of Saracenic
art.
Melancholy as this vast empty court surrounded by decayed walls and
ruined arches appears in the present day, there are points of great
interest in the mosque of el-Hákim. The arches are the only exceptions
to the Persian shape (“keelform”—two arcs terminating in tangential
lines _at each end_) which is otherwise universal in the architecture of
the Fátimid period. This is doubtless due to its early date and obvious
imitation of the mosque of Ibn-Tulún. Still more remarkable are its
minarets, commonly called _mibkharas_ or censers from their peculiar
shape. The heavy square bases, however, have nothing to do with the
original minarets, the lower parts of which, built of carefully dressed
stone, with traces of Fátimid inscriptions, may still be traced inside
these ugly buttresses. A minute examination made by Herz Bey and M. van
Berchem established beyond a doubt the fact that the brick minarets
belong to the hasty restoration of 1304, after the earthquake. Beybars
did not trouble to rebuild the minarets in their former style, but put
brick tops, and probably shored up the old bases with the clumsy cubical
casings which have puzzled so many archæologists and suggested strange
theories of the early forms of minarets. The cubes may be later,
however, and may have had some connexion with the military defences of
the neighbouring city gate. The remains of the original stone minarets
inside these casings are specially interesting since they are the only
definite evidence we possess (save the small brick minaret of the mosque
el-Guyúshy) as to the construction of minarets of the Fátimid epoch, of
which Makrízy was evidently unaware when he wrote that no stone minarets
were erected previously to that of Kalaún in 1284. They are precisely
similar in construction to the later Mamlúk minarets, starting from a
square base, changing to an octagon, resolved into a cylinder. A spiral
staircase within led up to windows whence the muezzins chanted the call
to prayer.[47]
The caliph Hákim is one of the best known characters in Egyptian
history, yet a character so contradictory and bizarre that his
biographers are inevitably reduced to the weak conclusion of explaining
his conduct by the unsatisfactory solution of mania. He was the only son
of the exemplary ‘Azíz and his Christian wife,—the sister of two
patriarchs,—and is another witness to the truth of the saying that
clergymen’s relations are no better than other folk. Emerging from the
upper branches of a fig tree at the age of eleven to enter upon the
dazzling lustre of the throne, the boy had an unfortunate training. His
governor, the Slavonian eunuch Bargawán,—whose name is still to be read
in one of the lanes off the Beyn-el-Kasreyn—amused himself in the Pearl
Palace in the Garden of Kafúr, whilst the Berber and Turkish troops
fought each other in the streets. One of Hákim’s early experiences was
the presentation of the Berber general’s head by the victorious Turkish
guard. It was but a short step to the murder of the regent, and after
four years of very lax tutelage the youth of fifteen assumed full
powers.
“As the young caliph came more before the public, the eccentricities of
his character began to appear. His strange face, with its terrible blue
eyes, made people shrink; his big voice made them tremble. His tutor had
called him ‘a lizard,’ and he had a creepy slippery way of gliding among
his subjects that explained the nickname. He had a passion for darkness,
would summon his council to meet at night, and would ride about the
streets on his grey ass night after night, spying into the ways and
opinions of the people under pretence of inspecting the market weights
and measures. Night was turned into day by his command. All business and
catering was ordered to take place after sunset. The shops had to be
opened and the houses illuminated to serve his whim, and when the poor
people overdid the thing and began to frolic in the unwonted hours,
repressive orders were issued; women forbidden to leave their homes, and
men to sit in the booths. Shoemakers were ordered to make no outdoor
boots for women, so that they might not have the wherewithal to stir
abroad, and the ladies of Cairo were not only enjoined on no account to
allow themselves to be seen at the lattice-windows, but might not even
take the air on the flat roofs of their houses. Stringent regulations
were issued about food and drink. Hákim was a zealous teetotaller, as
all Muslims are expected to be. Beer was forbidden, wine was
confiscated, vines cut down, even dried raisins were contraband;
malukhíya (Jews’ mallow) was not to be eaten, and honey was seized and
poured into the Nile. Games, such as the Egyptian chess, were
prohibited, and the chessboards burnt. Dogs were to be killed wherever
found in the streets, but the finest cattle could not be slaughtered
save at the Feast of Sacrifice. Those who ventured to disobey these
decrees were scourged and beheaded, or put to death by some of the novel
forms of torture which the ingenious caliph delighted in inventing. A
good many of these strange regulations were no doubt inspired by a
genuine reforming spirit, but it was the spirit of a mad reformer. The
lively ladies of Cairo have always needed a tight hand over them, but
who could expect to restrain a woman by confiscating her boots? The
prohibition of intoxicating liquors, gambling, and public amusements,
was in keeping with the character of a sour and bitter puritan, and was
doubtless intended as much to improve the morals as to vex the souls of
his subjects. But the nightly wanderings, the needless restrictions and
harassing regulations concerning immaterial details, were signs of an
unbalanced mind. Hákim may have meant well according to his lights, but
his lights were strangely prismatic.”
It is difficult to discover the method in this madness. At first
Christians were tolerated; then, about 1005, began a course of
contemptible persecution, petty annoyances, foolish badges and liveries,
and other humiliations, followed by wholesale confiscations and
destruction of churches. But the Muslims fared almost as ill. Vezírs,
whether Christians or Muslims, were indiscriminately assassinated or
executed. The great Gawhar’s son was treacherously murdered in the
palace. Officials of all grades and all creeds were barbarously tortured
and wantonly killed. A distinguished general, after putting down a
rebellion which kept Egypt in a tumult for two years, happened to
disturb Hákim when he was cutting up a murdered child, and paid for his
indiscretion with his life. Yet at the very time when these horrors were
being enacted, the young caliph was busily superintending the decoration
of the mosque that bears his name,[48] and also founding the remarkable
institution called the “Hall of Science” (Dar-el-‘Ilm), in the precincts
of the Great Palace, where learned men of all shades of opinion met
together and discussed everything under the sun with the resources of a
well-appointed library. These meetings of a parliament of religions
recall the debates of Akbar’s later “Hall of Worship” at Agra, nor is
this the only point of resemblance between the two sovereigns,
contrasted as they are in most respects. Akbar allowed himself to be
worshipped as a deity, and Hákim came at last to a similar result, and
both were led to it by Shí‘a influences.
No doubt those long lonely rides on his grey ass about the desolate
Mukattam hills, those nights in the observatory on the slopes where he
worked out his astrological chimeras, ministered to a mind deeply imbued
with the mystical teaching of the Shí‘a. He was the Imám, through whom
God revealed Himself to the ignorant world; he was the only possessor of
the divine secrets; it was an easy step, and a logical, to argue that he
was the incarnation of the deity—that he was God. It took more than
twenty years to bring him to this point, but aided by the preaching of
some Persian mystics he arrived there about 1018. It is true his
preachers had poor success in their mission of proclaiming the divinity
of Hákim. One was set upon and murdered to the joy of the orthodox;
others desecrated the Old Mosque of ‘Amr with their blasphemy, and the
people rose and slew them; Darazy, who afterwards gave his name to the
strange sect of the Druzes in the Lebanon, was hunted to the palace and
with difficulty saved by the caliph’s personal interposition and ready
lie. Nobody accepted the new doctrine, monstrous to orthodox ears; and
probably the bulk of the people were not even moderate Shí‘a but really
Sunnis of the old school. Misr was in an uproar, and within an ace of a
revolution; but the negro troops did their savage work, the old capital
was looted, houses were burst open, young girls dragged away, and a
reign of terror silenced the outcry. The tortured people gathered in the
mosques and prayed for help.
Help came, but from an unexpected quarter. The black troops had gone too
far, and their rivals, the Berbers and Turks, less out of humanity than
mere jealousy of power, joined together in suppressing the common enemy.
Even Hákim lost his control over the army. He also set a powerful
influence against him in the harím. He slandered his sister’s chastity.
The Princess Royal refused after this to stand between her brother and
his fate. A conspiracy was formed and when, on the 13th of February
1021, Hákim took one of his accustomed rides to the hills, dauntless and
unconcerned as ever, he never returned. His ass and his coat, slashed
with dagger cuts, were found, but his body had disappeared. For a long
time people fearfully expected his return, as the Druzes in the Lebanon
do to this day.
After so horrible a nightmare Cairo stood in sore need of rest. It came,
but not at once. Military tyranny was succeeded by the corrupt rule of a
court clique; a terrible famine in 1025 drove the starving people to
highway robbery; the treasury was exhausted, the very slaves of the
palace mutinied, and Syria was in open revolt, whilst the new caliph,
Hákim’s son, amused himself with singers and dancers and bricked up
young girls to starve to death in the mosque. The luck of the Fátimids
was not yet exhausted, however; and good Niles, a vigorous suppression
of the Syrian rebellion by an energetic viceroy, and a temporary
quieting down of the soldiers’ jealousies, gave Egypt a quarter of a
century of comparative tranquillity. The valley of the Nile was now
almost all that was left to the Fátimids. Their great Barbary dominions
had completely fallen away by 1046, and the old Mediterranean supremacy
had departed for ever. Syria was held with difficulty by force of arms,
and though Arabia, from Medina to the Yemen and Hadramawt, yielded
homage to the Egyptian caliphs, its Shí‘a emír was nothing less than an
independent sovereign. The extraordinary fact that for forty weeks in
1058-9 the Fátimid caliph was prayed for in the mosques of orthodox
Baghdád[49] testifies to political intrigues in the eastern caliphate
rather than to any real access of power to the Fátimids.
In Egypt, however, they were still undisturbed. A new caliph, el-
Mustánsir, a baby of eight months, succeeded to the throne in 1036, and
kept it, by no special virtue or effort of his own, until 1094, and his
long occupation—it can hardly be called reign—comprised alternations of
surprising prosperity and desperate distress. In spite of the evil
influence of his mother, a Sudány black, who imported many of her savage
compatriots to overawe the capital, the country enjoyed exceptional
tranquillity in the middle of the eleventh century. We have the evidence
of Násir-i-Khusrau, in 1047-9, who states unconditionally that Egypt was
then in affluence, and that he had never known such tranquillity and
security as he saw there. The caliph Mustansir was exceedingly popular,
and no one went in fear of violence or rapacity from his government.
Order reigned supreme, and the very jewellers and moneychangers did not
trouble to shut the doors of their shops against thieves. The shops in
Cairo itself were reckoned at over twenty thousand, and all were the
property of the caliph, and paid him from two to ten dinárs a month. He
owned, it was said, 20,000 houses, five or six storeys high, let out in
lodgings, at monthly rents averaging eleven dinárs (or £70 a year). The
houses were well built of good stone, not brick, and were separated by
delightful gardens. There were then no city walls (the first walls
having fallen to ruin, and the second not built till forty years later),
but the lofty houses themselves, says the traveller, were almost like
fortifications, and each palace or mansion was a castle by itself.[50]
There was a space of a mile between Cairo and Misr, covered with gardens
and country-houses, but flooded at the time of the inundation so that it
looked like a sea.
The Persian saw one of the great ceremonies of the Cairo year, the
cutting of the dam of the canal at Misr by Mustansir in person. The
caliph rode at the head of ten thousand horsemen, whose saddles and
harness and horse-armour were adorned with gold and precious stones,
with silken housings embroidered with the caliph’s name. Led camels bore
litters richly decorated, and even the mules had their share of jewelled
harness. Regiment after regiment the army defiled towards the mouth of
the canal: Berbers of the Kitáma tribe, 20,000 strong, descended from
the veterans of Mo‘izz; Maghrabis, 15,000; Masmúda, 20,000; Turks and
Persians, called “the Easterns,” though born in Egypt, 10,000; Bedawis
from the Higáz, 15,000; Sudány blacks, 30,000; slaves, chamberlains,
officials of all ranks, poets and doctors, princes from Morocco, from
the Yemen, from Nubia, Abyssinia, Asia Minor, Georgia, Turkistan, and
even the sons of a sultan of Delhi, whose mother had settled at Cairo.
The caliph himself, a handsome and amiable-looking young man, clean
shaved, and dressed in a long robe of pure white, rode a mule without
any ornaments. Three hundred Persians of Deylem on foot, dressed in
Greek brocade, formed his escort, carrying axes and pikes. A great
dignitary bore the parasol of state beside him, and eunuchs burned
incense on either hand. All the people fell on their faces as the caliph
passed to the silken tent at the mouth of the canal, and as soon as he
cast a javelin at the dam they fell to with pick and shovel, and the
Nile flowed in. Then all the world went sailing on the river in great
joy, headed by a boatful of deaf and dumb for the sake of luck.
The Persian was fortunate in the time of his sojourn in Egypt. Very evil
days were in store for it, in which Cairo suffered its first spoliation
since its foundation a century before. For nine years (1050-8) an able
vezír, el-Yazúry, kept the upper hand over the various factions. He did
his best to deal with the ever-recurring menace of famine, and it is
possible that the ruins of “Joseph’s granaries” near Masr-el-‘Atíka,
which Benjamin of Tudela mentions as early as 1170, represent the
storehouses for corn which he laid up against years of scarcity. In
those days there was no Willcocks or Scott Moncrieff to plan barrages
and dams, and make the great river the servant of the poorest felláh. If
the Nile at the season of inundation did not rise above the lines on the
Nilometer at Roda known by the ominous names of the degrees of Munkir
and Nakír, the two angels of the grave, a famine inevitably ensued, and
with the famine came too often plague, and misery and hunger led to
disorder and crime. The cause and effect recurred with the regularity of
a machine. Yazúry’s granaries staved off the danger for a while at the
capital; but after he was poisoned in 1058, there was no one to control
the warring factions. Forty changes of vezírs in nine years show the
instability of the government. The caliph listened to the advice of
anybody, and men of straw formed his council. The real rulers were the
Turkish troops, who united with the Berbers and drove the hated Sudánis
out of Cairo. The blacks established themselves in Upper Egypt, where
their license terrified the people and prevented cultivation; the
Berbers, expelled in turn, overran the Delta and deliberately destroyed
the irrigation system in order to starve the fellahín. Meanwhile the
Turks looted the capital, despoiled the beautiful palaces of the
caliphs, dispersed their priceless collections[51] of works of art,
precious stones and jewellery, and worst of all broke up their
incomparable library of 100,000 manuscripts—some of them books which
orientalists still search for in vain—and used these treasures of
learning to mend their boots, to light their fires, or even threw them
wantonly out on the rubbish heaps.
Upper and Lower Egypt being held by predatory bands of Sudánis and
Berbers, the capital was cut off from supplies when the great famine
began in 1066. Seven years it lasted without a sign of relief, and Egypt
was nearly ruined. Terror of the disbanded troops in the provinces
paralysed the fellahín, and nothing was done to mitigate the effects of
the low Niles or to sow for the next season. Cairo and Misr, deprived of
their usual supplies from the provinces, felt the scarcity most
severely. We read of £8 being paid for a loaf of bread, of a house
bartered for a quarter of flour, of ladies of quality throwing away
their useless jewellery which no one would take in exchange for food,
and of horses, asses, and even dogs and cats, bought at high prices and
hungrily devoured. Soon there was not a beast to be killed, and the
caliph’s stable was brought so low that his starved grooms could only
muster three sorry nags. The people began to kidnap and eat each other.
Human flesh was sold by the butchers. Then came the plague and mowed
down every soul in house after house with its sudden secret scythe.
Famine and plague are no respecters of persons. The great suffered alike
with the poor. Proud noblemen tried to earn a crust of bread by serving
in the public baths. The caliph himself, despoiled by the Turks and
deserted by his household—even his wife and daughters fled to Baghdád to
escape the pest—owed his daily rations of two loaves to the charity of a
scholar’s daughter.
Those seven lean years of indescribable misery and crime had never
before been approached in Egypt. At last they came to an end. The
harvest of 1073 was bountiful, the leader of the Turks was “cut in
pieces small,” and a great vezír came to the rescue of the tottering
State (1074). This was Bedr el Gemály, for whom the caliph sent in his
distress. Bedr was an Armenian, but not a Christian, and began his
career as a slave. His marked ability had raised him to such high
offices as the governorship of Damascus and afterwards of ‘Akka (Acre).
He was the man for the crisis, and by a fortunate omen a Korán reader
was actually reciting to the caliph the verse, “And God has helped you
with Bedr——”[52] when Bedr entered the presence. “Had you read any
more,” cried the delighted caliph, “your head would have been cut off.”
The famous general made short work of the Turkish oligarchy. The leaders
were all killed, by a treacherous but salutary trick, in a single night.
The reign of terror in Cairo was over. Bedr was appointed commander-in-
chief, vezír of the sword and pen, chief kády, and director of the Shí‘a
propaganda—generalissimo, prime minister, cardinal, and lord chancellor
in one. He first brought back order in the capital, and then marched
through the provinces, defeating, slaughtering and subduing Berbers,
Sudánis, and Arabs, till law reigned supreme from Alexandria to Aswán.
The peasantry, restored to peace and security, laboured their lands
again, the revenue rose by leaps and bounds, and for twenty years the
country enjoyed plenteous prosperity.
Cairo benefited incalculably by the large and noble policy of the great
Armenian. For a century since the days when ‘Azíz built the West Palace
and the Pavilion of the Pearl, there had been few important additions to
its architecture. Hákim, indeed, had finished his father’s mosque, and
built the Hall of Science. Mustansir’s favourite residence was his
country palace at Heliopolis, where he had a kiosk modelled after the
holy but distinctly ugly Kaaba of Mekka, with a pool of wine to
represent the well of Zemzem; and there he made merry, with exceedingly
unorthodox sarcasms upon the black stone and bad water of the Arabian
original. With the rule of Bedr, Cairo once more heard the sound of the
trowel. In view of the recent invasion and spoliation of the city by
insurgent troops the first necessity was to fortify it for defence. The
old wall of sun-burnt brick had practically disappeared in the growth of
the town which now spread outside the three gates built by Gawhar. These
gates were now taken down and rebuilt of stone (1187-91) so as to
enclose a larger area—the Greek Quarter at the south, for example, was
now taken within the wall—and a new wall of brick was carried round the
city. It was afterwards enlarged by Saladin, but some of the wall of
Bedr still remains. On the north it still connects the Bab-en-Nasr with
the Bab-el-Futúh, and extends to a bastion about 330 feet west of the
latter, and to a re-entering angle some 200 feet east of the Bab-en-
Nasr. There is also a piece of the wall among the houses near the Bab-
Zuweyla on the south face of the enclosure, and as late as 1842 a
portion of the west wall was still to be seen at the west side of the
Ezbekíya.
[Illustration: GATE OF SUCCOUR: BAB-EN-NASR]
The three great gates stand practically unchanged, though the towers of
the Zuweyla gate were shortened to receive the minarets of the mosque of
el-Muayyad in the fifteenth century. These gates are the most impressive
monuments of the Fátimid period, but they are Byzantine, not Saracenic.
According to the Armenian chronicler Abu-Sálih, a Copt, “John the Monk,”
planned the walls and gates for the Armenian vezír; but whatever share
he had in designing the lie of the walls, he could never have been the
architect of these Norman-looking gates.[53] The Topographer is
evidently right in stating that they were built by three brothers from
Edessa—a city full of Armenians where Bedr, with his Syrian experience,
would naturally seek his architects—each of whom built one gate. The
statement is amply confirmed, not only by the style, which clearly
belongs to the Syrian-Byzantine school, but also by various mason’s
marks in Greek letters, Ζ̲, Η, Η’, etc. In short, as M. van Berchem has
pointed out, the gates and enceinte of Cairo belong to what is called
the Templars’ (as distinguished from the French) style of military
architecture,—“the great Byzantine and Saracenic school of which the
chief characteristics may be traced in various countries and at divers
epochs, at Constantinople, Nicæa, Brusa, Adalia, and the Pamphylian
cities, in the old Arab fortresses of northern Syria, in the style of
the Templars and the military buildings of the post-crusade Saracens,
such as the enceinte of Jerusalem,” etc. The leading features of the
style are square bastions and square or round headed openings,
contrasting with the Persian arches of the Fátimid mosques and the round
bastions of Saladin’s wall. The curtains run to a thickness of eleven to
thirteen feet, and contain archers’ chambers and other apparatus for
defence. The gates consist of a vaulted passage, with round arch,
between towers containing an ingenious arrangement of shooting floors
and connected by a cross-passage above the arch, with a place for
launching stones or grenades upon the enemy. A fine spiral staircase,
admirable cornices, some sculptured shields, and a magnificent Kufic
inscription[54] adorn the Bab-en-Nasr. The inscription (like another on
the Bab-el-Futúh) expresses the Shí‘a creed, but has nevertheless
sustained eight centuries of orthodox rule in Egypt unchanged. The three
great gates are noble monuments of one of the greatest vezírs of
mediæval Cairo.
For nearly sixty years Egypt enjoyed the inestimable benefits of
Armenian rule. Bedr died in 1094, the year also of the caliph
Mustánsir’s death, but the vezír’s son el-Afdal succeeded to his
father’s power, and governed Egypt till 1121, when he was assassinated
by order of the caliph Amir. Afdal’s son Abu-‘Aly held supreme power in
1131 in the name of “the expected Mahdy,”—thus reverting to the old
Shí‘a theory of the hidden Imám and ignoring all claims of the Fátimid
dynasty. When he in turn was murdered on his way to the polo field,
Yanis, an Armenian slave of Afdal’s, became vezír, and after him Bahrám,
an Armenian Christian, retained the office until 1137. By this time the
growing influence of the Armenians had led to their holding every post
worth having in all the government departments, and their excessive
assumption of authority led to a natural reaction. Bahrám and 2000 of
his fellow-countrymen were expelled, and the heyday of the Armenians was
over. They deserved well of the country, and had ruled, on a whole, both
wisely and large-mindedly. Firm and yet mild, the virtual sovereignty of
Bedr and his son had rendered immense services to Egypt. If they
accumulated vast wealth—Afdal is said to have left over £3,000,000 in
gold, and the milk of his herds of cows was farmed in one year for
£15,750—they earned their fortunes by hard and intelligent work; they
were just and generous, and the Copts had much to thank them for. Even
Abu-‘Aly, with his eccentric revival of the doctrine of the concealed
Imám, who actually figured on the coinage, inherited the wise tradition
of his father and grandfather, and showed himself tolerant and mild, a
good friend to the Christians, and a patron of learning.
[Illustration: MINARETS OVER GATE OF ZUWEYLA]
From the time of Bedr, Egypt, it will be realized, had become a country
ruled no longer by caliphs but by vezírs. It was the old story of the
Merovingian _major domo_ translated into Arabic. Indeed, since the
terrible despotism of Hákim no caliph had exercised personal authority
in the great affairs of state, except el-Amir, who tried for a few years
to be his own prime-minister, with the help, however, of the monk Ibn-
Kenna, but the experiment was not a success. The monk became too
inflated, and was scourged to death. El-Ámir’s cruelty made him
detested, and one day as he was riding back from the Hawdag, or
“Litter,” the country-house on the island of Roda in which he consulted
the desert tastes of his Bedawy bride, he was assassinated by some
Isma‘ílian Assassins (1130). He had at least the virtue to found a
mosque, the Gámi‘ el-Akmar (Grey Mosque), in Beyn-el-Kasreyn. After this
the caliphs resigned themselves to a succession of vezírs, who were
themselves the instruments of military factions. The spiritual sanctity
and seclusion of the Fátimid pontiffs were still observed, as we have
seen in the description of the embassy of the two knights, but one must
believe that this reverence had degenerated into something like a farce.
The murders of Ámir and Záfir; the early imprisonment of Háfiz, and his
later thraldom to his drunken negro guards, who killed the gallant
Rudwán, vezír, soldier, and poet, in front of the Grey Mosque, and who
made the caliph poison his own son by the hands of his Christian
physician; the awful scene of bloodshed in the very palace, amid which
the baby Fáïz was exhibited to the trembling court as their spiritual
Imám[55]—these do not point to any real reverence for the mystical
caliphate of the Shí‘a. Fainéant caliphs had long been known at Baghdád,
and their rivals on the Nile were equally shadows of a mighty name.
The last horror was too much even for the long-suffering people of
Cairo. The murder of the caliph Záfir shortly after the murder of the
Kurd vezír Ibn-es-Salár; the massacre in the palace; the peculiar
unnaturalness of the crimes on the part of a kinsman and boonfellow; the
atrocious brutality of exposing the child-caliph of four years to the
terror of such a scene of blood and anguish, roused a storm of
vengeance. The new vezír, ‘Abbás, the instigator, fled from a hail of
stones, and was killed near the Dead Sea; the actual assassin, Nasr, was
delivered up by the Templars of Palestine, for a blood-money of £30,000,
to the women of the palace, who tortured him, and sent him through the
streets of Cairo, maimed and blinded, to be crucified alive at the Bab-
Zuweyla. In their desperate straits the women had sent locks of their
hair to the governor of Ushmuneyn in Upper Egypt, and the emír Talái‘,
son of Ruzzík, responded gallantly to the appeal (1154). Waving the
eloquent tresses he rode into Cairo, followed by an Arab guard, and when
he had assumed the vezirate in the Dar-el-Mamún,[56] the capital
recovered its confidence. Talái‘, who followed the custom of recent
vezírs and styled himself “king,” el-Melik es-Sálih, was the last
buttress of the falling dynasty. He was a man of culture, a poet,
accessible, generous, and politic. His mosque, still to be seen near the
Bab-Zuweyla, bears witness to his pious munificence. He tried his best
to turn aside from Egypt the storm that was threatening from the
political complications in Syria and Palestine; but the palace women
found that they had called to their rescue an austere moralist, and
ungratefully put him to death. “His last words were a regret that he had
not conquered Jerusalem and exterminated the Franks, and a warning to
his son to beware of Sháwar, the Arab governor of Upper Egypt. The
regret and the warning were well founded. Sháwar deposed and executed
the vezír’s son Ruzzík at the beginning of 1163, and within the year the
Christian king of Jerusalem was in Egypt.”
Before turning to the invasion of Cairo by the Crusaders, the conquest
by Saladin, and the end of the Fátimids in the death of the last caliph
el-‘Adid, a few words must be said on the remains of the city which the
falling dynasty had created and maintained in exceptional splendour. Of
all their buildings only the three great gates, part of the walls, and
the remains of four[57] mosques, bear witness to the Fátimids. The
palaces have utterly gone: they were not used by their successors, and
gradually fell to ruin. “O censurer of my love for the sons of Fatima,”
wrote Omára, the poet, before 1174, “join in my tears over the desolate
halls of the twin Palaces.” The Hall of Science, the Dar-el-Mamún, the
Palace of the Vezírs, and all the other mansions and pleasure houses of
the Shí‘a caliphs and their court have disappeared. There was no wanton
or general destruction: the buildings were simply deserted and neglected
under the new orthodox régime, and neglected houses soon fall to ruin.
Of the few remaining monuments, the oldest that can be regarded as
authentic is the mosque of el-Hákim—for the Azhar retains little of its
original architecture or decoration. The Akmar mosque in Beyn-el-Kasreyn
built by the caliph Ámir is remarkable as the first mosque built of
stone: the earlier mosques were all of brick. Only the façade, however,
is of stone, well-shaped and joined, and finely sculptured. The interior
arches are of brick on marble pillars. “Small and ruined as it is, it
has the feature, unique among Fátimid mosques, of a fine façade
(unfortunately hidden by a formless erection which the Monuments
Commission has vainly sought to obtain power to remove), very unlike the
ordinary plain exterior of the early mosques, and deserving special
notice for the shell ornament of its fluted niche, the rosette of open
tracery composed of inscriptions and ornaments, and the side niches,
surmounted by a Kufic frieze.”[58] Two inscriptions giving the name of
el-Amir and the date 519 A.H. (1125) belong to the foundation, and two
others record the restoration of the mosque by the emír Yelbugha es-
Sálimy in 799 (1396), but this restoration fortunately made but slight
alterations in this interesting building. The mosque of the vezír Talái‘
ibn Ruzzík, near the Bab-Zuweyla (1160), though much dilapidated, shows
a notable advance in decorative skill, and the rich detail of its
arabesques is scarcely surpassed by any later work. Fátimid decoration
is well illustrated by several important examples in the Museum of Arab
Art. Especially to be studied are the panelled doors with fine foliate
carving and inscriptions (of el-Hákim) from the Azhar mosque; and the
three _mihrabs_ or prayer niches, two of which came from the Azhar (one
bears an inscription recording its erection there by el-Ámir in 1125),
and the third from the chapel of Seyyida Rukeyya of about 1135. The last
is a marvel of intricate geometrical panel-work and arabesque and Kufic
ornament.
[Illustration: MOSQUE OF EL-GUYUSHY]
Unhappily, if heterodox opinions encouraged artistic development, they
also led to the destruction of its achievements. Had the Fátimids not
been heretics, their beautiful palaces with their thousands of exquisite
works of art might have been preserved by their successors. As it was,
they all bore “the mark of the Beast,” and the pious folk of later times
were only too eager to efface all memories of the schismatic caliphs who
had lavished their fabulous wealth with admirable taste upon the
embellishment of their city.
CHAPTER VI
_Saladin’s Castle_
CAIRO at the beginning of the thirteenth century was a very different
city from the Fátimid royal compound. It covered a much larger space,
included a number of new buildings of a character unknown in Egypt
before, and it possessed a citadel. All these changes were due to
Saladin, though he did not live to see them completed. To trace in
detail the causes which led to the invasion of Egypt by the Crusading
king of Jerusalem and the expulsion of the Franks by the armies of Nur-
ed-din, sultan of Damascus, would carry us far away from our proper
subject. The principal element in the political situation was the
partition of the Fátimid province of Syria between two new and
aggressive powers, the Crusaders and the Seljúk Turks. The gradual
infiltration of Turkish officers into the Baghdád caliphate had ended in
a great invasion of this race, led by the Seljúks, who not only subdued
the whole of Persia and Mesopotamia in the middle of the eleventh
century and made the ‘Abbásid caliph their tool, but overran the Fátimid
dominions in Syria, which had always been loosely held, took possession
of Damascus in 1076, and were only prevented from invading Egypt by the
bribes and warlike preparations of the Armenian vezír Bedr el-Gemály.
The Seljúk empire broke up at the close of the century; but its Syrian
fragment, under the brilliant leadership of the Atabeg Zengy and his son
Nur-ed-din, was little less formidable to the Fátimid authority than the
undiminished empire of the Seljúks. Meanwhile a fresh complication was
introduced into Syrian politics by the beginning of the Crusades, the
recovery of Jerusalem by the Christians in 1099, and the establishment
there of the Latin Kingdom. Step by step the Fátimid garrisons were
driven south. The Armenian Afdal, Bedr’s son, after attempting
negotiations, fought a series of campaigns in Palestine, but the advance
of the Crusaders was not to be stayed. Tripolis fell in 1109, Tyre
followed in 1124, and after a long interval Ascalon, the last Fátimid
outpost, surrendered in 1153. The Crusaders now touched the Egyptian
frontier, and their fortresses at Karak and Montréal, by the Dead Sea,
intercepted communications with Syria.
[Illustration: CAIRO BEFORE 1200]
Of the two powers, the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Turkish
Sultanate of Damascus, neither was strong enough to crush the other.
Egypt was the key of the situation. If either power could obtain
possession of the Nile, it would take its rival on the flank and win the
mastery. The natural combination would of course be between the two
Muslim states of Damascus and Cairo; but religious sectarianism barred
the way. Nur-ed-din was a zealous Muslim of the orthodox school, and
would have no traffic with Shí‘a heretics. The vezírs Ibn-es-Salár and
Talái‘ did indeed open a diplomatic correspondence with the king of
Damascus, but received little encouragement. It was not till his hand
was forced by the actual presence of a Crusading army at Cairo that Nur-
ed-din at last sent his troops to Egypt. The interference was due to the
quarrels of rival vezírs who were struggling over the remains of the
Fátimid power. One of these, Sháwar, expelled by Dirghám, appealed to
Nur-ed-din, and Dirghám sought the alliance of Amalric, the king of
Jerusalem, who had already invaded Egypt to claim the yearly
subsidy—_annua tributi pensio_ as William of Tyre describes it—which the
decrepit Fátimid government had recently paid as blackmail to its
Christian neighbour. Sháwar returned in 1164 supported by a Syrian army
commanded by Shirkúh, with his nephew Saladin on his staff. Dirghám,
defeated at Bilbeys, made another stand at Cairo, where he held the
Fátimid city whilst Sháwar and the Syrians occupied Misr. Popular as
Dirghám had been—he was a brave Arab, who had fought the Crusaders at
Gaza and commanded the Barkíya battalion of the Fátimid army—he ruined
his cause by laying hands on the _wakf_ (pious benefactions) to meet his
military necessities. His followers fell away, and the caliph withheld
his countenance. The final scene was tragical:—
“Driven to bay, for the last time he sounded the ‘assembly.’ In vain
‘the drums beat and the trumpets blared, _ma-sha-llah!_ on the
battlements’; no man answered. In vain the desperate emir, surrounded by
his bodyguard of 500 horse, all that remained to him of a powerful army,
stood suppliant before the caliph’s palace for a whole day, even until
the sunset call to prayer, and implored him by the memory of his
forefathers to stand forth at the window and bless his cause. No answer
came; the guard itself gradually dispersed, till only thirty troopers
were left. Suddenly a warning cry reached him: ‘Look to thyself and save
thy life!’—and lo! Sháwar’s trumpets and drums were heard, entering from
the Gate of the Bridge. Then at last the deserted leader rode out
through the Zuweyla Gate: the fickle folk hacked off his head, and bore
it in triumph through the streets; his body they left to be worried by
the curs. Such was the tragic end of a brave and gallant gentleman,
poet, and paladin.”
As soon as Dirghám was disposed of, the treacherous Sháwar turned upon
his deliverers, and called in the aid of Amalric to drive away the
Syrians. After a prolonged conflict, an armistice was eventually
arranged, and both armies, Christian and Syrian, retired from Egypt
without immediate result. But the invasion was the beginning of a
permanent occupation. On their return to Damascus the Syrian troops
described the weakness of the Fátimid rule and urged upon Nur-ed-din the
importance of the conquest of Egypt. The cautious sultan was slow to
move, but when the news came that Amalric was again intriguing with
Sháwar, the Syrian army set out a second time for the Nile and crossed
it just as the Crusaders came up (1167). Amalric, however, succeeded in
getting possession of Cairo, and made the treaty with the caliph which
was the occasion of the memorable audience of the two knights described
above (p. 131). Shirkúh, on the other hand, overran Upper Egypt, and
Saladin held Alexandria for seventy-five days. Then another truce was
arranged, and the two armies went back respectively to Syria and
Palestine. The Franks, however, left a Resident at Cairo and manned the
guards of the gates, quartering a garrison in the mosque of el-Hákim;
and the representations of these spectators of the weakness and
distraction of the government of Egypt brought Amalric back in the
following year with the definite intention of annexing the land. This
breach of faith, followed by a barbarous massacre at Bilbeys, so alarmed
the Egyptians that they sent urgent entreaties to Nur-ed-din—the caliph
even plied him with the touching argument of tresses of his wives’
hair—and for the third time, at the beginning of 1169, Shirkúh and
Saladin arrived in Egypt. This time they stayed for good. Amalric
retired without even giving battle; Sháwar, after plotting the murder of
his rescuers, was arrested and executed; Shirkúh was appointed vezír,
and on his death two months later Saladin was invested with the robe of
office in March 1169.
As vezír of the Shí‘a caliph and at the same time viceroy of the
orthodox king of Damascus, Saladin’s position was clearly untenable, and
though he carried on the business of state for two years in this
anomalous situation it was obvious that the Fátimid caliphate must come
to an end. The last of the Fátimids was dying, and the opportunity was
taken to make the necessary change. At the Friday prayers on the 10th of
September 1171, the ‘Abbásid caliph of Baghdád was duly proclaimed in
the mosques of Cairo. A similar ceremony is described by an Arab
traveller from Spain twelve years later.
“In one of these Friday Mosques,” says Ibn-Gubeyr, “the Sermon was
preached to-day. The Preacher herein followed the Sunny rite, beginning
his sermon with an invocation conjointly for the Companions, the
Followers and their fellows, also for the Mothers of the Faithful, who
are the Wives of the Prophet, and for his two noble uncles Hamza and
el-‘Abbás;—further, he preached so fine a sermon and so moving a
discourse that hard hearts were humbled and dry eyes shed tears. He
delivered his sermon robed in black, as is the ‘Abbásid rule; for he
wore a black cloak over which hung a _taylasan_ or veil of fine black
linen, such as in Spain would be called an _ihrám_; his turban also was
black, and he was girt with a sword. As he ascended the pulpit, he
struck a blow on the step with the ferule of his scabbard, when he first
began to go up, such as the congregation might hear, and as though it
were a call to silence, and in the midst of his ascent he struck another
blow, and when he reached the top, a third; after which he pronounced
the blessing, turning first to the right and then to the left, standing
there between two black banners that had white marks on them, which were
fixed in the upper part of the pulpit. On this occasion, further, he
invoked a blessing first on the ‘Abbásid caliph, who is en-Násir-li-
dini-llah, the son of el-Mustady, and next he prayed for the restorer of
his power, Yúsuf, son of Ayyúb, who is the Sultan Saladin, and then for
his brother and heir apparent, Abu-Bekr, who is named Seyf-ed-din
(Saphadin).”[59]
The congregation who first heard this bidding-prayer in 1171 showed
little surprise, and there was scarcely a murmur. The Shí‘a propaganda
had probably been attended with little success in Cairo, and the bulk of
the people retained their leanings to the orthodox creed, in spite of
two centuries of dominant heresy. At least, the revolution was
accomplished without a shock. The last of the Fátimid caliphs passed
away without hearing of his deposition. His relations were kept in
luxurious captivity, and his slaves and household dispersed. The palaces
were too magnificent for Saladin’s modest wants, and he quartered the
officers of his army there, and himself occupied the House of the
Vezírs. The great library of 120,000 books, which had been studiously
collected since the dispersal of the earlier library a century before,
was given to the learned chancellor, Kády el-Fádil. The treasure was
distributed or sold. The palaces and every memory of the Fátimids
gradually disappeared, save their mosques, and orthodoxy once more
reigned supreme in Egypt.
The career of the great champion of Islám was made chiefly outside
Egypt. Of Saladin’s reign of twenty-four years—for reign it was from the
beginning, though nominally subject to the king of Damascus for the
first five years—he spent but eight at Cairo, and his greatest triumphs,
as well as his few reverses, took place in Syria, Mesopotamia, and
Palestine. When he left Cairo on the 11th of May, 1182, and the great
officers of the court came to his stirrup to bid him farewell, as the
cavalcade halted by the Lake of the Abyssinians, a voice was heard above
the music and the singing: “Enjoy,” it cried in the classical lines of
an Arab poet,
“Enjoy the perfume of the ox-eyes of Nejd;
After to-night there will be no more ox-eyes.”
The evil omen came true: there were no more ox-eyes in Egypt for him,
and Cairo saw him never again. He conquered the land of the Euphrates;
held kingly state at Damascus, which he had annexed after the death of
Nur-ed-din; won his great victory at Hittín over the Crusaders;
recovered Jerusalem, sacred to him as well as to Christians, and brought
all the Holy Land to his feet; and fought the long duel with the
chivalry of Europe which wavered about ‘Akka for two years, and ended in
the running fight with Richard of England that has made Saladin a
household name even in Europe. After the last dash upon Jaffa and its
repulse, the treaty of peace was signed, and in the following March,
1193, Saladin died and was buried at Damascus.
“The Holy War was over; the five years’ contest ended. Before the great
victory at Hittin in July, 1187, not an inch of Palestine west of the
Jordan was in the Muslims’ hands. After the Peace of Ramla in September,
1192, the whole land was theirs, except a narrow strip of coast from
Tyre to Jaffa. At the Pope’s appeal all Christendom had risen in arms.
The Emperor, the Kings of England, France and Sicily, Leopold of
Austria, the Duke of Burgundy, the Count of Flanders, hundreds of famous
barons and knights of all nations, had joined with the King and Princes
of Palestine and the indomitable brothers of the Temple and Hospital, in
the effort to deliver the Holy City and restore the vanished Kingdom of
Jerusalem. The Emperor was dead, the Kings had gone back; many of their
noblest followers lay buried in the Holy Land: but Jerusalem was still
the city of Saladin, and its titular king reigned over a slender realm
at Acre. All the strength of Christendom concentrated in the Third
Crusade had not shaken Saladin’s power. When the trials and sufferings
of the five years’ war were over, he still reigned unchallenged from the
mountains of Kurdistan to the Libyan desert, and far beyond these
borders the King of Georgia, the Catholicos of Armenia, the Sultan of
Koniya, the Emperor of Constantinople, were eager to call him friend and
ally.”[60]
Brief as was Saladin’s residence at Cairo, none of its rulers has left
more lasting traces of his influence. It is to him that the capital owed
the form and extent it has borne ever since, until comparatively recent
times. Its most conspicuous feature, the Citadel, was Saladin’s
creation, and its most pervasive architectural form, the Medresa, was
his introduction. All these changes were due to his initiative, and
when, after eight years, he went away, and thenceforth continually
called upon Egypt to send its contingents to his yearly campaigns, he
left behind him officers and kinsmen who carried out the great works he
had begun. These works were partly defensive, and partly religious. The
defensive works were the Citadel, the new wall, and the great dike, and
all three are original features. Hitherto the various rulers of Egypt
had contented themselves with building official or royal suburbs, each
half a mile or so further to the north-east. Even the Fátimid “city” of
Káhira, as we have seen, was an official and palatial residence of the
caliphs, not a metropolis of Egypt. Saladin was the first to elaborate a
comprehensive plan of a great capital. Instead of following the example
of earlier sovereigns and building a new suburb, he resolved to unite
the existing inhabited districts within one great wall, and to crown the
whole by a citadel. The burned city of Misr was then struggling to rise
from its ashes, like the phœnix, and renew its youth: Saladin resolved
to help it. The scattered settlements upon the site of the ruined
faubourgs were also to be gathered in, and the port of Maks was to be
joined to its city by a wall, as Peiraeus was to Athens. The enclosing
wall was to be of stone, and to prolong the defences of Bedr the
Armenian to Maks on the west and to the hill of Mukattam on the south,
and thence to run round the remains of the old Town of the Tent till it
touched the Nile.
The great scheme was never completed: its author was busy on his Syrian
campaigns, and probably his representatives at Cairo had enough to do to
raise men and money for his support without carrying out more building
than was absolutely necessary. It is also possible that further
reflection convinced him or his deputies that the plan of enclosing so
decayed a town as Misr was hardly worth the cost of a couple of miles of
wall. What was actually accomplished was this: the wall of Bedr on the
north was prolonged from its terminus at the canal to the Nile, where
the fortified tower of Maks was erected; on the east the old wall was
prolonged southwards to the Bab-el-Wezír, near the wall of the new
Citadel;—the Sultan’s death stopped the work before a junction had been
made, and the south and west walls were not even begun. A large part of
Saladin’s walls still stands: though often lost among houses, they can
be traced between the canal and the Iron Gate (Báb-el-Hadíd, formerly
called the Bab-el-Bahr, or Nile Gate, beside the fort of Maks, which has
disappeared), where the contrast between the last square bastion of the
Fátimid wall and the neighbouring rounded bastion of Saladin’s curtain,
with its bosses, watch-towers, and loopholes, is clearly marked. The
same characteristics are seen on the east wall which separates the city
from the Káit-Bey cemetery, until a modern style appears at the Bab-el-
Wezír.[61] A portion of the wall at the N.E. angle, with the Burg ez-
Zafar, lies outside in the desert, showing that here only has the modern
city shrunk within its twelfth century limits.
The walls were but a development of the earlier enceinte of Bedr. The
Citadel was a new idea. It may have been partly inspired by Saladin’s
dislike to the palaces so intimately associated with the schismatic
caliphs, for though he did not live to dwell in the Citadel, except for
a brief visit, there can be no doubt that he intended to make it his
residence, as his successors did. But the obvious explanation of the
fortress is to be found in his Syrian experience. There every important
city had its _Kal‘a_ or castle, and nothing could be more natural than
that Saladin, looking with a soldier’s eye at the jutting spur of
Mukattam, should at once have recognized it as the proper place for a
citadel. It is true that whilst commanding Cairo from its height of 250
feet, the fortress is itself commanded by higher positions on Mukattam;
but this would hardly injure its efficiency in days of stone-slings and
short-ranged mangonels. It was a strong enough position for twelfth
century engineers, and no pains were spared to make it impregnable from
beneath, in case of an insurrection in the city. The work was begun in
1176-7 under the direction of the eunuch Karakúsh, one of Saladin’s most
faithful emírs, who in spite of great services and warlike deeds has by
a strange freak of fortune come to be associated with the ribald antics
of Karakúsh, the Oriental Punch. It was not till six years later that
the founder’s inscription was set up which still surmounts the “Gate of
Steps” (Bab-el-Mudarrag) in the original (west) part of the Citadel,
where we read how “the building of this splendid Castle,—hard by Cairo
the Guarded, on the terrace which joins use to beauty, and space to
strength, for those who seek the shelter of his power,—was ordered by
our master the King Strong-to-aid, _Saláh-ed-dunya wa-d-din_ (Saladin),
Conquest-laden, Yúsuf, son of Ayyúb, Restorer of the Empire of the
Caliph; with the direction of his brother and heir the Just King
(el-‘Adil) Seyf-ed-din Abu-Bekr Mohammad, friend of the Commander of the
Faithful; and under the management of the Emír of his Kingdom and
Support of his Empire Karakúsh son of ‘Abdallah, the slave of el-Melik
en-Násir, in the year 579” (1183-4).
The smaller pyramids of Giza were used as quarries for the stone, and
the masonry was executed in part by Frank or European prisoners taken in
Saladin’s wars. The Spanish traveller Ibn-Gubeyr, who visited Cairo in
1183, saw the building in progress. “Both the workmen,” he says, “whose
forced labour is employed for building the Citadel and their overseers
are Christian prisoners of war of the Franks; their number is so great
as cannot be reckoned, and but for them there would be no means of
carrying out these works, for only they can support the toil and heavy
labour of sawing the marble, dressing the great blocks of stone, and of
quarrying the fosse which encompasses the wall of the Citadel, which
fosse is cut like a ditch in the solid rock with crowbars, a wonder of
wonders for ever. Elsewhere there is another building of the Sultan
which is being carried out by the Frank prisoners who work here; but
even those of the Muslims, who give their service in these and similar
public works, must do it at their own cost, for there is no pay given to
any who work here.” Corvée labour was no new thing in Egypt, however
strange it may have appeared to a visitor from Spain.
[Illustration: CASTLE OF THE RAM: KAL‘AT-EL-KEBSH]
The Citadel was not finished till 1207-8, when Saladin’s nephew el-Kámil
was king. As the chief residence and stronghold of every successive
ruler down to 1850, it has been frequently altered and enlarged by
several of the Mamlúk Sultans, and finally by Mohammad ‘Aly Pasha, and
none of the mosques or vestiges of palaces on it belongs to Saladin’s
age. The old mosque was built by en-Násir in 1318; the more conspicuous
mosque with slender Turkish minarets was begun by Mohammad ‘Aly in 1824.
The “Hall of Yúsuf,” believed to be Saladin’s, was part of a Mamlúk
palace. The interior towers are not original, and the gateway opening on
the Rumeyla was built in the middle of the 18th century. Still there is
much remaining of the original structures, besides the famous “Well of
the Winding Stairs,” 280 feet deep, which was excavated by Karakúsh.
Saladin’s walls are still preserved in a large part of the enceinte,
though it needs some architectural knowledge to distinguish them from
later additions and restorations, and some of the internal passages and
constructions date from the foundation. The prevalent use of round,
slightly truncated, and well-projected bastions, commanding a long
stretch of the curtain, the absence of interior chambers or low
loopholes in the curtain, and the _arc brisé_ or square openings,
besides certain technical peculiarities in the masonry, reveal the
original work, and associate it with the Franco-Syrian rather than the
Byzantine school.
The last work of defence was the great dike of Giza on the west bank of
the Nile. Ibn-Gubeyr describes it as a gigantic undertaking. “The
Sultan,” he says, “to his glory and as a lasting work that shall serve
the need of the Muslims, has begun to build a great dike of arches to
the westward of Misr, and at a distance from it of seven miles. This
forms a continuation of the embankment which, beginning opposite Misr,
runs along the side of the Nile like a hill that has been flattened on
the ground: after traversing which you come at the end of six miles to
the dike continuing it. This dike consists of forty arches, each of the
largest size of bridge-arches, and runs in the direction of the delta
which extends thence to Alexandria. It is a wonderful work, and such as
only a king of great foresight would emprise, as a precaution against
sudden attack by an enemy from the Alexandrian frontier at the time of
the inundation, when, the land being under water, the usual road becomes
impassable for troops. The dike thus forms a causeway available at all
seasons of need.”[62] The object of this defence is evident. Saladin had
not forgotten the history of the successive Fátimid invasions from the
Libyan side, when there was nothing to stop them from marching straight
to the Nile, and he determined to be forearmed. Ibn-Gubeyr mentions that
there were fears of an attack from the Almohades, who after subduing all
Morocco and southern Spain, had conquered Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli in
1158, till the frontier of their victorious leader ‘Abd-el-Mumin
actually touched the western border of Egypt. Saladin did well to take
precautions, though the threatened invasion never came.
These defensive works against external enemies were accompanied by other
measures taken with a view to internal order and content. It must not be
supposed that the new régime had no difficulties to contend with.
However well disposed the mass of the people may have been towards a
ruler who showed himself so magnanimous, generous, and yet indomitable
as Saladin, the traditions of two centuries were not to be uprooted in a
day. The partisans of the Fátimid family were numerous and active.
Before the death of el-‘Ádid, there was a formidable rising of the black
troops, abetted by the caliph himself, and Saladin had hard work to put
it down. The Sudánis were at last driven to bay and slaughtered for two
days till they cried quarter, when they were banished the city. The part
called el-Mansuríya, outside the Zuweyla Gate, that had been covered
with their barracks, was utterly burned down, and the site turned into
gardens; so that a few years later, when Saladin rode from the palace to
the new Citadel, he passed between trees and flowers, and standing at
the mosque of Ibn-Tulún he could see the Gate of Zuweyla with no
building intervening. Other conspiracies followed, supported by the
Franks who threatened Alexandria, and stern measures were needed before
the new sultan felt his power secure. So long as there was a strong
party sympathizing with the captive survivors of the fallen dynasty
there would always be danger.
How zealous the Shí‘a still were may be judged by the scene described by
the Spanish traveller in the famous shrine which preserved the head of
the martyr Hoseyn, in the mosque adjoining the Great Palace of the
Fátimids. “The Head is preserved in a chest of silver buried
underground, over which a mighty building has been erected such as any
description thereof must fail to portray, for the understanding cannot
compass it. Its walls are tapestried with brocades of various kinds, and
it is set round with what are like great columns, the same being white
candles, though some are of smaller size, the most being set in
candlesticks of pure silver or of silver gilt. Above are suspended
silver lamps, and the whole of the part above this is set with the like
of golden apples, and so arranged as to resemble [the chapel at Medina
where the Prophet is buried called] er-Roda; and by the beauty and
magnificence thereof it rivets the sight, for herein are all kinds of
rare variegated marbles wonderfully wrought in mosaic work such as no
imagination can depict, nor can he who would describe it attain thereto
with any description. The entrance to this chapel is through a mosque
that is the equal of it in regard to the pleasure of the eye and the
rare sight that it affords, for all its walls are of marble after the
fashion above described. To the right of the chapel (where the Head is),
and to the left of it, are two chambers, through which you enter the
same, and each of these is in every particular similar to this last, and
curtains in brocade stuff of wondrous workmanship are here hung on all
sides. But the most curious of the many things that we saw was on
entering this most blessed mosque; for a stone is set in the wall facing
him who enters, which is so extremely black and lustrous that the whole
person is reflected therein, as though it were in an Indian steel mirror
newly polished. And we saw the people kissing this blessed tomb (where
the Head of Hoseyn is buried), embracing it with their arms and
prostrating themselves upon it, after which they would lay their hands
on the pall that covers it and then, crowding one on another, circle
round, praying, weeping, and supplicating Allah—to whom be praise—for
the blessing that pertains to this holy grave, humbling themselves
before Him in such fashion as melts the heart and overcomes the feelings
of the spectator; for this is a wonderful matter and a sight that is
awful in its aspect. May Allah cause us to benefit by the blessing
vouchsafed to this holy Oratory!”[63]
Such a demonstration, recalling the hysterical emotions of the Persian
Passion Play, shows that twelve years after the deposition and death of
the last Fátimid caliph Shí‘a fanaticism was still ardent in Cairo.
Saladin’s mode of dealing with it was characteristic of his
statesmanship. Despite his gentle and chivalrous nature he was quite
capable of fierce persecution “for righteousness’ sake.” A Muslim of the
Muslims, rigidly orthodox, and deeply imbued with the puritanical ideas
of the theologians with whom he loved to converse, he had no toleration
for heretics and infidels. The grievous confiscation and destruction
which the Copts and their churches suffered in the orthodox reformation
showed that Saladin’s magnanimity did not extend to matters of faith.
But in the case of the Shí‘a he had to deal with a more powerful and
dangerous movement, which had two centuries of dominance behind it, and
he met it not by overt persecution but by a counter propaganda. The
people of Cairo must be taught the true religion, and then there would
be little fear of heresy. At the time of his accession there was not a
single college in Egypt where orthodox theology was taught. This want
was at once supplied, and Saladin began the foundation of those
_Medresas_ or theological colleges which have ever since been the
leading architectural feature of Cairo.
In 1176 he established the first _Medresa_ ever built in Egypt. It was
next to the shrine of the Imám Sháfi‘y, the founder of the school of
orthodoxy to which most Egyptian Muslims have since belonged. The tomb-
mosque may still be visited in the wilderness of graves to the south of
Cairo, but the college has long disappeared. In 1183 the shrine is
described as “a magnificent oratory of vast size, and strongly built,
standing opposite to a Medresa,” so large and so surrounded by buildings
as to resemble “a township with its dependencies. Over against it is the
_hammám_ with all other needful offices, and the building and additions
are still going on at a cost not to be counted. The Sheykh Negm-ed-din
el-Khabushány himself oversees it, being imám of the mosque, a pious
learned man. The sultan of the land, Saladin, has munificently supplied
all that is required therefor, commanding that the buildings shall be
well cared for and beautified, and all expenses set down to him. . . .
We met this Khabushány and gained the blessing of his prayers—his fame
had reached us even in Andalusia. We visited him in his mosque and also
at his private dwelling within the precincts, a small house with a
narrow court, and here he offered up prayer for us when we left. In all
Egypt we did not meet his equal.”[64]
Besides the Sháfi‘y College, Saladin built a medresa close to the
stronghold of the enemy, the shrine of Hoseyn, turned the old palace of
Mamún into the Seyf-ed-din college for the Hanafy divines, and built
another for the Sháfi‘is and a fifth for the Málikis in Misr. In
recording his benefactions one must not forget his hospitals. Everyone
knows the Maristan or hospital of the Mamlúk Sultan Kalaún in the Suk-
en-Nahhasín, but it is not generally known that this noble institution
was anticipated by Saladin. To quote Ibn-Gubeyr again:—
“Among the famous institutions of this Sultan which we saw was the
Maristán or Hospital, which stands in the city of Cairo. It is one of
the great palaces there, spacious and magnificent, and the Sultan has
been prompted to the meritorious deed of establishing this hospital
solely by the hope of gaining favour with God and recompense in the
world to come. He has appointed here an administrator, a man of
knowledge, in whose charge a provision of drugs has been placed, with
power to compound potions with these according to diverse recipes, and
to prescribe them. In the chambers of this palace couches have been
placed, which the sick folk make use of as beds, these being fully
provided with bed clothes, and the administrator has under him servants
who are charged with the duty of inquiring into the condition of the
sick folk morning and evening, and these last receive food and medicines
according as their state requires. Opposite this hospital is another,
separate therefrom, for women who are sick, and they also have persons
who attend on them: while adjacent to these two hospitals is another
building with a spacious court, in which are chambers with iron
gratings, which serve for the confinement of those who are mad, and
these also are visited daily by persons who examine their condition and
supply them with what is needful to ameliorate the same. The Sultan
himself inspects the state of these various institutions, investigating
everything and asking questions, verifying the statements with care and
trouble even to the uttermost; and in Misr also there is another
hospital, exactly after the pattern of the one just described.
“Between Misr and Cairo stands the great mosque called after its
founder, Ahmad ibn Tulún, which is one of those from ancient times used
for the Friday prayers. It is admirably built and very spacious, being
at the present day set apart by the Sultan as a dwelling-place for
strangers from the Western lands, where they may abide and hold their
assemblies, the Sultan having provided monthly rations for their
support. And one of the most remarkable matters related to us is this
which we heard from a person cognizant of the facts, namely, that the
Sultan allows the strangers entirely to govern themselves, and lays no
hand on any one of them, for they elect from among themselves their
governor, and to his rule they conform, submitting to his judgment in
all cases of disputes that arise in their affairs. They are people who
seek to live in piety and peacefulness, being solely occupied in the
worship of the Lord, and thus, through the favour of the Sultan, they
may gain grace enabling them to hold the better part in the way of
righteousness. Indeed there is no one either of the great mosques, or of
the lesser mosques, or any one among the diverse chapels that are built
over the tombs of saints, neither any of the various colleges or
schools, but is the object of the grace of the Sultan, and aid in money
from the public treasury is freely given to all who frequent these
places, or have their abode there by reason of necessity, in relief of
their needs.”
The institution of the Medresa by Saladin marks a conspicuous change in
the architecture of Cairo. Hitherto the mosques had been of one form
only, that of the _Gámi‘_ (commonly pronounced _gama_, and meaning a
place of assembly) or congregational mosque, where alone the Friday
prayers (_gum‘a_) and sermon take place. The form was specially adapted
to the meeting of large congregations. There was the ample east end or
sanctuary, where a considerable number of worshippers could kneel under
cover; and in case of a great crowd, as on certain festivals, there was
the great open court where a multitude could prostrate themselves
towards the _kibla_. The arcades round the court served for professors
to hold classes, and as shelter for fakírs and mendicants; but these are
no essential parts of the gámi‘, which, as its name implies, is a place
of congregational worship. There were only four such buildings when Ibn-
Gubeyr visited Cairo, and these were the gámi‘s el-Azhar, el-Hákim, Ibn-
Tulún, and ‘Amr. The few others that existed, such as el-Akmar and es-
Sálih Talái‘, and perhaps two or three less important and probably
ruined, though built in the gámi‘ form and used at one time for
congregational worship, fell into disuse when the death of their
founders or some other cause removed them from the list of fashionable
churches. New gámi‘s were always being built from time to time, as we
shall see in the next chapter, and they always formed, and form, the
leading mosques of Cairo; but they were not by any means the only kind
of mosque.
The word mosque itself comes, through the old Italian _meschita_ (Span.
_mesquita_) and later _moschea_, from the Arabic _Mesgid_, which means a
place of worship, but does not imply a congregation. Comparatively few
mosques were known as mesgids, and such as bore the name were small
buildings used chiefly for private prayer.[65] Another term, more
commonly employed, is _Záwiya_, which means properly an ingle or nook,
but in its application to mosques differs hardly at all from mesgid,
unless the not unusual assignation of a záwiya as a hospice for poor
students or devotees constitute a difference. Both the mesgid and the
záwiya were comparatively insignificant edifices, and it may be doubted
whether any ordinary visitor to Cairo has noticed a single example of
either, except as a decorative feature in a by-street.
The buildings which everyone knows and which everyone calls “mosques”
are really colleges, _medresas_. They include most of the famous
architectural gems of the city—such as Sultan Hasan, Barkuk, Ibn-Muzhir,
Násir, Kalaún, and so forth, and they differ altogether from the gámi‘
both in form and object. They were not intended or used for
congregational worship, but were expressly built for the purpose of
theological training; and this purpose radically influences their form.
Instead of the great open court where vast congregations could muster on
Fridays, there is only a small central square, and in most cases this
was originally covered by a flat roof of painted planks and joists, with
perhaps a small cupola or skylight in the centre. The sides, instead of
being surrounded by long arcades or cloisters, are formed of four
transepts each spanned by a single lofty arch. The transept towards the
east, forming the liwán for prayer, is deeper than the other three, and
is furnished with mihráb, pulpit, tribune, and other accessories for
worship; since worship takes place there, or may do so, though not as a
rule the regular Friday congregations of the gámi‘. Each of the four
transepts was originally assigned—or ready to be assigned—to one of the
four orthodox schools, Sháfi‘y, Máliky, Hánafy, and Hánbaly, and in each
there might be found a group of students following the instruction of
the professor of the particular school. These professors and students
often had lodgings in the college, and there were also a variety of
lecture rooms, libraries, laboratories, and other adjuncts built in the
spaces that intervened between the cruciform interior and the
rectangular exterior. The subjoined sketch representing the later
medresa of Sultan Hasan (1359) will give a general idea of the
arrangement.
[Illustration: PLAN OF MEDRESA]
This then was Saladin’s method of counteracting heretical tendencies by
building and endowing a number of orthodox colleges—state-supported
theological seminaries or divinity schools. The idea was not his own: he
brought it with him from Syria, where his former sovereign Nur-ed-din
had been zealous in founding similar colleges for Hanafis at Damascus
and other cities; and Nur-ed-din himself only followed the example of
the pattern of the age in Asia, the great Seljúk Sultan Melik Shah,
whose vezír, the scarcely less famous Nizám-el-Mulk, the friend of ‘Omar
Khayyám, had established the splendid Nizamíya college at Baghdád. The
introduction of colleges into Egypt, however natural and inevitable in
the pupil of such masters, was little less than a revolution in culture
as well as in architecture. The old stigma of heresy removed, and these
new colleges founded, the wave of intellectual commerce once more flowed
to Cairo from all parts of the Muslim world. The chief control in Egypt
during Saladin’s long absence was vested in his brother or son, subject
to the counsels of his chancellor, the Kády el-Fádil, an Arab of
Ascalon, a learned scholar and a wise man, whose very ornate dispatches
concealed a vast amount of sound sense. Under his influence foreign
students began again to frequent the mosques of Cairo, and Egypt
rejoined the comity of Islám. Professors from remote cities of Persia or
even from beyond the Oxus met the learned men of Cordova and Seville. In
1176, for example, there arrived “a stranger from Xativa in distant
Andalusia, drawn eastward by the fame of the revival of learning: it was
Ibn-Firro, who had composed a massy poem of 1173 verses upon the _variae
lectiones_ in the Korán, simply ‘for the greater glory of God.’ This
marvel of erudition modestly confessed that his memory was burdened with
enough sciences to break down a camel. Nevertheless, when it came to
lecturing to his crowded audiences, he never uttered a superfluous word.
It was no wonder that the Kády el-Fádil, chief judge and governor of
Egypt under Saladin, lodged him in his own house and buried him in his
private mausoleum. The presence of such philosophers tempered with cool
wisdom the impetuous fire of the predatory chiefs. Many of the great
soldiers of that age delighted in the society of men of culture. Nur-ed-
din was devoted to the society of the learned, and poets and men of
letters gathered round his court; whilst Saladin took a peculiar
pleasure in the conversation of grave theologians and solemn
jurists.”[66] “I found him,” wrote ‘Abd-el-Latíf, the Baghdád physician,
“a great prince, whose appearance inspired at once respect and love, who
was approachable, deeply intellectual, gracious, and noble in his
thoughts. . . . I found him surrounded by a large concourse of learned
men who were discussing various sciences. He listened with pleasure and
took part in their conversation.” It was not the least of Saladin’s
titles to fame that he brought the collegiate mosque to Cairo. The
training of the medresa may have been narrow and bigoted, but it was the
system of the whole Muslim world, and its adoption put Cairo in touch
with the thought of the other leading centres of Islám.
CHAPTER VII
_The Dome Builders_
1. THE MAMLUKS OF THE RIVER
SALADIN had raised Cairo once more to the rank of an imperial capital.
By his fortifications he had strengthened it against attack, and by his
theological foundations he had united it to the great comity of Muslim
culture. He had no doubt added seriously to the responsibilities of
future rulers of Egypt, who found themselves engaged in controversy,
diplomacy, or war with the minor rulers of Syrian cities, members of
Saladin’s kindred, as well as with the Franks of the coast of Palestine,
who had not yet abandoned the dream of “_Gerusalemme liberata_,” and
were now fully aware that the road to the Holy City, circuitous as it
might seem, lay through Egypt. It is no part of the story of Cairo to
relate the campaigns waged by Saladin’s brilliant brother, el-‘Ádil
Seyf-ed-din—“the noble Saphadin” of the _Talisman_, the friend of King
Richard, who actually gave the accolade of Christian knighthood to one
of Saphadin’s sons, as Humphrey of Toron had given it before to Saladin
himself. Succeeding, after a brief interval, to his brother’s empire in
1200, el-‘Ádil soon showed that the loss of the hero was not
irreparable. He had loyally served Saladin as his right hand for a
quarter of a century, and for another quarter of a century he held
together the empire which his nephews and cousins were doing their best
to shatter into fragments. He prudently kept on terms with the Franks by
the cession of a couple of ports in Palestine, and such hostilities as
took place in spite of his concessions did not lower his prestige. He is
described by one who knew him as a man of immense experience and
information and much foresight, physically robust and high-spirited, and
capable of eating a whole lamb at a meal. A contemporary Arabic poet
dwells on his extraordinary alertness and personal control of every part
of his wide dominions—
A Monarch, whose majestic air
Fills all the range of sight, whose care
Fills all the regions everywhere;
Who such a ward doth keep
That, save where he doth set his lance
In rest to check the foe’s advance,
His eye with bright and piercing glance
Knows neither rest nor sleep.
Even his vigilance, however, could not avert that periodical calamity of
mediæval Egypt an insufficient inundation of the Nile, and its usual
concomitants plague, pestilence, and famine. This happened in 1201 and
was repeated in 1202, and the results were exceptionally disastrous. We
have the appalling narrative of an eye-witness of undoubted veracity and
professional experience for this time of horror:—
“The Baghdád physician, ‘Abd-el-Latíf, who lived at Cairo for ten years
(1194-1204), attending the professors’ lectures at the Azhar mosque,
records the terrible experiences of the famine. The distress was so
desperate that the inhabitants emigrated in crowds, whole quarters and
villages were deserted, and those who remained abandoned themselves to
atrocious practices. People habitually ate human flesh, even parents
killed and cooked their own children, and a wife was found eating her
dead husband raw. Men waylaid women in the streets to seize their
infants. The very graves were ransacked for food. This went on from end
to end of Egypt. The roads were deathtraps, assassination and robbery
reigned unchecked, and women were outraged by the multitude of
reprobates whom anarchy and despair had set loose. Free girls were sold
at five shillings apiece, and many women came and implored to be bought
as slaves to escape starvation. An ox sold for 70 dinárs and corn was
over ten shillings the bushel. The corpses lay unburied in the streets
and houses, and a virulent pestilence spread over the delta. In the
country and on the caravan routes flocks of vultures, hyenas, and
jackals mapped the march of death. Men dropped down at the plough,
stricken with the plague. In one day at Alexandria an imám said the
funeral prayers over 700 persons, and in a single month a property
passed to forty heirs in rapid succession. The depreciation of property
was disastrous. Owing to the decrease of population, house-rent in Cairo
fell to one-seventh of its former price, and the carvings and furniture
of palaces were broken up to feed the oven-fires. Violent earthquakes,
which were also felt throughout Syria and as far north as Armenia, shook
down countless houses, devastated whole cities, and increased the
general misery.”
The invasion of John de Brienne, who captured Damietta, kept Egypt in a
tremor of anxiety for three years (1218-21); but el-‘Adil, who died at
the beginning of the trouble, left a singularly able successor in his
son el-Kámil; the Crusaders departed in ignominy; and when some years
later the emperor Frederick II. himself “took the cross” and came to
Palestine, the prudent sultan not only let the emperor crown himself in
Jerusalem without striking a blow, but actually concluded (1229) a
general defensive alliance with Frederick against even the Franks of
Syria. The Holy City was surrendered to the Christians with the road to
it, but the Muslims retained the sacred enclosure of the Mosque of
‘Omar, which was all they cared for. The treaty was the most singular
ever concluded between a Christian and a Muslim power; but it must be
remembered that the Pope had called Frederick “a follower of Mohammad,”
and the emperor’s correspondence with the Arab philosopher Ibn-Sab‘in
and the metaphysical debates he held with Kámil’s ambassadors point to
“emancipated views” that in the case of less eminent people commonly
conducted them to the stake. Frederick was much admired by Muslim
writers, and for his part Kámil had shown himself broad-minded. He had
entertained the emperor’s envoy, bishop Bernard, at Cairo, released the
poor prisoners taken in the “Children’s Crusade,” and loyally stood by
his treaty. It is not surprising that good Muslims regarded him in much
the same light as the bishop of Rome held the emperor. They were wrong,
however, for Kámil was a thorough Muslim, and had only treated with the
“infidel” in the cause of peace. His college, the Dar-el-Hadíth or
Kamilíya, some relics of which still stand in Beyn-el-Kasreyn, bears
evidence to his zeal for orthodox Islám, whilst his father’s
intellectual powers shone in the son when he took part in the meetings
of the learned at his palace on Thursday evenings. To him Cairo owed the
completion of the Citadel, where he took up his residence, and Egypt was
improved in cultivation by his assiduous superintendence and enlargement
of the canals and dikes.
The new régime of the Ayyúbids or successors of Saladin had introduced
something besides an imperial sway and a revival of orthodox learning:
it had brought with it a feudal system that dominated Egypt, for better
or for worse, for six hundred years, and vitally affected the social
conditions, arts, literature, and material aspect of Cairo. The _Mamlúk_
period may be said to begin with Saladin. It is true of course that
there had been mamlúks, _i.e._ white slaves, long before, and many of
them had attained to power. Ibn-Tulún, or at least his father, was a
mamlúk, and many of the later governors belonged to the same class of
emancipated slaves whether Turks or Greeks, from Turkistan or from Asia
Minor. Under the Fátimid caliphs slaves had risen to the highest rank.
Gawhar, the founder of Cairo, was a Greek or a Slav—it is not certain
which—and we have seen how the Armenian slave Bedr became practically
master of Egypt. Slavery in the East is no disgrace; on the contrary the
relationship ranks far above mere hired service. The slave is regarded
almost as a son, and we find an amusing instance of this feeling in the
undoubted slur that attached to a famous emír (Kusún) in the fourteenth
century, because he had the misfortune _not_ to be a slave, like the
rest of his world. The Fátimid armies were full of such mamlúks, and
they acquired rank and lands. But the system had not reached the
completeness that we see under Saladin’s successors. The great champion
of Islám was brought up in the mamlúk system, as organized by the
Seljúks and their followers, whose power rested upon a military basis
formed by hired or purchased troops, paid by grants of fiefs, lands,
castles, towns, or even whole provinces, held on strict condition of
military service. The higher feudatories sublet parts of their fiefs to
minor vassals, who had to furnish a certain number of men to their lord,
just as he had to bring his contingent to aid the sultan in his wars.
This system was adopted in all the provinces governed by officers of the
Seljúk empire. Nur-ed-din, who sprang from the Seljúk officers, carried
it out in Syria; Saladin, trained under Nur-ed-din, brought it to Egypt,
where the land and villages were parcelled out among the generals of his
armies, who lived on them during the winter, and joined their overlord
at the head of their retainers each year as soon as the campaigning
season opened.
We find this feudal system in force in Egypt from the arrival of Saladin
and his Turkish troops down to the accession of Mohammad ‘Aly in the
nineteenth century. It took a dominant place in Cairo when el-‘Adil’s
grandson, es-Sálih, established a picked battalion of mamlúks in the new
palace and barracks which he built on the island of Roda, opposite Misr.
From their quarters on the river (_el-bahr_) they were known as the
Bahry or Nilotic Mamlúks. Their splendid valour at the battle of
Mansúra, when under the leading of Beybars they drove back the finest
chivalry in Europe, decided the fate of the disastrous Crusade of Louis
IX. Thenceforward they ruled Egypt for a century and a half, and in
spite of much lawlessness, tyranny, intrigue, and slaughter, the reign
of the Bahry Mamlúks is among the glorious pages in the history of
Cairo. Their triumph at Mansúra was not the less remarkable because they
were then under the sovereignty of a woman. Queens are rare in
Mohammedan history, for the blessed Prophet had a prejudice against
them; but among the three or four Muslim women that have held the
sceptre, queen Sheger-ed-durr—“Spray of Pearls” is the translation of
her charming name—holds the first place. She was only a slave, and her
lord and husband, es-Sálih, grandson of el-‘Adil, died in the midst of
the campaign with the Crusaders; but she at once took command, kept the
sultan’s death secret till his son could be fetched from the other end
of the empire, controlled the government, organized the defence, gave
instructions to the generals and governors at her levees, and with
wonderful courage and wisdom held the state together. When the heir
arrived (1250) she surrendered her regency, but on the assassination of
the brutal young man by the exasperated mamlúks within two months,
“Spray of Pearl” resumed her authority, and honourably observed the
treaty of ransom with St Louis, who probably owed his life to the high-
minded queen.
[Illustration: ISLAND OF ER-RODA]
She possessed great qualities, and she had the title, such as it was,
that was conveyed by her having borne a son to the late Ayyúbid sultan.
The baby was dead, but she still based her claim to rule upon her
motherhood, and her signature and her coins[67] bore a string of
feminine titles ending with “Mother of the victorious King Khalíl,”
though the little “king” had never been conscious of his royalty.
She was not long left to rule alone. The idea of queenship was too
repugnant to Muslim prejudices, and the caliph of Baghdád interfered
with all the authority of a pope. “If they had no man among them,” he
wrote to the emírs of Cairo, “he would send them one.” So the commander-
in-chief, Aybek, was chosen to marry the queen, and a joint-king, a
child of Saladin’s kindred, was appointed to keep up the figment of the
departed dynasty. But “Spray of Pearls” still ruled, in fact though not
in name. She kept her hold on the exchequer, and evidently treated her
new husband with scant respect. Like a true woman however, she could be
jealous; she made him divorce another wife, and when Aybek ventured to
propose a fresh marriage with a princess of Mosil the queen gave way to
a regrettable act of resentment; having lured him by fair words to the
Citadel—the facts unhappily cannot be softened—she had him murdered in
the bath (1257). Her punishment was speedy and terrible. In three days
all was over. The mamlúks shut her up in the Red Tower, where she
vindictively pounded her jewels in a mortar that they might adorn no
other woman, and then she was dragged before the wife whom she had made
Aybek divorce, and there and then beaten to death with the women’s
clogs. For days her body lay in the Citadel ditch for the curs to worry,
till some good Samaritan buried it. Her tomb may still be seen beside
the chapel of Sitta Nefísa, and a pious hand of these latter days has
shrouded it with a cloth on which the Arabic name of “Spray of Pearls”
is worked in gold.
The rule of the Bahry Mamlúks now began, without further pretence of
joint-kingship with one of Saladin’s house, though not without
opposition and intrigue from members of the family in Syria, nor without
hostility from the Arabs of Egypt, who got up a national movement and
were put down with great severity. The bare list of the twenty-three
sultans of the Bahry dynasty—all Turks, and most from Kipchak—who
succeeded Aybek and ruled from 1257 to 1382 is misleading unless one
takes the conditions of their rule into account. Of the twenty-three,
only four reigned for any considerable period, and the four reigns of
Beybars, Kalaún, en-Násir, and Hasan, account for more than half the sum
of all the twenty-three reigns. A sultan was nothing more than the chief
mamlúk, elected by his comrades, _primus inter pares_ indeed, but with a
distinct understanding that they were his peers. For example, when Lagín
was elected sultan by a conspiracy of the emírs, they marched at his
stirrup and did him fealty, but they made him swear, and then swear
again, that he would remain one of themselves, act only by their
counsel, and never favour his own mamlúks to the detriment of the rest:
and when he broke his oath by making a favourite, they murdered him. It
was only a very strong man who could hold the dangerous position for
long, as Beybars did, partly by the prestige of his brilliant campaigns
in Syria; and after the strong man’s death, which as likely as not
happened by design, his son would be set on the throne as a stop-gap
whilst the rival emírs tried their strength, arranged their
combinations, and bought off competitors. Then the strongest of them, or
the most diplomatic, would remove the warming-pan and ascend the throne,
to hold it as long as he could; after which the same process would be
renewed.
We must at least give the mamlúks their due as a splendid soldiery. Four
times they had to meet the most formidable of all possible invasions,
the repeated advance of the Mongol hordes led by Ginghiz Kaan’s
successors, and four times they rolled them back. Kutuz was the first to
bear the brunt. Hulagu’s Mongol envoys came to Cairo with insulting
demands of submission: Kutuz cut off their heads and hung them up at the
Zuweyla Gate; then marched into Syria, routed the Mongols in a glorious
victory at Goliath’s Well in 1260, and rid the land of them. Beybars
swam the Euphrates at the head of his troops and defeated the Mongols at
Bira in 1273; then turning west he slew seven thousand of the enemy at
Abu-lusteyn and seated himself on the Seljúk throne, which they had
usurped, at Cæsarea of Cappadocia. Kalaún stemmed another invasion in
1281. Mustering every man he could enrol, mamlúks of the guard,
Turkmáns, desert Bedawis, Arabs from the Euphrates and the Higáz, backed
by the steady veterans of the old principality of Hamáh which still
owned a prince of Saladin’s blood, the sultan won a decisive battle at
Emesa, and freed Syria once more from the locust-cloud of devouring
Mongols. Again they returned in the time of his son en-Násir, and this
time the Egyptian army sustained a terrible reverse at the battle of the
Treasurer’s Ghyll near Emesa in 1299. Damascus was lost, and the Mongol
envoys appeared at Cairo to treat for the respectful submission of the
sultan. But the mamlúks had not lost heart; the armourers of Cairo were
busy, recruits were pouring in, and remounts were in such demand that
the price of a horse rose at a bound from £12 to £40. Syria was in a
panic, after an orgy of Mongol license; but the great emírs, Beybars
Gashnekír and the other mamlúk chiefs, rode proudly on to victory. Once
more the opposing armies met, in the plain of Marg-es-Suffar, in 1303,
and for the fourth time, and the last, the Mongols were driven out of
Syria. “Násir returned to Cairo in a wave of glory. Messengers had
announced the news, and the emírs vied with one another in setting up
costly pavilions, or grand stands, richly decorated and furnished, along
the route of his procession. Workmen were forbidden to do anything but
set up these triumphal erections. Rooms along the route were let at from
£2 to £4 for the day. Silken carpets were laid in the street; and the
proud sultan rode between the brilliant façades and admired the nobles’
pavilions, while troops of Mongol prisoners in chains, each with a
fellow Mongol’s head hanging from his neck, completed the triumph. So
noisy were the rejoicings and so deafening the tumult of drums and music
throughout Egypt, that nothing short of an earthquake sobered the
people.”
Nor was it the Mongols alone who felt the edge of the mamlúks’ steel.
Beybars the Great—a blue-eyed Turk from Kipchak afflicted by a cataract
which caused him to fetch but £20 in the slave market—despite his humble
beginnings, had the courage and the zeal of a second Saladin. He waged
the Holy War for ten years in Palestine, where the Franks were disposed
to league with the Mongols. He seized and razed Cæsarea and Arsúf in
1265, and dragged their defenders in cruel ignominy to Cairo, where they
were paraded with reversed banners and broken crosses. Jerusalem had
been recovered from the Christians twenty years before, but the embers
of Crusading zeal still smouldered feebly on the coast and at a few
inland fortresses. Beybars resolved to extinguish the last flicker.
Jaffa fell in 1268, Belfort surrendered, and Antioch, the Christian
capital of northern Syria, was stormed and burnt to the ground; three
years later the great fortress of the Hospitallers, Crac des Chevaliers,
lowered its flag, and the Teutonic knights lost Montfort.[68] Even
Cyprus, whence the Franks got their supplies, was invaded by the mamlúk
fleet. The mountain fastnesses of the dreaded Assassins were seized and
disarmed, and the Wehmgericht sank into impotence. Before Beybars died
his commands were obeyed from the Pyramus and the Euphrates to the south
of Arabia and the fourth cataract of the Nile. The Holy Cities of Mekka,
Medina, and Jerusalem were his; he held the ports of Sawákin and ‘Aydháb
on the Red Sea; the Arabs of the desert were his servants, the chiefs of
Barbary paid him tribute; the great Khan of the Golden Horde on the
Volga was his sworn ally and sent him his daughter in marriage—Mongol
though he was, Baraka Khan was the inveterate foe of the Mongols of
Persia who had overrun Syria;—embassies were exchanged with the Eastern
Emperor, who permitted a mosque to be restored at Constantinople, while
Beybars supplied him with a patriarch; diplomatic and commercial
relations were established with Manfred of Sicily, James of Aragon,
Alfonso of Seville, Charles of Anjou. To crown his glory he revived the
old ‘Abbásid caliphate, extinguished at Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258;
brought a meek representative of the sacred line to Cairo and housed him
in great state in the Citadel, as the supreme legitimate pontiff of
Islám, and humbly received at the caliph’s hands the purple robe and
black turban and golden chain and anklets which betokened a sovereign
recognized by the spiritual power. Henceforward there was ever a caliph
at Cairo—however _fainéant_—till the Ottoman conquest and the assumption
of the caliphate by the Sultans of Turkey in 1538.[69]
A great soldier and a consummate if perfidious diplomatist, Beybars was
also an able and laborious administrator. Under him the land was quietly
if not quite godly governed, and his energy was unbounded. He seemed to
be in several places at once, so rapid and secret were his journeys, and
it was a favourite device of his to lie hidden in the Citadel for days
together, watching his deputies, when he was believed to be in Syria all
the time. “The greater part of his reign was spent in campaigns outside
Egypt, but he generally passed the winter months at Cairo, whilst his
troops rested and rains or snow hindered marching, and he devoted these
intervals to improving the country and the capital. It was not only in
founding and restoring mosques and colleges, or rebuilding the Hall of
Justice at the foot of the Citadel, that he showed his public interest.
He enlarged the irrigation canals and dug new ones, made roads and
bridges, fortified Alexandria and repaired the pharos, and protected the
mouths of the Nile from the risk of foreign invasion. He revived the
Egyptian fleet, built forty war galleys, and maintained 12,000 regular
troops—not reckoning, one must assume, the Arab and Egyptian militia or
occasional levies. His heavy war expenses entailed heavy taxation; and
though with a view to popularity he began his reign by remitting the
oppressive taxes imposed by Kutuz to the amount of 600,000 dinárs a
year, he found himself compelled to increase the fiscal burdens as his
campaigns developed. Yet we read more often of old taxes repealed than
of fresh duties imposed, and his treasury was filled less by the imposts
of Egypt than by the contributions from the conquered cities and
districts of Syria, the tribute of vassal states and tribes, and the
valuable custom-dues of the ports.
“His government was enlightened, just and strict. He met the severe
famine of 1264 by measures at once wise and generous, by regulating the
sale of corn, and by undertaking, and compelling his officers and emírs
to undertake, the support of the destitute for three months. He allowed
no wine (though the tax on it used to produce 6000 dinárs a year), beer,
or hashish in his dominions; he attempted to eradicate contagious
diseases by scientific isolation; he was strict with the morals of his
subjects, shut up taverns and brothels, and banished the European women
of the town; though, personally, he was addicted to the Tatar kumiz, and
was suspected of oriental depravity. He was no sybarite, whatever his
vices; no man was more full of energy and power of work. If his days
were often given to hunting or polo, lance-play or marksmanship, his
nights were devoted to business. A courier who arrived at daybreak
received the answering dispatches by the third hour, with invariable
punctuality.” Sometimes over fifty dispatches were dictated, signed and
sealed late in the night, after a fatiguing march. There was a mail
twice a week carried by relays of horses, besides a well-organized
pigeon-post.
It was no wonder that such a man was adored by the people, who thought
him the ideal of a gallant and generous soldier-king, and who still
listen with delight to the romance in which the story-teller of the
cafés of Cairo clothes the great deeds of the ever popular Záhir
Beybars. Even the devout admired a king who endowed religious
foundations and held an even balance between the four contending schools
of orthodox divines, from each of which he nominated a separate kády.
Only the emírs and officers dreaded one who, if he was true as steel to
a good servant, never forgave a bad one, and whose restless suspicion
watched their every move. It was inevitable that some day one of the
many grudges should be paid off, and after seventeen years of a
resplendent reign Beybars died in 1277 by a cup of poison which he had
apparently made ready for another.
Beybars was the true founder of the mamlúk power and the organizer of
the mamlúk system. Since the day when he led the charge of the Bahry
guard against Louis of France at the battle of Mansúra, he had
sedulously watched over the army, stimulated recruiting from fresh
blood, and encouraged good service by liberal distribution of fiefs. His
was the foreign policy maintained in Egypt for many years, and his court
formed the pattern for succeeding kings. A very magnificent and
ceremonious court it was, where the sultan sat surrounded by the great
officers of state and of the household,—Viceroy, Commander-in-chief,
Major domo, Captain of the Guard, Armour-bearer, Master of the Horse,
Cup-bearer, Taster, Master of the Wardrobe, Grand Huntsman, Polo-bearer,
Slipper-holder, Lord of the Seat; the Master of the Halberds with his
Gentlemen at Arms; the Adjutant-General with his thirty Lords of the
Drums, each followed by forty troopers and a band of ceremony of ten
drums, four trumpets, and two hautbois; the eunuch guards, equerries and
chamberlains, secretaries and court physicians, judges and divines. All
these functionaries had their allowances, fiefs, or appanages; a lord of
the drums, for instance, would draw an income of about £16,000 a year;
and the expenses of the royal household may be judged by the estimate
that 20,000 lbs. of food were daily prepared in the larder, and that the
daily cost in meat and vegetables in the time of en-Násir was from £800
to £1200.
The great officers of the court and of the army were of course the most
powerful men next to the sultan, and each deemed himself a fit successor
to the throne. On their loyalty, and especially on that of the
bodyguard, a brigade of several thousand picked men who held in fief a
large part of Egypt, rested the safety and power of the sultan, who
stood more or less at their mercy. Each of the great lords, were he an
officer of the guard, or a court official, or merely a private nobleman,
was a mamlúk sultan in miniature. He, too, had his guard of slaves, who
waited at his door to escort him in his rides abroad, were ready at his
behest to attack the public baths and carry off the women, defended him
when a rival lord besieged his palace, and followed him valiantly as he
led the charge of his division on the field of battle. These great
lords, with their retainers, were a constant menace to the reigning
sultan. A coalition would be formed among a certain number of
disaffected nobles, with the support of some of the officers of the
household or of the guard, and their retainers would mass in the
approaches to the royal presence, while a trusted cupbearer or other
officer, whose duties permitted him access to the king’s person, would
strike the fatal blow or administer the insidious cup; and the
conspirators would forthwith elect one of their number to succeed to the
vacant throne. This was not effected without a struggle; the royal guard
was not always to be bribed or overcome, and there were generally other
nobles whose interests attached them to the reigning sovereign rather
than to any possible successor, except themselves, and who would be sure
to oppose the plot. Then there would be a street fight; the terrified
people would close their shops, run to their houses, and shut the great
gates which isolated the various quarters and markets of the city; and
the rival factions of mamlúks would ride through the streets that
remained open, pillaging the houses of their adversaries, carrying off
women and children, holding pitched battles in the road, or discharging
arrows and spears from the windows upon the enemy in the street below.
These things were of constant occurrence, and the life of the merchant
classes of Cairo must have been exciting. We read how the great bazar,
called the Khan-el-Khalíly, was sometimes shut up for a week while these
contests were going on in the streets without, and the rich merchants of
Cairo huddled trembling behind the stout gates.
There were fine doings of this kind when Ketbugha deposed the child-king
Násir, for a time. The Ashrafis—or mamlúks of the late sultan, el-Ashraf
Khalíl—raised a revolt and besieged the Citadel. Then Ketbugha’s troops
rode out to quell the tumult and slashed through the ranks; the rebels
were blinded, maimed, drowned, beheaded, nailed to the gate of Zuweyla;
and so a new reign began (1294). A plague followed, when seven hundred
corpses were carried out of one gate of Cairo in a single day. A fresh
conspiracy was formed, Ketbugha fled, and the viceroy Lagín was elected
sultan in his place. The streets which had lately been shambles were now
_en fête_ with decorations, for the new sultan was a generous man and
promised to remit taxes; bread was cheap and Lagín was popular.
The idea of hereditary succession was wholly foreign to the mamlúk
system; yet it presented the only correction to these scenes of violent
supercession, and after a time some sort of hereditary title seems to
have been established. Kalaún had been succeeded by his son Khalíl, and
then by a younger son en-Násir Mohammad in 1293, and though the last, as
a mere child, was temporarily deposed, he came back in 1298 after the
murder of his brother-in-law Lagín. After another trial of usurpation by
Beybars Gashnekír (the Taster) in 1308, Násir was restored and began a
third reign which lasted thirty-one years (1310-1341), and after his
death his incapable descendants sat on the throne, with little or no
real authority, till the close of the dynasty. Thus from 1279 to 1382
Egypt was ruled, except for six or seven years, by members of one
family, the House of Kalaún. The founder of this family, whose history
refutes the theory that these foreigners were unprolific in Egypt, was
himself a notable figure, a brave general, a prudent statesman, and a
great encourager of commerce. His passports to traders were in force as
far as India and China, and he did all he could to develop the commerce
of Egypt. Like most of the mamlúk sultans he was a notable builder. It
is extraordinary how these men of war, in the midst of alarums and
intrigues, took a delight in architecture. The brilliant queen, first of
the mamlúks, built (1250) the tomb-mosque over her husband Sálih, which
still stands on part of the site of the old palace of the Fátimids in
Beyn-el-Kasreyn. Beybars founded a college in 1262 on another part of
the palace called the “Hall of the Tent,” and also a great mosque
outside the Bab-el-Futúh in 1267-9, both of which still exist, though
the college is a ruin, and the mosque was used, _infandum!_ as a bake-
house for the French troops a century ago, and recently as a slaughter-
house for the British army of occupation. Kalaún, stirred by a dangerous
illness, vowed to build a hospital, and his Maristán is still to be seen
in the Nahhasín, though no longer used for its original purpose: it was
a madhouse less than a hundred years ago. It stands beside his mosque
and tomb, the latter notable for its exquisite plaster tracery and red
granite pillars, and for the oddly decorated stone minaret and fine
inscription. Ibn-Tulún and Saladin had built hospitals, and Kalaún
carried on the good tradition of these pious benefactors. Cubicles for
patients were ranged round two courts, and at the sides of another
quadrangle were wards, lecture rooms, library, baths, dispensary, and
every necessary appliance of those days of surgical science. There was
even music to cheer the sufferers; while readers of the Korán afforded
the consolations of the faith. Rich and poor were treated alike, without
fees, and sixty orphans were supported and educated in the neighbouring
school. People still visit the tomb where the good sultan and his son
en-Násir lie buried, to touch their clothes in sure belief that they
will be cured of sundry diseases and disabilities.
[Illustration: “JOSEPH’S HALL”: PALACE OF EN-NASIR IN CITADEL, WITH HIS
MOSQUE IN BACKGROUND]
The long reign of en-Násir was a golden age of mamlúk architecture.
However much this sultan may have profited by the sense of tranquillity
which hereditary title inspired, he owed his long tenure of the
precarious throne partly to his personal qualities. “This self-
possessed, iron-willed man—absolutely despotic, ruling alone—physically
insignificant, small of stature, lame of a foot, and with a cataract in
the eye—with his plain dress and strict morals, his keen intellect and
unwearied energy, his enlightened tastes and interests, his shrewd
diplomacy degenerating into fruitless deceit, his unsleeping suspicion
and cruel vengefulness, his superb court, his magnificent buildings—is
one of the most remarkable characters of the Middle Ages. His reign was
certainly the climax of Egyptian culture and civilization.” He carried
on the traditions of Beybars and Kalaún; maintained the alliance with
the Golden Horde and married a princess from the Volga, the lady
Tulbíya, whose tomb may still be seen, with that of another of his
wives, in the eastern cemetery; he preserved the normal boundaries of
the empire, from the Pyramus and Euphrates to Sawákin and Aswán, and
arranged, if not alliances, diplomatic connexions with the emperor of
Constantinople and the king of Bulgaria, as well as the rulers of
Abyssinia and Arabia. He married eleven daughters to the highest nobles,
and each wedding cost him half a million. Násir was not only a
statesman; he was a farmer, trainer, and sportsman, who would pay £4000
for a horse, kept a systematic stud-book, knew all his horses’
pedigrees, prices, and ages, and broke in three thousand fillies every
year with Bedawy grooms, for the races in which he and his emírs took
the keenest possible interest. He kept thirty thousand sheep, and
imported the finest breeds from abroad, and like most of the sultans he
was devoted to falconry. Ibn-Batúta, who saw him in 1326, describes
Násir as a king “of noble character and great virtues,” beneficent to
pilgrims and assiduous in his duty of sitting in appeal twice a week to
hear causes and complaints in person. Under his rule Egypt thrived;
vexatious taxes were repealed, a new survey of the land was made,
millers and bakers who tried to raise prices in bad years were scourged,
and when his son-in-law, the great emír Kusún was reported to him for
extortion, the sultan smote him with the flat of his sword and flogged
his factor. Prices were kept down by his vigilance, wine-bibing and
immorality were severely punished, and if Násir recouped himself by
sweeping confiscations among the nobles, and cut down the “tall poppies”
remorselessly, the people gained by the new method, and prospered
exceedingly.
Even to the Copts Násir was indulgent, though the Christians were never
so well used under mamlúk rule as they had been under the Fátimids and
in the time of el-Kámil. At the time of Saladin’s invasion there had
been a great destruction of churches, due rather to the burning of Misr
and the turmoil of war than to any fanaticism of the conquerors. Saladin
himself was no friend to Christians; he was too rigid a Muslim to be
tolerant; but he did not persecute them. The flight or expulsion of the
Armenian patriarch and his followers was more probably the result of the
close association of the Armenians with the Fátimid government than of
religious bigotry. But the Holy War in Palestine, though waged against
the Latin branch of the church catholic, reacted unfavourably upon the
Copts, and Saladin’s brother el-‘Adil was stern and tyrannical towards
his Christian subjects. His son el-Kámil often interceded for them
successfully, and when he came to the throne of Egypt himself, he
displayed a spirit of toleration rare indeed in that age. He received St
Francis of Assisi courteously, when the good friar came to teach him the
truth as he perceived it, and the Christians of Egypt unanimously
regarded Kámil as the kindest ruler they had ever known. His son es-
Sálih seems to have followed in his steps during his short reign, for he
wrote to Innocent IV to express his regret that he could not converse
with the Dominicans by reason of his ignorance of Latin.
The Crusade of Louis IX naturally upset these amicable relations, and it
is not surprising that the Muslims wreaked their vengeance upon many
churches in Egypt. Nor was the temper of the succeeding mamlúk sultans,
excited by repeated victories over the remnant of the Franks in Syria,
conducive to a good understanding with their Christian subjects. The new
colleges founded by Saladin and his successors were working a change in
Cairo, and a fanatical spirit was encouraged by the teachers of these
divinity schools, whose influence grew stronger as time went on. In 1280
all the Coptic scribes employed at the war-office were dismissed and
their places supplied by Muslims. In 1301 the old humiliating sumptuary
rules prescribing distinctive dresses and the like were revived. In 1321
occurred a series of outbreaks which brought terrible persecution on the
Christians. The disturbance began when en-Násir’s workmen, digging a
lake called Nasir’s Pool, near the Lion’s Bridge (west of the Lúk and
close to the mosque of Taybars) undermined the church of ez-Zuhry, which
en-Násir had commanded to be respected. Without the knowledge of the
government the people rushed to the church one Friday after prayers and
utterly demolished it. Thence they went to the church of St Mina in the
Hamra and sacked it, and did the like to the “Church of the Maidens” by
the seven watermills, dragging out the nuns, and pillaging and burning
everything. The sultan was indignant when the smoke of the burning
churches told the tale of disaster, and sent troops at once to coerce
the mob. Meanwhile news arrived of the destruction of two other churches
in the quarters of Zuweyla and of the Greeks, and it was found that the
mob was attacking the Mo‘allaka in the fortress of Babylon. Here the
sultan’s troops happily arrived in time to protect the church. There was
evidently a popular excitement difficult to quell. Wild fakírs got up in
the mosques and shouted “Down with the infidels’ churches! To the
foundations! To the foundations!” The same thing was going on all over
Egypt; at Alexandria, at Damascus, at Kus, churches were burning.
A month later mysterious fires began to break out at Cairo. One after
the other great conflagrations burst forth, and a strong wind carried
the flames far and wide. People went up the minarets and cried to God,
thinking that the whole city would be burnt down, and there was groaning
and weeping over the loss of homes and possessions. Every effort was
made to extinguish the fires. All the water-carriers were impressed, and
twenty-four emírs of the highest rank worked at the head of the lines of
men carrying water from the baths and cisterns, and demolishing acres of
fine houses to clear a space round the burning buildings. The street
from the Deylem quarter to the Gate of Zuweyla ran with water like a
river. No sooner was one fire extinguished than another began. Almost
every day witnessed a fresh conflagration.
It was noticed that these fires were apparently aimed at mosques, and
that they were the work of incendiaries was evident from clothes soaked
in oil and pitch and naphtha that were discovered. A Christian was
caught at the mosque of ez-Záhir with packets of naphtha and pitch,
which he was lighting in the mosque. Put to the torture he confessed
that the conflagrations were the organized work of Christians. Two
monks, under torture, admitted that they had set the fires afoot to
avenge the destruction of the churches. The Coptic patriarch was called
in, and, with tears, denounced the incendiaries as wild enthusiasts who
were paying off the foolish church-destroyers in their own coin. He was
sent back to his house in honour. The populace however were in no mood
to see a patriarch respected, and would gladly have torn him in pieces,
but for the sultan’s guard. As it was they burned four monks from the
Melekite “Convent of the Mule” (el-Kuseyr) in the Mukattam hills. Two
Christians caught in the act of arson were by the sultan’s orders burnt
alive in a pit in the presence of an exulting multitude, and an innocent
Coptic secretary, passing by, only escaped being thrown to the flames by
hasty apostasy. The mob was becoming dangerous, and the sultan, who,
though much alarmed, had done his utmost to calm the people, took strong
measures. Troops were sent through the whole of Cairo with orders to
charge the crowds and spare none. The news had preceded them, and they
found the bazars closed and the streets deserted. Not a man was to be
seen between the Citadel and the Gate of Succour. Some two hundred were
arrested near the Nile, and brought before the sultan, who ordered them
to be executed or to lose their hands. In vain they pleaded innocence;
even the emírs interceded for them; en-Násir was resolved to make an
example of somebody. Gallows were set up all the way from the Gate of
Zuweyla to the Rumeyla, and there the unlucky Muslims were hung by their
hands in order to teach other people not to raise an uproar.
The result of this excitement was the revival of the old regulations as
to dress which Násir had endeavoured to drop since 1301. Any Christian
found riding a horse or wearing a white turban might be killed at sight.
The Copts were compelled to wear blue turbans, to carry a bell round
their necks at the baths, and to ride only the ass, and that with the
face to the tail. The emírs were not allowed to employ Christian
servants, nor were the Copts any more to hold posts in the government
offices. They hardly dared to show themselves abroad, and a great many
became Muslims. This was probably the worst persecution since the days
of el-Hákim, three centuries before, but it must be admitted that there
was grave provocation on both sides, and that the outrages sprang from
popular fury, not from the fanaticism of the rulers. Similar
persecution, though scarcely on so large a scale, went on throughout the
mamlúk period, and the Copts, who had perhaps waxed over-fat and kicked
during the tolerant epoch of the later Fátimids, paid dearly for their
past favour. They were gradually reduced to the state of suffering
insignificance from which they are only now being to some extent raised.
Whilst churches were being thus destroyed mosques were rising with
amazing prodigality. There never was such a harvest for the builder and
the architect as in the reign of en-Násir. The sultan set the example
himself. He was a man of fine taste and high culture, the patron of
scholars, and the intimate friend of the learned historian Abu-l-Fida,
whom he restored to the princedom of Hamáh, which had been held by his
family since the days of his ancestor, Saladin’s brother. It was an age
of brilliant artistic production, and the immense sums spent by the
sultan and his emírs on building and decorative works show that the
wealth of the country was vast, and was nobly expended. Some of Násir’s
own furniture has been preserved—there are two exquisite inlaid-silver
tables of his in the Arab Museum at Cairo—and his two chief buildings,
the college in Beyn-el-Kasreyn (1304), next to the Maristán, with its
Gothic gateway brought from ‘Akka by his brother Khalíl, and the old
mosque (1318) in the Citadel, are worthy memorials of his taste, though
unhappily they show but few traces of their original splendour. The
great dome which once surmounted the Citadel mosque has fallen in, and
most of the marble mosaics which adorned the kibla have vanished, as
well as the iron grille which enclosed the sultan’s place of prayer
(_maksúra_). There is still a range of clerestory windows all round the
mosque, but the tracery and stained glass is almost all gone; yet the
ten great granite columns, and the marble mosaics on the south wall, and
other relics, show what the mosque must once have been. Its most
remarkable feature is the coating of the minarets with green tiles,
which may probably be ascribed to the Tatar influence of Násir’s wife,
who belonged to the royal family of the Golden Horde. That the Citadel
mosque is not wholly destroyed is due to the care of Colonel C. M.
Watson, C.M.G., who rescued it from the degradation of an army
storehouse, and removed the wooden partitions which had been set up when
the beautiful building was converted into a prison. There was once a
“Hall of Columns” belonging to Násir’s “Striped Palace” of black and
white stone in the Citadel (which cost, it is said, twenty millions, but
the figure is incredible), which still stood three quarters of a century
ago; the fortress was largely rearranged and added to in his reign, and
the aqueduct which brought the Nile water to the citadel, though
commonly ascribed to Saladin and probably a reconstruction of some
Ayyúbid conduit, was Násir’s work (1311), afterwards restored in stone
by el-Ghúry. He also built a mosque beside the shrine of Seyyida Nefísa,
the Kubbat-en-Nasr near the Red Hill, and other chapels.
[Illustration: AQUEDUCT AND HOUSE OF THE “SEVEN WATERMILLS”]
Where the sultan led, the court followed. The emírs of that day were
never content till they had built a mosque, a college, or a tomb-chapel,
to celebrate their piety and lay up riches where they stood most in need
of a balance. The Moorish traveller, Ibn-Batúta, who was at Cairo in
1326, was impressed by the zealous emulation of the emírs in founding
mosques and monasteries for recluses, such as the Khankah or convent of
Beybars Gashnekír, still standing, and he gives a curious account of the
monastic rules.[70] One cannot count the colleges (medresas), he says,
and he is lost in admiration of the great hospital of Kalaún, with its
excellent apparatus and drugs, and its revenue amounting, he was told,
to 1000 dinárs a day. More than forty mosques and colleges were erected
between 1320 and 1360—more than a fourth of the total number recorded
from the Arab conquest to the time of Makrízy—and many of them still
survive to bear witness to the munificence of the great nobles of the
time. Such are the mosques (_gami‘_) of the emír Hoseyn (founded A.H.
719, A.D. 1319), Almás, the chamberlain (730), Kusún (730), Beshták
(736), Altunbugha el-Maridány, the cupbearer (740), Aslam, the armour-
bearer (746), Aksunkur (747), Arghún el-Isma‘íly (748), Mangak, the
proconsul (750), Sheykhú (750); the colleges (_medresa_) of Almelik, the
polo-master (719), Sengar el-Gáwaly (723), Ahmad, the master of the
ceremonies (Mihmandár, 725), Akbugha, the major domo (734), Sarghitmish,
captain of the guard (757); the monasteries (_Khankáh_) of Kusún (736),
el-Gáwaly (723), Sheykhú (756); besides the mosque of “the Lady Miska”
(a slave of Násir’s named Hadak, 740), the college of Násir’s daughter,
the Lady Tatar el-Higazíya (761), and the great mosque of his son Sultan
Hasan facing the Citadel (757-60).
[Illustration: MOSQUE OF SULTAN HASAN]
To describe these mosques of the Násiry epoch in detail would demand a
whole volume. Some of them indeed are sadly ruined and present but
fragments of their original building. Some, like Aksunkur’s and el-
Isma‘íly’s were restored, the one with much taste by Ibrahím Agha in
1652; the other, with none, fifty years ago by one of the Khedivial
family. But even in what remains of the original work of the twenty-one
mosques enumerated above there is so much variety in plan, in treatment
of the parts, and in decoration, that no verbal description can take the
place of ocular study on the spot. Almost every one of these buildings
deserves separate and attentive examination. Three features, however,
may here be signalized as characteristic. The old mosques had no
external decoration; their enclosing walls were plain, and only in the
late Fátimid mosque el-Akmar do we find the beginning of a façade. The
mamlúk mosques, copying no doubt the buildings of the Crusaders in
Palestine, generally present fine façades, with sunk panels, portals in
recess, and decorative cornice and crownwork. The next characteristic is
the development of the minaret, which becomes more graceful, is built of
well-faced stone, and shows delicate articulations and gradations of
tapering from the square to the polygon and cylinder, with skilful use
of “stalactite” or pendentive treatment of angles and transitions and
supports for the balconies. The third is the construction of large
domes. Hitherto small cupolas over the mihráb or above the entrance were
the utmost achievements of the earlier architects. The feature of a
great dome was introduced by Saladin’s successors, for example in the
dome of the tomb-mosque of esh-Sháfi‘y in the Karáfa, and probably in
other edifices, but too little remains of the Ayyúbid period to permit
of very exact definition.
The mamlúks were dome-builders _par excellence_. A large proportion of
their mosques and colleges were also the founders’ tombs; the tomb-
chapel adjoined the main building, and the dome, as we have said, is
pre-eminently a sepulchral canopy. From the mamlúk period begins that
adornment of the city with those beautiful bulbs which still form its
dominant architectural note. From the plain dome with a small cupola on
top comes the fluted dome, and next the dome covered with ornament,
chevrons, arabesques, or geometrical _entrelacs_, all chiselled in the
stone. The most elaborate ornament belongs to the work of the Circassian
sultans of the fifteenth century, but already in the fourteenth the dome
had taken its place among the leading features of Saracenic
architecture.
As an example of the fourteenth century style we cannot do better than
take the great mosque of Sultan Hasan, which includes most of the
characteristics of the Násiry epoch, and displays them on the grandest
scale. Sultan Hasan,—who sat on the throne from 1347 to 1351, was
deposed by the emírs, and then restored from 1354 to 1361,—was far from
an interesting or estimable character, and his mosque was his one good
deed. It was built between 1356 and 1359 (A.H. 757-760) and is said to
have cost him 1000 dinárs a day, but one distrusts the round figures of
Eastern chroniclers. The sultan was so charmed with his masterpiece that
he cut off the architect’s hand in the vague idea that its loss would
cripple his genius and prevent his repeating his success. The mosque is
of the usual form of medresa, a cross formed of a central court and four
deep transepts or porticoes, and the founder’s tomb may be compared to a
lady-chapel behind the chancel or eastern portico. The outside does not
of course reveal the cruciform character of the interior, since the
angles are filled with numerous rooms and offices.[71] The prevailing
impression from without is one of great height, compared with other
mosques. The walls are 113 feet high and built of fine cut stone from
the pyramids, and have the peculiarity, rare in Saracen architecture, of
springing from a socle. Windows—two with horseshoe arches, the rest
simple grilles—slightly relieve the monotony of the broad expanse of
wall; but the most beautiful feature is the splendid cornice built up of
six tiers of stalactites each overlapping the one below, which crowns
the whole wall. There are some graceful pilasters or engaged columns at
the angles, and a magnificent portal set in an arched niche, 66 feet
high, vaulted in a half sphere which is worked up to by twelve tiers of
pendentives. Bold arabesque medallions and borders, geometrical panels,
and corner columns with stalactite capitals, enrich this stately gate.
[Illustration: GATEWAY OF SULTAN HASAN’S MOSQUE]
Inside, the first impression again is of size rather than detail. The
great span of the four arches—that at the east is 90 feet high and
nearly 70 wide—is unmatched in Cairo, but the plaster coating of the
interior of the transepts detracts from the general effect, nor are the
mosaics and marbles, handsome as they are, equal in delicacy of design
or harmony of colour to many others in the _mihrábs_ of earlier and
later mosques. The black, white, and yellow panels are too garish, and
so is the colouring of the pulpit; but the concave niche itself is
singularly rich in decoration, and the tribune, instead of being as
usual an unpretentious wood platform, stands upon graceful stone columns
of alternate drums of coloured marbles. A fine Kufic inscription forms a
frieze round the top of the walls. The tomb-chamber, entered from the
sanctuary by a noble door plated with arabesques in bronze, is
surrounded by a marble dado 25 feet high, above which is the Throne-
Verse from the Korán carved in wood, whilst the angles are gradually
worked up to the circle of the dome by stalactites also carved in wood
and much decayed. In the centre is the plain marble grave of the
founder. The dome itself is comparatively modern, and quite unworthy of
the great mosque. The original great dome, admired by Pietro della Valle
in 1616, collapsed in 1660. There were to have been four minarets, but
scarcely was the third built when it fell (1360), crushing some three
hundred children in the school below. Thirty-three days later Sultan
Hasan was murdered. Of the two that then remained, one minaret became
ruined and was rebuilt too short in 1659. The great bronze lanterns and
many of the enamelled glass lamps are preserved in the Arab Museum; and
the fine bronze-plated entrance door was removed by el-Muáyyad to his
own mosque in 1410.
The mosque of Sultan Hasan suffered greatly from its position. Its wide
terrace-roof was an excellent post of vantage for cannon and musketry
during the constant émeutes of the Mamlúk period, and shots were
frequently exchanged between it and the Citadel down to the time of
Mohammad ‘Aly: some of the balls may still be seen in the masonry.
Barkúk found the mosque so dangerous as a place of attack that he
demolished its handsome steps and closed the great door. At one time it
remained closed for half a century, and the students and worshippers had
to slink in by a window or a side-door. The tall minaret was even used
in the middle of the fifteenth century to support a tight-rope stretched
to the Citadel on which a European gymnast disported himself to the
tremulous delight of the populace. In a quieter situation the mosque
might have escaped injury, but even as it is, scarred with bullets and
lopped of its original dome and minarets, it remains the most superb if
not the most beautiful monument of Saracenic art in the fourteenth
century.
[Illustration: TOMB-MOSQUE OF BARKUK AND FARAG]
2. THE MAMLÚKS OF THE FORT.
When the feeble descendants of en-Násir, after enduring rather than
enjoying a mock sovereignty for forty years under the tyranny of a
series of powerful emírs—Kusún, Sheykhú, Sarghitmish, and the rest—gave
way to the usurpation of the emír Barkúk in 1382, the change made little
difference in the government of Egypt. The hereditary principle was
gone, indeed, and was never reaffirmed until the latter part of the
nineteenth century; and the new dynasty consisted of isolated emírs, who
sometimes bequeathed their throne to a son until some other emír deposed
him, but who never founded a royal house like that of Kalaún. The new
line was known as the Burgy Mamlúks, or “slaves of the fort,” because
they belonged to a brigade of troops which had been quartered in the
Citadel ever since their original enrolment by Kalaún a century before.
They are also called the “Circassian Sultans,” from their common race,
for none of them were Turks, though two were Greeks. There was little to
choose, however, in character, between the Circassians and their Turkish
predecessors, and the change on the whole was for the worse. The sultans
of the new line were even more at the mercy of the leaders of military
factions than before. The mamlúk guard of each king formed a distinct
party, calling itself after his throne-title—as Ashrafy, Muáyyady,
Násiry—and after his death or deposition they remained a separate factor
in politics and contributed to the bloodshed, confusion, and intrigues
of the period. The sultans could scarcely restrain their own soldiery,
much less these formidable relics of their predecessors, and the
frequent changes of rulers show how unstable the royal authority had
become. Six of the twenty-three Burgy sultans reigned for 103 out of the
total of 134 years covered by the dynasty, leaving but thirty-one years
for the remaining seventeen, or less than two years apiece.
The character of the rulers was much the same as before, but everything
was on a meaner scale. There was hardly one warrior-king among them, and
this accounts in a large degree for the lack of the prestige that had
kept a soldier like Beybars or Kalaún on the throne. The Circassians
were not soldiers but schemers; they relied less upon success in war or
personal courage than on ruse, chicanery, and corruption, to retain
their hold of power. The Greek Khushkadam excelled the rest in his
adroit management of the contending factions and the heavy bribes he
extorted in the sale of public offices. The governorship of Damascus
cost its possessor 45,000 dinárs in fees to the sultan, and his previous
post was sold to another man for 10,000. Ministers of state were put out
of the way if their enemies made it worth the Greek’s while, and the
ceremonious visits of this ingenious sultan were apt to be expensive to
those he honoured with a call. Throughout the domination of the
Circassian dynasty corruption reigned unchecked; justice was bought and
sold; and even the Sheykh-el-Islám, the religious chief justice, stole
trust-money. The soldiers, who were purchased white slaves, Greeks,
Circassians, Turks and Mongols, ran riot in the streets, insomuch that
decent women dared not leave their houses and the fellahín feared to
bring their stock to market lest it should fall a prey to the mamlúks or
the government. In the country the population diminished under the
oppression of the troops; in the capital there was seldom peace or
order, and sometimes rival factions pounded each other from the Citadel
ramparts and the opposite roof of Sultan Hasan’s mosque, barricaded the
streets, and made cockpits of the bazars, where processions of rebels
nailed to camel-saddles till they died were no uncommon sights.
In spite of this corruption and violence the Burgy sultans contrived not
only to preserve the power of Egypt but even to enlarge its dominions
and greatly extend its trade. They withstood the invasion of Tamerlane
boldly in 1399, though in the end they found it politic to accept his
terms; but at least the great conqueror never ventured to attack Egypt.
They fought several campaigns in Asia Minor, where for some time they
secured the submission of Karaman, Cæsarea, Iconium, and Larenda. They
even conquered Cyprus—a nest of the pirates who disturbed the Egyptian
shipping—in 1426, with a fleet of galleys built at their port of Bulák,
not long risen from the Nile; and King James of Lusignan, captured at
the battle of Chierocitia, was brought in triumph to the Citadel of
Cairo, with the crown of Cyprus and his disgraced standards, and made to
kiss the ground before the Sultan Bars-Bey. He was ransomed by the
Venetian consul and European merchants, and rode through the streets and
bazars in great state, after becoming a vassal of the Egyptian king.
Cyprus paid tribute until the end of the Circassian dynasty, but several
attempts upon Rhodes in 1440-4 were successfully repelled by the
knights. To the end of the dynasty the Egyptian frontier still extended
north as far as the Pyramus and Euphrates.
Among the strange anomalies of Oriental history none perhaps is more
surprising than the combination of extreme corruption and savage cruelty
with exquisite refinement in material civilization and an admirable
devotion to art which we see in the mamlúk sultans. The Circassians were
not inferior to their Turkish forerunners as great architects.
Personally some of the second line of sultans were men of considerable
culture. Barkúk, Muáyyad, Gakmak, and Káit-Bey were fond of learned
society and literary talents; Bars-Bey, though he knew little Arabic,
liked to listen to Turkish histories read to him by el-‘Ayny; and
Timurbugha the Greek was a philologist, historian, and theologian. They
were also good Muslims, fasted regularly and even supererogatorily,
abstained from wine, made pilgrimages, and insured their place in the
next world by building mosques, colleges, hospitals, schools, and every
kind of religious establishment, in this. El-Muáyyad, for example,
though utterly unable to control the disorders of his time, “was
personally a devout man and a learned, a good musician, poet, and
orator, scrupulous in the observance of the rules of his religion, very
simple and unpretentious in his dress and mode of life, bearing himself
in all religious functions as a plain Muslim among fellow worshippers,
and robing himself in common white wool in mourning for the pestilence
that ravaged the land.” The eastern arcade of his splendid mosque
(1415-21) is still preserved in the Sukkaríya street, and a number of
boys may there be seen at their lessons under the brilliant gold
inscriptions and frescoes of the sanctuary, which has been carefully
restored by Herz Bey, who discovered traces of the original polychromy
beneath the whitewash of ages. The minarets of the mosque are built on
the flanking towers of the Zuweyla gate. There is also a ruined hospital
(el-Maristán el-Muáyyady, 1418), near the Citadel, that commemorates his
pious benefactions. Bars-Bey’s great mosque, the Ashrafiya (1423), is
still a place where congregations meet, at the corner of the Musky,
where one turns into the Ghuríya. Barkúk built (1386) an exquisite
medresa in Beyn-el-Kasreyn, which has recently been restored by Herz
Bey; and his tomb-mosque with the two domes, begun by himself but
completed by his son, the Sultan Farag, in 1410, is one of the most
picturesque features in that beautiful group of fawn-coloured domes and
slender minarets, the eastern cemetery. But the gem of the group is the
perfect tomb-mosque (1472) of Káit-Bey, which represents the highest
achievement of the later mamlúk school. The admirable arabesques of its
shapely dome, the skilfully graduated transitions of its stately minaret
from square to octagon, and from octagon to circle, with every ingenuity
of stalactite concealment of angles, and the fine inlaid marbles in the
_liwán_, are treasures of indestructible beauty even after centuries of
neglect and spoliation.
[Illustration: EASTERN CEMETERY: SO-CALLED “TOMBS OF THE CALIPHS”]
Káit-Bey, whose long reign of twenty-eight years (1468-96) was
phenomenal in this quickly changing dynasty, had worked his way up from
the usual humble beginning. Bought by Bars-Bey for twenty-five guineas,
he had passed from master to master, and rank to rank, till he became
commander-in-chief, under the Greek Timurbugha, of an army which cost
the state nearly £300,000 a year—a very large military budget for the
fifteenth century. “He was an expert swordsman, and an adept at the
javelin play. His career had given him experience and knowledge of the
world; he possessed courage, judgment, insight, energy, and decision.
His strong character dominated his mamlúks, who were devoted to him, and
overawed competitors. His physical energy was sometimes displayed in
flogging the president of the council of state or other high officials
with his own arm, with the object of extorting money for the treasury.
Such contributions and extraordinary taxation were absolutely necessary
for the wars in which he was obliged to engage. Not only was the land
taxed to one-fifth of the produce, but an additional tenth (half-a-
dirhem per ardebb of corn) was demanded. Rich Jews and Christians were
remorselessly squeezed. There was much barbarous inhumanity, innocent
people were scourged, even to the death, and the chemist ‘Aly ibn el-
Marshúshy was blinded and deprived of his tongue, because he could not
turn dross into gold.
“The Sultan had the reputation of miserliness, yet the list of his
public works, not only in Egypt, but in Syria and Arabia, shows that he
spent the revenue on admirable objects. His two mosques at Cairo—one
outside among the so-called ‘Tombs of the Caliphs’ (1472), the other
near Ibn-Tulún (1475)—and his wekálas or caravanserais are among the
most exquisite examples of elaborate arabesque ornament applied to the
purest Saracenic architecture. He diligently restored and repaired the
crumbling monuments of his predecessors, as numerous inscriptions in the
mosques, the schools, the Citadel, and other buildings of Cairo
abundantly testify. He was a frequent traveller, and journeyed in Syria,
to the Euphrates, in Upper and Lower Egypt, besides performing the
pilgrimages to Mekka and Jerusalem; and wherever he went he left traces
of his progress in good roads, bridges, mosques, schools,
fortifications, or other pious or necessary works. No reign, save that
of en-Násir ibn Kalaún, in the long list of mamlúk sultans, was more
prolific in architectural construction or in the minor industries of
art. The people suffered for the cost of his many buildings, but a later
age has recognized their matchless beauty.”[72]
[Illustration: MOSQUE OF KAIT-BEY IN EASTERN CEMETERY]
In the buildings of Káit-Bey and his contemporaries we see the
perfection of the art of pure arabesque and elaborate geometrical
ornament. In the early days of Saracenic architecture the ornament was
worked in soft gypsum or plaster, and the use of a tool (never a mould)
in the soft material gave extraordinary freedom and boldness to the
lines—for example, in the scroll-work of the mosque of Ibn-Tulún.
Plaster continued to be the base of decorative friezes and borders
throughout the Fátimid period: it may be seen in the original arcades of
the Azhar and in the eastern sanctuary of el-Hákim. The most exquisite
specimen of plaster ornament, however, is seen in the tomb-mosque of
Kalaún, where the borders of the arches that supported the original
dome, and of the clerestory windows above, are formed of a delicate
lace-like tracery in plaster foliate designs, broadly treated and worked
into a pattern so continuous that it is almost impossible to break off
at any middle point. After en-Násir, who also used stucco, however, it
was generally abandoned in favour of stone, though we still see
admirable examples of plaster decoration in the dome of Aksunkur and the
beautiful designs in the cupola of el-Fadawíya. In the mosque of the
Sultan Hasan all the sculpture except the Kufic frieze is in stone, and
as the material is unyielding we find at once a certain hardness of
treatment, a loss of freedom in the lines, and a tendency to substitute
geometrical design for the pure arabesque of earlier work. The stone
pulpit erected by Káit-Bey in 1483 in Barkúk’s tomb-mosque is one of the
finest examples of geometrical chiselling in Cairo. Its side view is
triangular, like the wooden pulpits of other mosques, but instead of
carved or inlaid wooden panels making up the designs on each side, the
whole is of stone slabs, admirably joined, and chiselled with
geometrical figures produced outwards, so as to cover the whole surface
with a network of interlacing lines forming a star-like pattern, the
interstices of which are filled with floral arabesques. Similar carving
enriches the walls of the staircase and the canopy of this unique
pulpit.
Káit-Bey was the most scrupulous of all Cairo architects: he allowed no
detail of his numerous edifices to be neglected, and the wealth of
ornament which he lavished upon them was all cut in limestone or
marble.[73] One may realize the richness of this decoration in his
mosque within the city, near Ibn-Tulún’s, where the chief arch is formed
of twenty-three blocks of stone on each side, alternately red and white,
and every one of the white blocks is covered with arabesque or
geometrical designs, no two of which appear to be alike. The arabesques
consist of the usual trefoil surrounded by very beautifully intertwined
foliage conventionally treated. The geometrical patterns, though at
first sight composed of irregular pentagons and hexagons, are all
symmetrically arranged, and form one elaborate design. On the spandrils
of the arch will be noticed medallions—there are many such in
Cairo—containing the name of the Sultan and a benediction upon him. A
broad band of Koranic inscription, separated by arabesque patterns, runs
as a frieze under the sculptured cornice. The general effect of the
whole is wonderfully rich, and there is hardly a space that is not
filled by some delicate design. Even in his wekálas, or inns, Káit-Bey
was no less careful in details. Few buildings in Cairo are more fertile
in varied designs than his wekála in the street on the south side of the
Azhar. The interior, unhappily, is deserted and in decay, but once, no
doubt, it was richly ornamented. The façade is still in good
preservation, and deserves careful study by all who wish to understand
arabesque and geometrical ornament at its best.[74] When we say at its
best, some objection may be taken to the fact that certain designs are
systematically repeated in reverse, in contrast to the honest way of the
older artists who scorned to repeat themselves. But by the time of Káit-
Bey the beauty of uniformity had been realized, and it was seen that a
certain symmetry and recurrence of the designs really improved their
effect. This change was part of the general tendency towards symmetrical
finish and architectural proportion, which distinguishes the later from
the earlier Mamlúk style. There is, however, abundant variety in the
numerous panels of arabesque and geometrical ornament which form the
borders above the thirteen shops of the inn front, in the superb arched
gateway in the centre, and in the beautiful engaged column in the
corner, next the sebíl or fountain, with its carved drums and stalactite
capital. In its original state this wekála must have been a noble
building: even as it is, one may call it almost a text-book of Saracenic
decoration.
[Illustration: TOMB-MOSQUES]
Indeed the epoch of Káit-Bey was almost a repetition of the great
building epoch of en-Násir. The Circassian mosques are usually the
favourites with architects as well as with the unprofessional sight-
seer: their exquisite proportions, delicate minarets, beautifully
sculptured domes, elaborate stalactites in portals, cornices, and
wherever angles had to be masked, and their rich marble mosaics and
incrustated kiblas, are perfect in taste and disposition. Besides the
two exquisite mosques of Káit-Bey, those of the emírs Ezbek el-Yúsufy
(1495), Kheyr Bek (1502), and the Master of the Horse (emír akhór) Kany
Bek (1503), are full of fine work, whilst for a little gem of the best
Circassian type nothing is better worth seeing than the Medresa of Kady
Abu-Bekr ibn Muzhir or Mazhar (1480) which has been restored with
exceptional skill by the Commission for the Preservation of the Arab
Monuments, whose architect, Herz Bey, has devoted the greatest pains to
tracing the original colours and designs and faithfully reproducing
them. Another careful restoration is that of the mosque of the emír
Kagmás el-Isháky (1481), and both show conspicuous improvement upon the
earlier experiments in restoring the Barkukíya medresa.
It is to be noticed that, in the majority of the medresas of the
fifteenth century, the original cruciform shape is considerably
modified. The medresa, though still a college, gradually usurped the
position of the gámi‘ or congregational mosque. Friday prayers were held
in the medresa, since few new gámi‘s were erected—the most important
were those of Muáyyad, Bars-Bey and Ezbek—and the court and the eastern
transept (sanctuary or chancel) were enlarged, whilst the side transepts
became smaller, and even dwindled to mere recesses. Probably the
reduction of the side transepts was due in some measure to the fact that
only two of the four orthodox schools, the Sháfi‘y and the Hánafy, had
any great following in Egypt, and there was thus no necessity for the
retention of the original plan of four separate lecture halls. The
result is that we find under the Circassian Sultans that a compromise
has been made between the gámi‘ and the medresa, and the form of the
latter has been modified to suit the requirements of the former. This
modified medresa form is almost universal in the Circassian period of
architecture, and the salient features—the enlargement of the sanctuary
and the diminishing of the side transepts—is particularly conspicuous in
the medresa of Kagmás.[75]
[Illustration: TOMBS OF THE MAMLUKS]
Even to the end, when the Ottoman conquest was obviously at hand, the
Circassian mamlúks retained much of their vigour and all their aesthetic
powers. There are few more interesting figures in their line than the
old sultan el-Ghúry, called to the throne in 1501, after four
incompetent rulers in as many years had succeeded Káit-Bey. He was a man
of bold decision and boundless energy. He restored order in the anarchy
of Cairo, levied ten months’ taxes at a stroke to replenish his
treasury; taxed water-wheels, boats, camels, Jews, Christians, servants,
every possible source; increased the customs-dues, confiscated vast
estates and levied enormous death-duties. Having restored the revenue,
and earned an evil name for extortion, he proceeded to spend it on great
public works. Canals, roads, fortifications on the coast, the
strengthening of the Citadel of Cairo, the improvement of the pilgrims’
route to Mekka, these were among his good deeds. His college (1503) and
tomb-mosque (where, however, he is not buried) still face each other at
opposite sides of the street that bears his name, the Ghuríya, though
badly mauled by the injudicious restoration of thirty years ago. He also
built a minaret for the Azhar, the mosque of the Nilometer on the island
of Roda, the Sebíl-el-Muminín or Fountain of the Faithful in the
Rumeyla, the watermills at Masr-el-‘Atíka, and restored the aqueduct to
the Citadel. He was sumptuous in his court, and generous to poets and
musicians, whilst he mulcted the heirs of his nobles and robbed orphans
of their dower. Fully alive to the importance of the Indian trade, then
menaced by the Portuguese, he furnished a fleet in the Red Sea and sent
it to India, where with the help of the governor of Diu it defeated the
interloping senhors under the younger Almeida in an engagement off Chaul
in 1508. Finally, but too late, he led his army into Syria to do battle
with the advancing Ottomans, and fell fighting at the age of seventy-six
on the fatal field of Marg Dábik, near Aleppo, where the desertion of
the two wings under Kheyr Bek and el-Ghazzály left the old sultan alone
with his bodyguard to be trampled under the horses of the troopers he
vainly tried to rally (24th August, 1516). An engagement near Heliopolis
to the north of Cairo completed the rout of the mamlúks. Tumán Bey tried
to make a stand against the invaders at the Bab-en-Nasr, but Selím took
him in the flank, and after hand to hand fighting in the streets, the
Citadel was stormed, Tumán was crucified at the Gate of Zuweyla, and
Egypt became a province of the Ottoman Empire.
[Illustration: SKETCH PLAN SHOWING THE GROWTH OF CAIRO]
CHAPTER VIII
_The City of the Arabian Nights_
IN the preceding chapter we finished the story of Cairo as the capital
of an independent state, and described some of the beautiful buildings
with which the Mamlúk Sultans and nobles adorned the city. But the life
of a town does not consist in the doings of the court, and we should
form a very incomplete picture of mediæval Cairo if we looked no deeper
than the Sultans and their mosques and colleges and tombs. Though
trampled under the hoofs of the dominant troopers, the city had a
vigorous life of its own, a life of prosperous commerce, of social
enjoyment, and of literary culture. Cairo society was no longer the
limited palace coterie cooped up within the high walls of the Fátimid
palaces. It spread on all sides save the east. It had flowed out beyond
the northern gates, and formed the new suburb of the Hoseyníya, where
many mosques and chapels grew up. It had spread to the west over the
space between the old Fátimid wall and the Nile, and the river had
conveniently receded and allowed the new port of Bulák and a whole
colony of houses to be formed on what had been the Nile bed till the
wreck of the good ship _Elephant_ helped to make a sand bank, called the
Elephant’s Isle (Gezírat-el-Fil), which altered the river’s course and
provided an excellent building site. To the south the space between the
Fátimid walls and the Citadel and the mosque of Ibn-Tulún, where only
gardens and summer villas and pools flooded at high Nile had been seen
in Saladin’s day, was now covered with houses, among which rose the
domes and minarets of the mamlúks.
The expansion of the city may readily be traced in the Topographer’s
careful record of the building of mosques, which necessarily implies a
neighbouring population. The mosque of Yúnus (c. A.H. 719) and of Ibn-
et-Tabbákh (“the son of [Násir’s] cook,” 746), in the quarter of el-Luk,
point to the recession of the Nile which formerly ran close by. In the
same way the foundation of the mosques of Ibn-Gházy (741) and et-Tawáshy
(745) on the outside (or west) of the old Bab-el-Bahr, and the Záwiya of
Abu-s-Su‘úd (c. 724) outside the Bab-el-Kantara, point to a westward
extension, though here the land was not formerly under water. The great
expansion to the north, caused by the upheaval of the Elephant’s Isle,
before 1200 A.D., and the emergence of Bulák a century later, may be
fully traced in the annals of the mosques. Makrízy tells us that the
Elephant’s Isle was flooded only at high Nile, and during the rest of
the year it was a links of sandbanks and coarse grass, where the mamlúks
used to practise archery, in their unhappy ignorance of golf. But as the
Nile receded “people began in 1313 to erect houses, in consequence of
the improvements made in that part by en-Násir,” who had dug the new
canal then known as the Khalíg en-Násiry and now as the Isma‘ilíya,
which drained the tract; “and a proclamation was made in Káhira and Misr
inviting every one to build there without delay. So the emírs and
soldiers and merchants and common folk built houses there, and Bulák was
created at this period.”[76] He adds that water was drawn from the Nile
by a sákiya wheel which stood on the spot where the mosque of el-Khatíry
was afterwards built, which shows that the river has not retreated much
since, for it still runs very near this mosque, which was founded by
Aydemir in 737 on a site which was under water thirty years before.
Other mosques at Bulák were those of Ibn-Sárim and el-Básity (817).
Behind or east of Bulák, on what is now called the ‘Abbasíya road, was a
plot of land beside the Elephant’s Isle, known as Ard-et-Tabbála or the
“demesne of the tamburina,” because it was presented by the caliph
Mustansir to a singing girl who celebrated the glories of the Fátimids
to the accompaniment of her drum. There also houses began to be built,
and the mosque of el-Keymakhty was founded there, on the New Canal, in
A.H. 790. Before this another mosque, that of el-Asyúty, had been
erected about 740 on the Elephant’s Isle, as well as that of Sarúga on
the New Canal near the Pool of er-Ratly. Still further to the east we
find a number of mosques rising in the new quarters outside the old city
walls. Such were the gámi‘s of Almelik (732) and Ibn-el-Felek in the
Hoseyníya quarter, those of Akúsh and Ibn-el-Maghraby on the canal
outside; the convents of Yúnus, Algibugha (c. 750) and Ibn-Ghuráb (798),
and the Záwiyas of el-Ga‘bary (c. 687), Nasr (c. 719), el-Kalendaríya
(c. 722), and el-Khiláty (c. 737), outside the Bab-en-Nasr, all of which
testify to the expansion of the city towards the north.
Cairo had in fact attained much the same dimensions as it measured fifty
years ago, before the new European suburbs near the Nile were developed.
There was probably little difference either in outward aspect or in the
life of the middle and lower classes between the Cairo of the fifteenth
century and the city which Europeans such as Wilkinson, Burckhardt,
Lane, John Phillip, and Hay visited and described or painted in the
first half of the nineteenth. Some of Hay’s and his companion’s, O. B.
Carter’s, drawings, sketched about 1830, are here reproduced, and they
may fairly be taken as true representations of a town which still
retained its essential mediæval characteristics.
How different Cairo must then have appeared to the newly arrived
visitor, who landed at Bulák after coming through the Mahmudíya Canal
from Alexandria and then ascending the Nile. There was a mile’s ride
from the river bank at Bulák to the Bab-el-Hadíd by which you entered
Cairo at the north-west corner, and instead of the crowded villa suburb
of to-day, there was scarcely a house to be seen. “Two principal roads,”
writes Lane,[77] “of nearly the same length lead from Bulák to Cairo;
the northern, which is somewhat irregular, but is the chief route of
commerce [there were of course no railways then], leads to the Bab-el-
Hadíd; and the southern, after having crossed two canals, enters the
western side of the Ezbekíya. We pass the picturesque mosque of
Abu-l-‘Ola on our right as we enter the latter road. The French, during
their occupation of Egypt, raised this road, intending also to continue
it through the town as far as the Citadel. It is straight and wide, but
very uneven, and wanting a row of trees on its southern side to shade
it. It is raised a few feet above the level of the plain, so as to be
above the reach of the inundation. On either side during the inundation
are marshes and inundated fields. These, as soon as the waters have
subsided, are sown with corn, beans, trefoil, etc. Here and there are
clusters of palm trees, and a few sycamores and acacias. The plain was
formerly bounded on the east by extensive mounds of rubbish [doubtless
the ruins of Maks], behind which the capital was nearly concealed. The
road crosses two canals, over each of which is a stone bridge. . . .
Along the western side of the second canal, on the right of the road, is
a long ridge of rubbish. From the top of this ridge, about a quarter of
a mile from the gate of the Ezbekíya, we obtain a view of Cairo.”
This was how one approached Cairo in the first half of the nineteenth
century. The description reads drearily enough, but it has the merit of
showing what the place was like before the European builder took it in
hand. When the traveller plodded along the uneven road between the bean-
fields in 1835 he was traversing precisely the same scene as had been
trodden by the mamlúk horsemen for centuries, and he was approaching a
city which was still to all intents the city of the Arabian Nights.
There is no manner of doubt, from internal evidence, that it was in
Cairo that these famous tales took their definite shape. Their origins
have of course been traced to a large extent in Persia and India, but
their final form and colour are Egyptian. Though many of the scenes are
laid at Baghdád, where the famous Harún er-Rashíd played so conspicuous
and erratic a part, it is obvious to any student of the topography that
the writers were very imperfectly acquainted with the caliph’s city. It
is Cairo that they know and describe, whatever names they please to give
to their scenes. There are incidental touches that make it probable that
the Arabian Nights assumed their present form, in all essentials, before
the middle of the fourteenth century. The latest historical personage
mentioned is Saladin, and there are many reasons for believing that the
tales were collected and written very nearly in their final shape during
the revival of letters that ennobled the golden age of mamlúk
civilization on the Nile. The society they describe is precisely what we
know of mamlúk times: it is orthodox Muslim society of the Cairene type.
It may be wondered that there should be any speculation at all about the
date of so famous a book; but the explanation is simple. Scholars and
learned men in the East have always looked with contempt upon stories
such as these, which are wholly devoid of the literary preciosity which
was the special pride of the true man of letters. Hence they did not
deign even to mention the Thousand and One Nights, save in two or three
slight references which do not determine the date of the existing
redaction. The Nights were written for the people, for the audiences who
gathered in the coffee-shops to listen to the professional reciter, for
the large uneducated middle class of Cairo. This is what constitutes
their special merit in the eyes of the student of mediæval Egypt. The
doings of kings and emírs we learn from the detailed pages of Makrízy
and many other scholarly writers: it is from the Thousand and One Nights
that we gain our insight into the life of the people—a life divided from
that of the great by a gulf over which the Oriental historian rarely
leaps. The tales are above all the adventures of merchants and shop-
keepers. We are introduced no doubt to caliphs and sultans and vezírs,
as well as to the ginn, ’efrits and márids and other members of the
spirit-world; but the real actors in the stories are traders, men who
keep shop and who have ventures upon the seas, and often make voyages
themselves. Sindibad might easily have heard many of his own adventures
from the lips of the motley crowd that gathered on the quays at Misr
from all parts of the known world. Ibn-Sa‘íd stood and watched the
shipping in 1246 and noticed vessels arriving from all lands: “as for
the merchandise from the Mediterranean and the Red Sea that comes to
Misr it is past describing; here is it bonded, not at Cairo, and hence
it is distributed throughout Egypt.” What was true of Misr and Maks was
also true of their successor, the fourteenth century port at Bulák. It
was from Bulák that ‘Aly of Cairo, after spending all his inheritance
making merry with his wife on the island of Roda, took ship for Damietta
and set forth on his quest of a new fortune. The constantly recurring
references to commercial voyages and great profits are exactly what
would occur to a people whose wealth was made not only by a prodigiously
fertile soil, but by a copious foreign trade.
What the transit trade of Egypt was worth in mamlúk times may be judged
from a few facts. A single vessel clearing cargo at Alexandria paid
£21,000 in customs. The great Italian republics found it necessary to
maintain consular agents in Egypt, and that there was a wealthy colony
of European merchants is shown by their being able, headed by the consul
of Venice, to guarantee the king of Cyprus’s ransom of £100,000. The
Venetians had enjoyed special privileges in Egypt since the time of
el-‘Adil, in 1208, who allowed them to build a mart (funduk) of their
own at Alexandria; the Pisans had a consul there; and the concessions to
Venice were renewed in 1238. On the other side, in the Red Sea, there
were the ports of Suez, Tor, Koseyr, ‘Aydháb, Dehlek and Sawákin, where
the mamlúk sultans levied customs of a tenth _ad valorem_. The Indian
trade had greatly developed under the later mamlúk sultans, and there
was much rivalry and a tariff war between the Arabian and Egyptian ports
in the Red Sea in the effort to secure the heavy customs dues, which
were pressed beyond the customary tenth. In 1426 we read of forty
vessels from India and Persia paying £36,000 in duties at Gidda, the
port of Mekka, which, like Yenbu‘, was then Egyptian. Nor were the
government duties limited to importation. There were certain monopolies:
sugar, pepper, wood, metalwork could be sold only at government
warehouses, at government prices, subject to duty. A consignment of
pepper that was bought at Cairo for fifty dinárs was sold to Europeans
at Alexandria for one hundred and thirty under government regulations.
The Venetians, after vain consular remonstrance, sent a fleet to
Alexandria to bring away all their merchants, and Bars-Bey was obliged
to reduce his exorbitant terms.
How much store the Circassian sultans set by the transit trade between
India and Europe has been seen in the vigorous effort made by el-Ghúry
to crush the Portuguese in the Arabian Sea as soon as he realized the
dangerous rivalry of the Cape route. Indeed the transit trade must have
been a chief source of wealth. As Mr Cameron, our consul at Port Sa‘íd,
has well put it, the mamlúk sultans, “masters of both Egypt and Syria,
held the ports and caravan routes between Europe and her Indian trade,
and levied customs dues on every bale of Oriental produce which arrived
from the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea for transfer to the harbours
between Alexandria and Alexandretta and for transhipment to Venice.
Until the discovery of the Cape route in 1498, and its subsequent
development, they enjoyed the monopoly of the entire volume of Indian
trade with the Levant; and Venice, by her commercial capitulations with
them, was their sole agent on the continent. Let us try and estimate
what this monopoly meant. An Arab merchant like Sindbad the Sailor, . .
. buys £10,000 worth of raw silks, nutmegs, pepper, indigo, cloves, and
mace in Persia or at Calicut and lands them at Basra or Suez. The sea
route up the Persian Gulf would be shorter than the voyage up the Red
Sea; but the caravan road from Basra to Aleppo would be more perilous
than the short journey across Egypt. At landing, the customs would
amount to some £4000 [this is much above the mark], and the goods would
then be worth, say, £20,000. A second Arab merchant on the Mediterranean
coast [or perhaps at the wharves of Bulák] would sell the consignment
for £30,000 to the Venetian, who would have to pay another £5000 customs
dues before he could clear his cargo. Thus, whether in customs or in
tolls, or in presents to local governors and escorts, a quarter of the
£35,000 paid by the Venetian would go to the mamlúk sultan and
aristocracy merely for the privilege of transit.”[78]
It was not the government alone that made the profit. The Cairo merchant
who brought the precious bales from India and the Spice Islands, or at
least bought them from the Indian traders at the Red Sea ports, made his
fortune too. The Thousand and One Nights are full of such successful
ventures. Did not the Second Sheykh, who led the Two Black Hounds,
describe how “we then prepared merchandise and hired a ship and embarked
our goods, and proceeded on our voyage for the space of a whole month,
at the end of which we arrived at a city where we sold our merchandise,
and for every piece of gold we gained ten”? Such fortunate speculations
were no doubt of everyday occurrence, and the trade represented by these
ventures did not all go out of the capital: a large part found its way
into the bazars to be retailed to the good people of Cairo and to
minister to the luxurious tastes of the thousands of hangers-on to the
mamlúk court. We can form but a meagre notion of the mediæval _funduk_
from the present bazars. A _funduk_, or _khan_, or _wekála_—there is
little difference between the three terms—is a great collection of
warehouses and shops, generally surrounding a court, but sometimes more
like a covered arcade, where the merchants keep their reserves of
stores, and where traders find lodgings for themselves and stabling for
their beasts between their journeys. One great mediæval khan is still
familiar to every tourist—the Khan el-Khalíly or “Turkish bazar,” built
by Garkas el-Khalíly, the Master of the Horse of Sultan Barkúk in 1400
on the site once occupied by the graves of the Fátimid caliphs, whose
bones were dug up and carted away on asses to the rubbish-mounds outside
the eastern Gate. Another khan, the Hamzáwy, or cloth market, is also
well known; and two of Káit-Bey’s wekálas, the façades of which are
finely ornamented with arabesque panels and intricate geometrical
designs, and wooden medallions carved with the sultan’s name, still
remain beside the Azhar and in the Surugíya. When Lane described Cairo
in 1835 there were about two hundred wekálas, and even now one can
scarcely pass down a street without finding one of these big courts
surrounded by rooms—the inn of the east—opening out through a tall
gateway.
In the fifteenth century the khans of Cairo were busy marts of the
merchants; and the mamlúk emírs, who had clear ideas as to the value of
house property, emulated one another in building handsome wekálas, every
room of which might be expected to bring in a substantial rent. There
was the khan of Mesrúr, one of the most famous. The young man in the
Story of the Humpback “put up” there, and stored his merchandise, and
after a night’s rest took some of his goods and went to the “kaysaríya
of Garkas,” another famous market of mediæval Cairo dating from Fátimid
days, to sell to the merchants. “Do as other merchants,” said the sheykh
of the brokers to the stranger; “sell thy merchandise upon credit for a
certain period, employing a scrivener, a witness, and a moneychanger,
and receive a portion of the profits every Thursday and Monday: so shalt
thou make of every piece of silver two—besides thou wilt have leisure to
enjoy the amusements of Egypt and its Nile.” So the young man followed
his advice and left his goods to be sold for him, whilst he lived
joyously at the khan of Mesrúr, breakfasted on wine and chicken and
mutton and sweetmeats, and perfumed himself elegantly, till he met the
damsel at the shop of Bedr-ed-din, the gardener, and there happened what
fate had decreed, to be a warning to such as would be admonished. That
the young man should have his hand cut off by the executioner at the
Gate of Zuweyla was exactly what might be expected in the days of the
mamlúks. This khan of Mesrúr (or rather two khans, one large and the
other small) was built on a part of the site of the Fátimid Great Palace
where the slaves used to be sold, by Mesrúr, a favourite slave of
Saladin, who left it as a legacy for the benefit of the poor. The larger
building had a hundred rooms, and was the chief resort of merchants from
Syria,—“the most renowned and greatest of the khans,” says the
Topographer, but its prosperity declined after the tribulation of Syria
at the hands of Tamerlane, “its honour departed and many of its
apartments were ruined.”
[Illustration: SLAVE MARKET]
Another famous khan was that of Bilál, a slave of es-Sálih, the grand-
nephew of Saladin, so favoured that the sultan Kalaún used to say, “God
have mercy on our late master es-Sálih! I used to carry the slippers of
this eunuch Bilál whilst he went into the presence!” The slave was very
rich and abounded in good deeds, many poets praised him and were amply
rewarded, and among his worthy acts was the building of the khan, where
the merchants would deposit their chests of great value. “I used to
enter this funduk,” says Makrízy, “and lo! around it were chests piled,
little and great, so that only a small space was left in the middle, and
these chests contained gold and silver enough to amaze one.” Then there
was the “Khan of the Sebíl,” outside the Bab-el-Futúh, founded by
Saladin’s vezír, Karakúsh, for “sons of the road,” poor wayfarers, who
were received without payment; and the Wekála Kusún, built by Násir’s
son-in-law, near the mosque of el-Hákim, where Syrian merchants stored
oil, and sesame, and soap, and preserves, and pistachio-nut, almonds,
syrups, and the like, every store-room being let by the emír’s order at
no more than five dirhems of silver, without extortion, and no one being
turned away. It was a busy place in Makrízy’s time, very popular on
account of its cheapness, full of people and bales of goods, and noisy
with the shouts of the porters. There were 360 lodgings above the store-
rooms, all occupied, and 4000 people lived there. The Tatar devastation
of Syria ruined this khan too. Opposite the Zuweyla Gate stood the
fruit-market where the produce of the gardens round Cairo was sold; it
was roofed over, like most of the bazars in former days, to keep off the
rays of the sun, and the fruit, which smelt like the gardens of
Paradise, was tastefully arranged and decorated with flowers and sweet
herbs.[79]
There were many more great buildings of this kind, the history of which
is related by the laborious Topographer, whose descriptions enable us
almost to reconstruct in imagination the city of the fifteenth century.
Cairo was a sumptuous and beautiful place in those days. The old mamlúk
palaces—of which we have but relics in the huge blank walls of Beshták’s
palace, the fine gateway of Yeshbek’s _dar_ next to Sultan Hasan’s
mosque, and the better preserved mansions of Káit-Bey and of the emír
Mamáy (known as the Beyt-el-kady)—were then in their full glory. The
various quarters were still separated by their strong gates barred at
night. The súks were shaded by matting or wooden roofs, and the lattice-
windows with their delicate tracery overhung the streets. Makrízy
enumerates and describes 37 _Háras_ or quarters, 30 districts (_khutt_),
65 streets (_darb_), 21 by-streets and alleys (_zukák_ and _khawkha_),
49 squares or _places_ (_rahba_), 50 markets (_suk_), 23 great markets
(_kaysaríya_), 11 hostelries (_khan, funduk, wekála_), 55 famous palaces
and mansions (_kasr, dar_), 44 public baths (_hammám_), 28 closes and
gardens (_hakar, bustán_), 11 racecourses (_meydán_), and numerous
pleasure-houses or belvederes (_manzara_).
Many of the streets still run in their old places, and some of their
names survive, such as the Salíba or cross-ways, Beyn-el-Kasreyn, Beyn-
es-Sureyn, Harat Bargawán, Suk-es-Siláh, Khan-el-Khalíly, Darb-el-Asfar,
Habbaníya, Khurunfísh. The old quarters of Cairo have changed much less
than the old parts of London; but the reason is melancholy. London has
changed because it has grown; Cairo remained comparatively unaltered
because it was slowly decaying. The loss of much of the Indian trade,
the dependence upon Turkey, the misrule of pashas and mamlúk beys, all
tended to reduce the prosperity of the city which had flourished
exceedingly under the Turkish and Circassian sultans.
With decline of trade came decline in the arts. There is still a little
good work made in Cairo in brass chasing, jewellery, and silk weaving,
but it is a poor relic of what once went on there. One has only to visit
the Arab Museum to realize what magnificent work the artists of Cairo
produced in the mamlúk period. The arts were closely related to the
mosques, which attained their greatest perfection of ornament in the
same period, and the chief objects in the museum were once parts of the
decoration or furniture of the mosques. The beautiful inlaid and chased
silver and brass tables, with delicate designs in open tracery, Koran
cases, lamps and chandeliers, bowls, censers, candlesticks, enamelled
glass lamps with inscriptions in blue picked out with carmine and gold,
generally came from mosques and centre round the fourteenth century. The
carved panels inlaid with ivory and ebony and choice woods once enriched
the doors and pulpits of the mosques, and the cast bronze bosses and cut
brass filigree work belong chiefly to the same period. There are many
admirable examples of these arts in the South Kensington Museum, and the
British Museum possesses an unsurpassed collection of Saracenic metal
work. There is unhappily no “Market of the Inlayers” now at Cairo, as
there was in Makrízy’s time. This silver and gold inlay of arabesques
and inscriptions on a brass base was one of the most elaborate and
characteristic of Saracenic arts. It was not Egyptian in origin, but
derived from the old Sasanian silversmiths of Mesopotamia. The oldest
specimens we know came from Mosil on the Tigris, which was a famous home
of metal-workers, within reach of the mines of the Taurus country. No
doubt these Mosil smiths were attracted to Cairo in the flourishing days
of the mamlúk sultans, or even earlier. At least it is certain that some
of their finest work was done for the Egyptian market, and even bears
the names of well-known Cairene rulers and emírs. There is the casket,
for example, engraved with the name and titles of el-‘Adil II, Saladin’s
grand-nephew, who sat on the throne of Egypt from 1238 to 1240, and was
succeeded by es-Sálih, the husband of “Spray of Pearls.” It is in the
Mosil style of the earliest period; the sides are ornamented with dotted
eight-foils (exactly resembling the ornament on the silver coins of the
family of Saladin) containing hunting scenes, a combat with a lion, a
horseman with falcon on wrist (which is covered with the falconer’s
glove), etc.; the intervening ground is decorated with fine arabesques,
and an inscription on the bevel of the lid gives the name and titles of
the sultan. On the top are personifications of the six planets (of
Arabian science) surrounding the sun (the seventh):—the Moon, a seated
figure holding a crescent; Mercury, with his writing materials; Venus, a
woman playing on the lyre; Mars, a warrior brandishing a sword and
holding a bleeding head; Jupiter, a throned judge; and Saturn, patron of
thieves, with his bludgeon and purse. Outside these is a band of the
twelve signs of the Zodiac, represented much in the usual manner. On the
bottom of the box is an inscription stating that it was made “for the
royal wardrobe of el-‘Adil.”
The hunting-scenes and representations of human figures and animals are
characteristic of Mesopotamian silver work, and we see medallions of
two-headed eagles on a splendid inlaid perfume-burner in the British
Museum, “made,” as the silver letters inform us, “by order of his
excellency, the generous, the exalted lord, the great emír, the
honourable master, marshal, warrior for the faith, warden of Islám,
mighty, heaven-supported, victorious, Full Moon of the Faith Beysary,
mamlúk of ez-Záhir (Beybars),” etc. The date must be before 1279, and
the vessel carries us back to the days of Kalaún and the beginning of
mamlúk splendour. Beysary was one of the greatest and most sumptuous of
the early mamlúk emírs, and his perfume burner was typical of the
luxurious refinements of his palace. He valued his comfort more than
ambition, and twice refused the precarious honour of the throne during
the unsettled period succeeding Kalaún’s death, when the sultanate was
open to the strongest emír. Even so he could not escape the consequences
of being wealthy and distinguished, and in spite of his retiring
character he was suspected of pretensions to power, fleeced of his
treasures, and often confined to the dungeons of the Citadel. His
palace, which stood in Beyn-el-Kasreyn, covered four acres, and
possessed the richest mosaics and the handsomest carved doors in Cairo.
Bedr-ed-din Beysary was indeed the most sumptuous man of his time. He
loved to surround himself with beautiful things, and his slave body-
guard was the best appointed of the day. No fortune could support his
lavish extravagance. He not only spent upon himself, but gave prodigally
to all who asked him. Hospitality was his foible, and his gifts to the
poor ran in round sums of five hundred or a thousand dirhems (say
francs) to each applicant. He would daily distribute three thousand
pounds of meat, and a single present consisted of a thousand pieces of
gold, five thousand bushels of corn, and a thousand hundredweight of
honey. One of his mamlúks used every day to draw ninety pounds of meat
and seventy rations of barley, which it is to be presumed neither he nor
his horses could possibly digest. Naturally Beysary was perpetually in
debt. The constant amount of his liabilities is placed at 400,000
dirhems, for as soon as one debt was paid off, the generous soul
hastened to contract another of the same figure. A considerable part of
his expenditure must have gone in table equipage, for it is recorded
that he never drank twice out of the same cup; and as Makrízy mentions
that at one time this thirteenth century epicure was wholly given over
to wine and hazard, the number of cups required must have been
considerable. But a great and cultivated emír needed more than cups for
his comfort: he must have inlaid tables on which to put the broad brass
tray incrusted with chased silver and gold, which carried his service of
the forbidden fruit of the grape; he must have his beautiful hall
lighted by candles placed in elaborate stands, covered with silver
inlay; his very tubs and cooking-pots must be chased with arabesques and
complicated designs, and his palace must be perfumed with incense rising
from perfume-burners on which the artist had engraved representations of
horsemen at the chase, hounds and quarry, falcons and waterfowl, and all
the decorative subjects of the Saracen silversmith.
[Illustration: IN THE DARB-EL-AHMAR]
The earliest and finest examples of metal work connected with the names
of Cairo kings and nobles are of Mosil origin, though very probably made
in Cairo in the “Market of the Inlayers” by artists who had been
attracted to the court. There was undoubtedly an early Fátimid art of a
similar character, but beyond a very few rare examples, such as the
Bayeux casket at Paris and some specimens of cut crystal at Venice, we
know almost nothing of its style. Under the mamlúk sultans, however,
Cairo soon acquired a school of her own, which seems to have possessed
traditions coming from a different source than that of Mosil. The Cairo
style is what we see on the numerous trays, bowls, cups, censers, and
other vessels of the mamlúks of Egypt of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, preserved in our museums and private collections. Some points
of resemblance to the Mosil work may be noticed, but the new elements
are very distinct. The figures of horsemen and seated princes have for
the most part disappeared, as it was natural they should when the
Turkish princes became habituated to the puritanical prescriptions of
Islám concerning the treatment of living things in art; but borders
representing beasts of the chase, and a ground covered with wild duck
and other fowl, still remain. The prevalence of the duck, which was
easily explicable in the swamps of Mesopotamia, finds another _raison
d’être_ in Egypt, for the founder of the line of sultans who ruled in
Cairo for nearly a century was a Turk of Kipchak, whose name, Kalaún,
means in his native Mongol tongue “duck.” We may compare Abbot Islip’s
plastic puns on his own name in his chapel in Westminster Abbey. The
ornament of the mamlúk metalwork is essentially different in style from
that of Mosil. The inscriptions are arranged in broad bands, with large
surfaces of silver inlay, divided by medallions filled with the sultan’s
name on a fess, or else by some heraldic coat of arms borne by the
owner, among which the cup and polo-stick (indicating the court offices
of cup-bearer and polo-master), the lozenge, and a curious imitation of
a hieroglyphic inscription common on the ancient monuments of Egypt, but
doubtless unintelligible to the copyists, are the most usual. Round the
medallions are belts of flowers and leaves, reminding one of the designs
of Damascus tiles; and similar leaves and flowers, interspersed with
birds, cover the ground. The execution is no less admirable than the
design. There was no scamped work among these Saracen smiths. They cut
away the whole design in the brass, and undercut the edges to hold the
thin plates of silver or gold, to be hammered and burnished in, which
formed the design; and they chased with the graver every plate of
silver, were it only a pin’s head in size, with wings or eyes or floral
scrolls—a work of infinite labour; and then they covered the
interstices, where the brass showed, with a black bituminous composition
which set off the precious metal to advantage. Much of the silver and
coating has been lost by wear and time, and it is difficult to realize
the beauty of the original state of most of the vessels and trays that
have come down to us; but a careful examination only reveals more fully
the exquisite skill, care, and fine honest workmanship that no time or
injury can destroy.
This art of silver inlay, like architecture and wood and ivory carving
and every other variety of æsthetic expression, culminated in the
wonderful efflorescence of art and culture in the reign of en-Násir,
Kalaún’s son, in the first half of the fourteenth century. Whenever in
any museum we see a fine specimen of metalwork, we may be almost sure to
find the name of a Násiry emír—that is a courtier or mamlúk of en-
Násir—in its inscription, and sometimes even the name of the sultan
himself.
The Topographer tells us that in his day, in the early part of the
fifteenth century, this beautiful art had fallen into disrepute. It
used, he says, to be a favourite taste, and “we have seen inlaid work
(_keft_) in such quantities that it could not be counted; there was
hardly a house in Cairo or Misr that had not many pieces of inlaid
copper,”—he means brass. A stand of inlaid bowls and plates ranged on a
frame of carved wood and ivory was a usual part of a bride’s trousseau,
and cost as much as two hundred dinárs. But, he adds, “the art is now
lacking in Misr; . . . the demand for this inlaid copper-work has fallen
off in our times, and since many years the people have turned away from
buying what was to be sold of it, so that but a small remnant of the
workers of inlay subsists in this market.”[80]
The art was not dead, however; it had merely passed on elsewhere. The
heritage which Cairo received from Mosil was bequeathed to Venice. We
have seen that the Venetians were the European agents of the Egyptian
merchants, and it is not too much to say that Venice was half an
oriental city. Italy was full of Eastern influences. We know that a
twelfth century poet lamented that Pisa was “delivered over to Moors,
Indians and Turks”; that there was a via Sarracena at Ferrara, and
Lucera was deeply tinged with Muslim traditions, dating from Frederick
II’s importation of Saracen archers. But Venice felt this influence most
of all. Her commerce and colonies brought her merchants into relations
with the artistic work of the East; her ambassadors brought home the
splendid gifts of the mamlúk sultans; and she soon began to import the
artists as well as the art. The _opus Salomonis_ or Jews’ work was the
name given to this Saracenic style, often referred to in early romances.
Chaucer had heard of it, for he writes in Sir Thopas:—
“And over that a fyn hawberk
Was all i-wrought of jewes work.”
Especially did Venice excel in the chasing of great salvers in the
Saracenic manner, though with considerable differences both in design
and in technique. The silver is applied chiefly in narrow threads
instead of broad plates, and the designs are chiefly arabesque, whilst
the forms of the vessels show marked improvement upon the somewhat crude
outlines of the Cairo silversmith. Native Italian artists began to copy
the art introduced by Mahmúd the Kurd and his Saracen comrades. They
called themselves Azzimine, _i.e._ workers in the Persian style _all’
Agemina_—for it has long been the fashion to miscall every form of
Saracenic art Persian—and we read of Italian artists, such as Giorgio
Ghisi Azzimina of Mantua, and Paulus Ageminius, who excelled in the art
which had been imported from Egypt.
We have singled out the silver-inlay from among the arts of mediæval
Cairo because it is a branch in which the development can be traced with
certainty by a series of dated examples. But the chief decorative arts
of the mosque builders were wood-carving and marble mosaic. The
beautiful panelled work of mosque pulpits and doors, originally
suggested, no doubt, by the necessity of small surfaces in a hot climate
where warping had to be prevented, are among the most characteristic
forms of Cairo ornament; and the use of variegated marbles in the
mihrábs of the mosques produces a rich (if sometimes rather glaring)
effect, which was imitated in the dados of the houses of the nobles, now
unhappily for the most part destroyed. The extensive use of wood in
Cairo architecture is the more remarkable when it is considered how
little suitable wood grows in Egypt. On the other hand the dry climate,
though it warps, preserves timber for centuries. The original wooden
ties of the pillars of Ibn-Tulún’s mosque have stood for more than a
thousand years and are still sound, and a portion even of the ceiling of
the arcades has been preserved. This wooden ceiling shows that in the
ninth century the same method was used as is seen in all periods of
Saracenic art previous to the introduction of European styles. It
consists of joists of palm trunks sawn in two, with the three exposed
sides faced with planks to square the outline. The hollows between the
squared joists were divided by cross pieces into shallow compartments or
“coffers.” In private houses the joists were often left uncovered in
their natural half-round shape. Whether planked or left in the round,
the joists and the coffers between were coated with plaster, generally
laid on canvas, and the plaster was painted with arabesques in deep
blue, carmine, and gold. These coffered ceilings, which may still be
seen in many houses, have a wonderfully rich effect with their deep
tones of red and blue, lighted up by gold outlines; and the transition
from the ceiling to the walls is skilfully masked by arching and
stalactite pendentives, richly painted with similar designs. Inferior to
the coffered ceilings, but still very effective, are those composed of
boards nailed flat across the joists and covered with a thin coating of
stucco, worked into arabesque and floral patterns, and then painted and
gilt; or with a geometrical design formed by appliqué strips of wood,
gilt shaded with red, the interstices being filled with arabesques in
painted stucco.
Wood-carving had ample opportunities for display in the pulpits, Korán
desks, interior doors and cupboards of mosques. Some of the oldest
examples, from the mosques of Ibn-Tulún and el-Hákim, may be seen in the
Arab Museum at Cairo, and the deep volutes carved in the panels are
clearly of Byzantine origin, resembling the still earlier but undated
panels found in the tract of ‘Ayn-es-Síra, south of Cairo. In the
thirteenth century the style alters. Instead of the bold foliate designs
we find more intricate and delicate ornament distributed in much smaller
geometrical panels. A peculiarly beautiful example is the Sheykh’s tomb-
casing of 1216, of which one side is in the Museum at South Kensington,
and the other three in the Arab Museum. Another is the carved casing of
the tomb of es-Sálih Ayyúb (1249):—“the little panels are formed into
hexagonal stars and delicately carved, and here appears the
representation of fruit-stalks, which is a common feature in thirteenth
century wood-carving. The mihráb or prayer niche from the chapel of
Seyyida Rukeyya, which belongs probably to the same century, deserves
special notice for its characteristic ornamentation of stems branching
out of a vase.”[81] But it was under the Mamlúk Sultans, and especially
in the great period of en-Násir that wood-carving attained its most
exquisite development. Woods of different colours were employed to
produce the effect of relief, and inlay was largely adopted in place of
carving in the solid block. Sometimes each little carved panel was set
in a frame of ebony beading, which was itself carved, and often
consisted of two or three distinct frames, one outside the other; whilst
the central design was hardly ever the same in two panels out of many
hundreds. The amount of careful work demanded in carving and putting
together a large surface of this intricate panelling must have been
immense. Many beautiful examples may be seen in the mosques, and even
finer are the carved doors in wood and ivory panelling in the Coptic
churches of Babylon, from which there can be little doubt that the
Muslims learnt the art; but to see Mamlúk carving at its best one need
not leave London. A large number of the very finest specimens were taken
away from their lawful guardians during the reign of the Khedive
Isma‘íl, and even earlier, and have found their way to the Museum at
South Kensington. There we may study at leisure some of the rich yet not
over-elaborate arabesque carvings abstracted from the pulpit set up in
the mosque of Ibn-Tulún by Lagín in 1296; others of extraordinary beauty
from the mosque of el-Maridány, 1339, absurdly set in the top of a
French table; others, probably from the pulpit of the mosque of Kusún,
also set in coarse modern framework, but preserving all the delicate
grace of the arabesque carvings absolutely intact; and finally the
complete pulpit bearing the inscription of Káit-Bey, but from what
mosque is not known. The whole forms a singularly rich and beautiful
exhibition of Saracenic wood-carving of the best period.[82]
There are differences and even decadence in the series, however, and a
careful study of the designs will show that the art reached its highest
point in the carvings of el-Maridány, _i.e._ immediately after the reign
of en-Násir. Sheykhú’s pulpit of 1358 is not so good; Sultan Hasan’s is
of stone; el-Muáyyad’s of 1420 is distinctly inferior; and even Káit-
Bey’s, prince though he was of Cairo builders, is not to be compared
with the work of the middle of the fourteenth century. The designs have
become less spontaneous, the lines are harder and more mechanical, and
(as in stone carving) there is a tendency to repetition utterly foreign
to the earlier work. Part of this may be explained by the introduction
of ivory as the material for the inlaid panels, for ivory, though
capable of even more delicate carving, is less easy to work in flowing
lines. But the main cause was probably the preponderating attention
given to carving in stone. No sooner does stone become the predominant
material for decoration than wood-carving, like stucco-tooling, falls
into comparative neglect. The middle of the fourteenth century was the
parting of the ways. Stone became the favourite material, and the
carvers of wood, if they did not lay aside the graver for the stone-
chisel, at least moulded their style upon the harder outlines of the
sculptors, and the result was deterioration.
If wood-carving decayed after the middle of the fourteenth century,
another branch of woodwork was notably developed. One charming feature
of the exterior of a Cairo house is the _meshrebíya_ of delicate turned
tracery. There is no reason to doubt that this kind of work is very old,
but whether by reason of its fragility or the frequent conflagrations
that afflicted the city, no ancient examples have been preserved. The
few wooden lattices that still remain in the older mosques are of quite
a different style: they are made of stout clumsy quarterings, divided
into compartments filled by square or round upright balusters, such as
are seen in the tomb of Kalaún. Others are mere grilles of large open
squares, with no pretension to artistic design. A finer kind is seen in
Lagín’s pulpit in the mosque of Ibn-Tulún (1296), where the mesh is
close and the knobs are inlaid and carved. It is curious that the true
meshrebíya, with its varied designs and lace-like effect, first appears
in the screen of the sanctuary in the mosque of el-Maridány, which also
shows the highest development of wood-carving. As the one art decayed,
the other improved. There are fine examples of meshrebíya work of the
early part of the fifteenth century, as in the pulpit of el-Muáyyad, but
it attained its greatest perfection in the age of Káit-Bey, of which a
fine specimen is preserved in the pulpit of Abu-Bekr ibn Muzhir. Most of
the house meshrebíyas are comparatively modern, though it is impossible
to fix their precise date. Their inevitable disappearance is an æsthetic
loss that nothing can replace; but it must be admitted that they formed
the most dangerous conductors of fire from house to house and street to
street that the ingenuity of man could well devise.
There is this to be said about every branch of artistic work of mediæval
Cairo, whether it be architecture, carving in wood or stone, metal
chasing, or glass—it is always distinctively original. The Saracens
brought no art with them; indeed they appear to have been singularly
lacking in the æsthetic sense. They learned their arts from their
foreign subjects, yet they invariably introduced an element of
differentiation which marks their work as characteristically Saracenic.
They learned their metal chasing from Persia, but they soon made it
their own; they copied Byzantine and Coptic wood-carving, and added the
essential personal equation which constitutes a distinct art; they found
glass making and blowing in Egypt, acquired the secrets of enamelling
and gilding from Constantinople, and then produced a style of enamelled
lamps totally unlike any other in the world. It is not only a variation
in design or shape that makes the difference: the whole character of the
work, in every branch of Saracenic art, is distinct and absolutely _sui
generis_. They were not only wonderful assimilators, they also had the
genius of development on original lines. Perhaps the strangest part of
the matter is that the highest development was achieved in the troubled
times of singularly uncultivated and sanguinary foreign masters. Yet the
age of the Mamlúk Sultans was the Saturnian age of Mohammedan Egypt in
art and also in literature. For it must not be forgotten that some of
the greatest names in Muslim theology, jurisprudence, criticism, and
history were associated as kádis or professors with the mosques and
medresas of Cairo, and that the mamlúk period produced or encouraged
such writers as Ibn-Khaldún, Nuweyry, Ibn-Dukmák, Makrízy, Ibn-Hagar,
el-‘Ayny, Ibn-‘Arab-shah, Abu-l-Mahásin, es-Suyúty, and Ibn-Iyás, who
either were born in Egypt, or, like Abu-l-Fida, spent many years in
Cairo. The fifteenth century was perhaps the most prolific period in
Egyptian literature, and this activity was more than rivalled in the
neighbouring province of Syria under the same sultans.
CHAPTER IX
_Beys and Pashas_
NO one has had the heart to write the history of Egypt during the three
centuries of its subjection to the Sultans of Turkey, from its conquest
by Selím the Grim in 1516 to Mohammad ‘Aly’s foundation of a virtually
independent dynasty in 1805. The annals of this period are monotonous,
and the great figures of the earlier mamlúk period are wanting. The
whole action seems to be played upon a smaller stage by inferior
performers. The incentives to public spirit supplied by foreign wars
were withdrawn from a merely provincial government, and the profuse
expenditure and sumptuous luxury of a sovereign court no longer
stimulated art and handicrafts or quickened the emulation of the emírs.
The cramping influence of dependence and the grasping fiscal policy of
the Ottoman empire destroyed much of the old magnificence of the
mamlúks. Yet there was no such vivid contrast between Cairo under the
pashas and the city that Makrízy describes as has sometimes been
imagined. Everything in the East changes by almost imperceptible
degrees, and the mills of God in Egypt grind with the tedious slowness
of the creaking sákiyas of the country. Deterioration there was, but it
came very gradually. The emírs were still the dominant power, and the
chief difference was that instead of a sultan elected by themselves they
had over them a pasha appointed by the Sublime Porte. The pasha’s
authority was checked by a council of mamlúk emírs—or beys, as they came
to be called—and he was frequently deposed by them or by the intrigues
of the mutinous soldiery. Though a pasha might arrive with a suite of
twelve hundred persons, and scatter handkerchiefs full of gold coins on
festal occasions, he could seldom make head against the military
oligarchy. The chief mamlúk, or sheykh-el-beled (mayor of the city) as
he was entitled, was a far more powerful personage than the pasha. The
emírs were much what they had been under the Circassian dynasty: they
were not the same men, because Selím had massacred as many as he could
catch, but they were similar—Turks, Georgians, Circassians, risen from
slavery to office and rank,—and they maintained great state in their
palaces beside the Ezbekíya lake or on the Birket-el-Fil, in the
Crossway, or the Street of Arms; were followed by large bands of
retainers, and carried on their jealousies, civil wars, and street
fights with as much fervour as before. A new element of discord was
introduced by the Turkish battalions of ‘Azabs and Janizaries in the
Citadel barracks, and the commanders of these troops became the most
powerful emírs in Egypt. But these too were of precisely the same
character as the earlier mamlúks, and save for the absence of a
controlling influence such as a strong sultan sometimes exerted, but a
delegated pasha almost never, there was little to choose between the
state of Cairo under the new régime and its anarchic condition under the
impotent direction of most of the later Circassian kings.
Egypt in fact was still ruled by mamlúks. Its pashas were perpetually
changed, and lived in terror of their own garrison; the emírs held the
real power, and used it in the old way for their own benefit and for the
ruin by exile or execution of their rivals. They formed themselves into
powerful cliques, such as the Kásimis and the Fikáris, and their
retainers fought each other in the streets, and besieged the government
‘Azab troops for months together. They had already discovered that the
Citadel could be commanded by artillery on the hill behind. We read in
Gabárty’s chronicle of bands of troops fortifying themselves in the
mosques of Ibn-Tulún, Almás, Mahmudíya, and so forth, and discharging
cannon balls from the adjacent minarets. The anarchy at times was
indescribable; streets were deserted, houses plundered, and no man dared
to go as far as Bulák or Old Misr; then followed an interval of
tranquillity assured by the temporary supremacy of some great lord. It
is difficult to discover any very notable distinction between these
later emírs and those of the golden age of mamlúk civilization. Their
opportunities were less, because they could no longer carry on wars in
Syria or Asia Minor in their own behoof, for the contingents that were
constantly drafted in Egypt for foreign service were merely employed as
an insignificant part of the Ottoman armies. But their characters,
occupations, and tastes appear to have been much what they had been for
the preceding two centuries. There was a difference in degree but not in
kind: they were not as a rule such big men with large opportunities as
their forerunners, but in race, in character, in action, they were the
same.
Indeed some of them were remarkable personages fit to compare with those
of the old school. ‘Othmán Bey Dhu-l-fikár, for example, in the first
half of the eighteenth century,—after playing a bold part in the faction
fight that centred round his patron Dhu-l-fikár Bey and Cherkes Bey, and
seeing eleven emírs of rank done to death in the palace of the
Defterdár, himself narrowly escaping with a sabre-cut in his
turban,—became the most eminent noble in Cairo, with power to raise his
own mamlúks to the rank of emír. He was chief of the pilgrimage (emír-
el-hagg), one of the most coveted posts in Egypt, in 1739; and when ‘Aly
el-Gelfy the deputy[83] was assassinated, ‘Othmán Bey deposed the pasha
and appointed Rudwán to be deputy over the ‘Azab battalions. ‘Othmán was
the first emír who ventured to invite the pasha of Egypt to a feast in
his palace, and the other nobles were completely subject to him. He held
a court in his own house to decide causes of complaint, and,
incorruptible himself, he severely punished any cases of extortion or
oppression that came before him, watched the market-inspector closely,
prescribed a fixed tariff for bread and other necessaries of life, and
insisted on the due payment of pious benefactions to their proper uses.
Lofty in character, of noble ideas and thoughts, just, able,
disinterested, of honest life, and proud as Lucifer, he left such an
impression behind him, when the intrigues of his rivals banished him
from Egypt, that he created an era: one heard people say, “such a thing
happened so many years after the departure of ‘Othmán Bey,” or “I was
such and such an age when ‘Othmán Bey left.”
Rudwán el-Gelfy, just referred to, was another notable figure of the
eighteenth century. Whilst he and another deputy, Ibrahím, held office,
the country enjoyed absolute peace, food was cheaper than was ever known
before, and plenty reigned in all classes. In those days every great man
kept open house twice a day, noon and evening, in a spacious hall to
which all might enter. The lord and his guests sat at the head of the
table, and his mamlúks and followers lower down, as it were “below the
salt,” and it was held disgraceful to refuse admission to any stranger
who presented himself. On feast days great dishes of rice and honey or
milk were distributed to the poor, and sweetmeats were served on Fridays
and festivals. One of Rudwán’s houses was on the Ezbekíya, on the border
of the lake (as it then was, at least at high Nile). Its halls were
surmounted by cunningly designed domes, in which gold arabesques on a
blue ground harmonized with stained glass of many colours in charming
combination. He built kiosks in a garden beside the canal, where he had
laid out a lake and cascade, and there, when his ambition was satisfied,
he took his pleasure, which savoured, it must be confessed, of debauch.
Indeed Rudwán was no stern moralist, like ‘Othmán Bey, but allowed a
considerable licence to the fair ladies of Cairo. The police had his
orders not to disturb them or baulk their admirers,[84] and “Cairo then
resembled a land of gazelles, a paradise of houris and darlings; its
inhabitants drank their fill in the cup of delight, as though there were
no reckoning to be paid on the day of judgment.” No wonder that poets
sang his praises in such verses as “the Impurpled Wine” and “the Perfume
of Paradise.” Rudwán’s palace is no more to be seen in the Ezbekíya, but
his gate, the Bab-el-‘Azab, leading into the Citadel from the Rumeyla,
preserves his memory. His end was tragic. Conspirators surrounded his
house in the street of Kusún, and bullets began to pour in whilst he was
engaged in the meditative process of having his head shaved. He fought
while he had strength, and then, with a broken leg, struggled on
horseback and fled to die in upper Egypt. He was the last great
commander of the ‘Azabs.
It was not only the emírs who owned such splendid houses as Rudwán.
Another house on the Ezbekíya belonged to a famous merchant, Ahmad esh-
Sharáiby (the apothecary), whose family had produced emírs and owned
mamlúks. They possessed immense wealth, and they used it as high-minded,
honest gentlefolk. Learned men frequented their house, which was full of
rare manuscripts as well as ordinary works of reference. Whatever book
was in the market, if it was not in their library they bought it
regardless of the price; and once there it was immediately placed at the
disposal of every visitor. A scholar was sure to find any book he
required in the Sharáiby library, and he was at liberty to carry it off
on loan, or even to keep it altogether; for the princely merchants would
never think of asking its return, but would merely seek out and buy
another copy. From the scholar’s point of view it seems impossible to
improve upon this system. The members of this family were more than
enlightened book collectors and book lenders: they were strict observers
of the austere rule of the Málikis, tenacious of sound morals, and
exclusive in their connexions. They married only among their own large
family circle, and their daughters never left the house except when they
were married or borne to their grave. It was well to be cautious in days
when the luxurious Rudwán was encouraging amatory adventures, and when a
party of high-born dames, riding out to “smell the air,” as Cairo ladies
do now, at the proper season, were set upon near the Ezbekíya and
stripped of their jewels and every garment they had on. But the Sharáiby
folk, though strict, could unbend. When marriage feasts were afoot, for
example, they gave splendid entertainments, but so careful were they of
their daughters that they waited till all the guests were safely engaged
in prayer at the mosque of Ezbek[85] opposite the house, and then
hurried the bride off to her husband’s abode under guard of a discreet
body of matrons: after which there was plenty of gunfiring and torch
waving, and all was merry.
[Illustration: STREET NEAR BAB-EL-KHARK]
The family had the custom of appointing one of their number trustee of
all their property and business. It was his duty to collect the rents,
gather the harvest and crops, receive the profits of their ventures, and
pay all expenses, including the family’s dress and pocket-money. At the
end of the year he drew up his balance sheet and paid each member his
share. This excellent plan was not likely to last for ever, and one is
not surprised to learn that at last the younger members quarrelled over
the accounts, and the joint-stock company broke up in disorder. This was
no doubt an exceptional family; but there were many of the kind, and
there are some yet in Cairo, sterling honest folk, who walk in the old
paths and guard a severe self-respect.
The zeal for books displayed by this family casts an interesting light
upon the education and learning of the times. During the earlier mamlúk
days many important libraries had been formed in Cairo, partly from the
spoils of Syrian mosques, and if we are to take as evidence the long
biographies of numerous sheykhs, professors, divines, historians, and
poets, related with enthusiastic admiration by el-Gabarty, there was a
vast deal of intellectual energy expended in Egypt in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, though perhaps it was hardly in the first rank
of original genius. He reports a curious conversation, however, in 1750,
between Ahmad pasha, a governor of mathematical tastes, and the sheykh
‘Abdallah esh-Shubrawy, of the Azhar. The pasha remarked that he had
continually heard of the wonderful merits of Egypt as the home of
learning, but he would like to see the results. “True, O my master,”
replied the sheykh, “Egypt is as you have heard, the mine of sciences
and knowledge.” “But where are they?” asked the pasha. “As far as I can
see, you know nothing but law and metaphysic and other less important
studies, and disdain practical science altogether.” The sheykh had to
admit that at the Azhar they did not teach mathematics, beyond
arithmetic, which was useful for the law of inheritance. “How about
astronomy?” suggested the pasha. “It is needed for the hours of prayer,
times of fast, and many other things.” The sheykh admitted that few
studied astronomy, which demanded special aptitudes, and instruments,
and physiological conditions, and a “sweet and tranquil disposition,”
for its proper pursuit; but he said he could find the man whom the pasha
wanted, though not in the Azhar. When the man appeared, it seems his
arithmetical problems delighted the governor, who gave him a fur cloak,
which the sage afterwards sold for 800 dinars. He drew beautiful sun-
dials, on marble, to show the hours of prayer, with appropriate mottoes,
and two of these were set up in the Azhar and on the roof of the mosque
of the Imám esh-Sháfi‘y.[86] One gathers from this anecdote, as well as
from the lists of works described by the historian, that study in Cairo
at that time was rather zealous than profound, and that learning was
decidedly in its decadence.
Religion, on the other hand, was more powerful than ever. The annals of
the pashalik are full of references to the influence of the Azhar
professors and of the seyyids, and we hear of something very near a
revolution when a Turkish preacher got up in the mosque of el-Muáyyad
and fulminated against the invocation of saints, a popular accretion
which is certainly no part of the creed of Mohammad. The preacher urged
the crowd to demolish the cupolas over the saints’ tombs, and the
orthodox professors of divinity had much trouble to silence him and
appease the crowd. There was often a very severe regulation of public
behaviour in deference to religious notions, and we find, for example, a
stern prohibition of smoking in the streets. Police marched up and down
three times a day, and if any smoker was caught he had to eat his pipe-
bowl. An old custom, mentioned by Násir-i-Khusrau (above, p. 109), was
still in force: a man who had falsified documents was paraded on
camelback through the streets, whilst a crier proclaimed, “Behold the
punishment of forgers!” The Cairenes were clearly very superstitious,
and when in 1735 a circumstantial rumour went round that the
Resurrection would certainly take place on the next Friday, in two days’
time, they bade each other last farewells, and wandered about the fields
and roads saying good-bye to the land they loved, whilst the people of
Giza, moved by a superstition which ran in their minds from ages long
before Islám was discovered, bathed hysterically in the Nile, both men
and women. There was nothing but panic and repentance and prayer till
Saturday—when behold! nothing had happened.
An age that attached so much importance to religion was not likely to
neglect its shrines. It is a mistake to ascribe the ruin of so many of
the mosques of Cairo to the period of the Turkish pashas. On the
contrary, the danger was that they might be “restored” out of all
knowledge. Cairo is full of “Turkish” mosques, that is Turkish of the
Othmanly style, which, if they cannot compare with the buildings of the
earlier mamlúks, are nevertheless very creditable examples of their
kind, and far superior to anything built, say, in England, during the
past century. Indeed the mosques of Seyyida Safíya (1604) and of
Mohammad Abu-dh-Dhahab (1774), are exceedingly noble buildings, and that
little gem of Turkish mosaic work, el-Burdeyny, is beautiful in its own
way. The architects of the Ottoman period abandoned the medresa style
introduced by Saladin, which, as we have seen, had lost much of its
original cruciform plan when the medresas were used as congregational
mosques under the Circassian Mamlúks; but, whilst reverting to the older
and simpler plan of the gámi‘, they modified it by substituting cupolas
of Byzantine form for the level ceilings which formerly covered the
sanctuary. In fact, the Ottoman mosque is practically a basilica. A
special feature of the mosques and restorations of the Othmanly period
is the introduction of faïence. The medresa of Aksunkur was restored by
Ibrahím Aga in 1652, and the whole east wall covered with fine blue
tiles, chiefly of the Damascus style, with a few so-called Rhodian,
probably from Constantinople. It was not often that restoration proved
so successful, and one has frequently to deplore the patching of Turkish
additions upon the old masterpieces. Ahmad pasha restored the then
dilapidated mosque of el-Muayyad in 1690; another pasha built the
Arba‘ín mosque by the Karameydan Gate in 1704; Ahmad the deputy restored
the Fátimid mosque of ez-Záfir, known as el-Fakahány, in 1735.
But the prince of restorers was ‘Abd-er-Rahmán Kiahya (Ketkhuda), who
enjoyed great influence before the time when ‘Aly Bey—himself the
restorer of the dome of the tomb-mosque of Imám Sháfi‘y and builder of
the Bulák bazar—deposing the reigning pasha made himself king of Egypt
from 1768 to 1772. ‘Abd-er-Rahmán’s father, ‘Othmán Ketkhuda, had
architectural tastes. Out of his very ill-gotten gains he built his
mosque, school, and fountain by the Ezbekíya lake, and on the day of
opening filled the great central basin and all the ewers he could
collect with sherbet for the congregation. He also built the school for
the blind at the Azhar, and other benefactions. His son, however, far
surpassed him. Every tourist knows his little _sebíl_—elegant like its
founder, who was dainty in person and dress, and very fair—at the end of
Beyn-el-Kasreyn, with its tiles, and open arched school above; but this
was the least of his works. He built a mosque outside the Bab-el-Futúh,
and another by the Bab-el-Ghureyyib, with a cistern, fountain, and
school; a great reservoir, with fountain and school, near the Ezbekíya
cemetery, for the sakkas or water-carriers; rebuilt the chapels of
Seyyida Zeyneb and Seyyida Sekína, and erected others near the Karáfa
Gate, in the Musky, in the Hoseyníya quarter, and in the ‘Abdín street,
etc. Of his restorations the best known is that of the Azhar, which owes
its present aspect largely to ‘Abd-er-Rahmán’s work. He put in fifty
marble columns supporting groins of faced stone covered with costly
woods; erected a new _mihráb_ and pulpit, built the two archways, one
with a school for orphans above it, the other with a minaret; set up a
tomb in the court, added libraries, reading-rooms, kitchens, and other
apartments for the benefit of students from Upper Egypt; enlarged the
Taybarsíya and Akbughawíya medresas attached to the Azhar, and built the
splendid portal between them, opposite the wekála of Káit-Bey; furnished
_riwáks_ (or partitions) for students from Mekka and from the Sudán; and
settled rents in trust for the maintenance of these benefactions,
besides giving every day in Ramadán to the Azhar kitchen a large
quantity of rice, butter, oil, and meal for the evening refreshment of
the students after the day’s fast. ‘Abd-er-Rahmán also restored the
mosque of the Imám Sháfi‘y, and paved the corridor with variegated
marbles; repaired the tomb of Seyyida Nefísa and the Maristán of Kalaún
(then a madhouse), but after pulling down the dome he neglected to
rebuild it, and merely boarded it over, and so it remains to this day.
He took great pains to trace the bequests left by the founder and his
successors to the hospital, and succeeded in recovering the title-deeds
and restoring the revenues. By whatever means he acquired his wealth,
and it was said the means were not above suspicion, there was no end to
this man’s charitable acts. At winter time he distributed woollen
clothes to crowds of the blind, who always abound at Cairo, and also to
the muezzins to protect them from cold when chanting the nightly calls
to prayer. The poor clamoured about his door in the evenings of Ramadán,
waiting for the plates of food which were never refused, and after the
meal they went away happy with two loaves and two paras ready for next
day’s breakfast. Altogether, ‘Abd-er-Rahmán Kiahya built or rebuilt
eighteen mosques, besides chapels, fountains, schools, bridges, and
every sort of edifice. He had an architectural passion, and fortunately
excellent taste in its gratification, and the people well named him “the
great benefactor.” He died at Cairo in 1776 at a great age, after twelve
years’ exile in Arabia; for all his charity could not protect him from
the suspicions of ‘Aly Bey. All the ‘ulema, professors, students, and
poor of his numerous benefactions, escorted his splendid funeral to the
Azhar, where he lies in the tomb which he had built near the south gate.
The last great mosque built during the period of the pashalik was that
of Mohammad Bey, known as Abu-dh-Dhahab, or “father of gold,” from his
munificent way of scattering gold coins among the crowd. He was the
favourite and trusted mamlúk of the great ‘Aly Bey, and he rewarded his
patron by manœuvring his downfall and exile, and finally accomplishing
his death. He was a brilliant soldier, fought successful campaigns in
Arabia and Syria for his master, and achieved extraordinary popularity
by his delightful manners and open hand. Egypt had peace whilst he held
the reins of power, and the Sublime Porte, whilst appointing pashas as
before, wisely left the real authority in the hands of the capable and
popular emír. In 1774 Mohammad Bey founded his handsome _medresa_
opposite the Azhar, and there he lies in his tomb. It was built on the
plan of an earlier mosque at Bulák (the Senaníya), and was “a marvel of
architecture and richness: gilded ceilings, marble porticoes, and
stupendous dome, with bronze dormers admirably worked,” etc. There were
porticoes for the Hanafis, Málikis, and Sháfi‘is, and celebrated doctors
came to profess the law there, and, contrary to the usual custom,
received salaries, some as much as 150 paras a day (you could sometimes
buy a pound of meat for 2 paras), and none less than 10 paras a day and
an annual gift of 50 bushels of corn. On the day of opening the great
man clothed the divines with cloaks of sables or white fur, according to
their rank—a handsome form of university hood.
Mohammad Bey’s is the last of the great mosques of Cairo, with the
exception of Mohammad Aly’s sumptuous and very effective mosque in the
Citadel, where it forms a conspicuous feature in the view from every
side. This, however, is too obviously a foreign importation, a child of
Stambúl, to harmonize with the true Cairo style, and, though it is
perhaps a narrow prejudice, we confess we can never quite reconcile
ourselves to Ottoman architecture in the old mamlúk city.
Enough has been said to show that it was not during the rule of pashas
and beys that the mosques of Cairo suffered damage or demolition. They
were well cared for. Their evil day came when Mohammad ‘Aly, a second
but more successful ‘Aly Bey, made himself master of Egypt and
inaugurated a new régime, compared with which the rule of the sternest
of the mamlúks was mildness itself. It was Mohammad ‘Aly, who, in
1808-1810, laid hands on the Wakfs or religious endowments, which the
piety of many centuries had placed in trust for the maintenance of the
mosques and colleges of Egypt, and amidst the tears and curses of all
the ‘ulema of Cairo, deprived them of the right to control the sacred
monuments confided to their charge. From this act of confiscation, when
title-deeds were lost or destroyed, and trust-funds confused and
malversed, dates the most serious decay of the monuments of Cairo. The
Europeanizing movement of the nineteenth century, inevitable, and in
many ways most desirable as it was, brought with it a large destruction
of mosques and other historic buildings which impeded carriage-traffic
or stood in the way of the new streets and squares which the viceroys of
Egypt planned with little or no regard to existing antiquities. The
Shari‘ Mohammad ‘Aly was the most flagrant example of a street cutting
its way remorselessly through historic monuments, but similar vandalism
occurred in almost every part of the city, and the department which
attends to the alignment of the streets has often exercised its powers
in the narrowest spirit of county-councildom. That much worse has not
happened is wholly due to the vigilance and firmness of the “Commission
for the Preservation of the Monuments of Arab Art,” an official body in
which happily large powers are vested, and to which we owe the
maintenance of a multitude of Saracenic monuments of every class and all
periods, which, but for its timely interposition, would now have
disappeared or have been on the high road to ruin. It is impossible to
over-estimate the excellent and patient work of the Commission. The
seventeen annual reports it has issued—solid volumes, with plans and
illustrations—form a library of valuable information, and testify in
every page to the care and sense of responsibility shown by the members.
I may here be permitted to quote a report on the results and methods of
the Commission which I made at Earl Cromer’s request in 1895, and which
was published in his annual survey of the progress of Egypt presented to
Parliament in 1896.
_The Athenæum, London, December_ 12, 1895.
“MY LORD,—In accordance with your Lordship’s invitation, I have the
honour to submit a few remarks on the work of the Commission for the
Preservation of Arab Monuments, of which I made a detailed examination
in the summer of this year.
The Commission was instituted by Decree of His Highness the late Khedive
on the 18th December, 1881. Its duties were:—
1. To make an inventory of the Arab monuments of Egypt which possess
historical or artistic interest.
2. To watch over the preservation of these monuments, and report to the
Minister of Wakfs such repairs as were considered necessary for their
maintenance.
3. To prepare plans for such repairs and scrupulously superintend their
execution.
4. To see that plans of all the work executed should be preserved in the
Ministry of Wakfs, and to indicate any fragments or detached objects
which should be transferred to the Museum of Arab Art.
Political disturbance prevented much being done before the close of
1882; but when I made a general inspection of the Arab monuments of
Cairo in January to March 1883, the Commission was in working order. I
was then able to see the beginning of its labours, and am therefore in a
position to compare the state of the monuments at the time when the
Commission first took them seriously in hand with their present
condition after the Commission has been over twelve years at work.
I can state with confidence that, comparing the general state of the
mosques in 1883 and 1895, they are in a far safer and better preserved
condition now than they were twelve years ago. Several monuments that
then seemed inevitably doomed to destruction have been strengthened and
supported, and, generally speaking, weak places have been detected and
repaired, whilst a more vigilant supervision and protection against
vandalism and robbery now prevail. These happy results are especially
due to the energy and archæological or technical knowledge of the late
Rogers Bey, of Franz Pasha, and of his Excellency Yakub Artin Pasha,
whose name will always be honourably associated with the intellectual
progress of Egypt. Some of their French colleagues have also rendered
useful services from time to time, and the presence on the Commission of
successive Under-Secretaries of Public Works, and notably at the present
time of Mr [now Sir] W. E. Garstin, has proved a valuable source of
strength. The most vital appointment under the Commission is, of course,
that of the Architect, who surveys the monuments, recommends such
repairs as are necessary or desirable, and personally superintends their
execution. Since the creation of the Special Department (Bureau Spécial)
of the Commission, which was separated at the beginning of 1890 from the
Bureau Technique of the Wakfs, Mr Max Herz [Hon. F. S. A.] has been the
Architect in charge of the work of the Commission, and it is bare
justice to say that to his industry and considerable technical and
archæological attainments much of the present improved manner of
supervising and preserving the monuments is undoubtedly due. Herz Bey
joins to the technical training of an architect a familiarity with the
history of Arab art, together with a genuine enthusiasm for his work.
His “Catalogue of the Arab Museum,” published this year in French, but
shortly to be reissued in an English translation [published, 1896],
furnishes proofs of an extensive study of the periods of development of
Arab or Saracenic art, and of the literature, Arabic and European,
relating to this subject; and the complete restorations he has made of a
few of the smaller mosques are evidence of his insight into Arab
construction and decoration, of his technical skill, and of his
scrupulous fidelity to the original design. On this vexed subject of
restoration, however, I shall have something to say later; but whatever
may be thought of the principle, it is impossible to doubt that in the
appointment of Herz Bey the Commission has been exceptionally fortunate.
_Preservation._ It must never be forgotten that the prime duty of the
Commission is the preservation, not the restoration, of the monuments. A
fairly complete list of the monuments which, on historical or artistic
grounds, ought to be preserved has been drawn up by Sub-Committee 1, and
the first obligation laid upon the Commission is to watch over the
preservation of every monument in this list. So far as my observation
went, its members are clearly alive to this obligation, and have
endeavoured to fulfil it as far as their limited funds permitted. To
enumerate the long catalogue of repairs, from the stablishing of the
entire walls of a mosque to the removal of whitewash or dirt from a
carved inscription or a mosaic, would extend these notes to an undue
length. The details may be read in the excellent Annual Reports of the
Commission, which, if they are scarcely as prompt in their appearance as
they might be, leave little to be desired in point of accuracy or
completeness. Much more, however, remains to be done, and many of the
repairs already executed can only be regarded as temporary cheap make-
shifts, pending the possibility of more thorough works when finances
permit. The adequate and enduring preservation of the monuments is
essentially a question of money. The Commission and its Architect know
what ought to be done, but they cannot do it without an increased staff
and a larger budget.
Meanwhile, there are two or three points to which the attention of the
Commission should, I think, be specially and immediately directed, since
they can be dealt with even on the present insufficient annual grant.
1. In cases where a thorough repair would be too costly to be undertaken
on the present budget, there is a mode of preservation, in a literary
and artistic sense, which ought to be invariably adopted when there is
any risk of further immediate decay. The great mosque of Sultan Hasan is
an instance in point. In such a case, where many thousands of pounds
would be required for substantial preservation, the Commission cannot at
present entertain the plans which have been drawn up for so elaborate a
work. But what they can do is to prepare an exact record of the present
state of the mosque, to draw full architectural plans and elevations,
photograph every detail of ornament or inscription, reproduce mosaics
and other coloured decoration in the colours of the originals, and
generally to make it possible at any time to reproduce the entire mosque
in its true proportions and exact details of ornament.[87] To students
of the history of Arab art such a record would be invaluable, whilst it
would make the task of preservation possible even should want of funds
postpone the work till the mosque had fallen into much more lamentable
decay. To prepare such records would necessitate an increase in the
staff of the Commission, but if the memoirs were published, with
adequate historical introductions and explanations, the sale would
probably repay a large part of the expense. At the same time, these
records should not of course be regarded as a substitute for actual
preservation, or as a reason for deferring necessary repairs. They
should be used merely as a safeguard against the total or partial
obliteration of a monument by a sudden catastrophe (which might happen
any day to one of the minarets of Sultan Hasan), not as a ground for
refusing to avert the ruin.
2. Another and much simpler precaution should be taken in the case of
the numerous small mosques of Cairo which are more or less roofed in.
These have generally windows of open tracery, or grille-work, and often
a small opening in the centre over the court. The central opening should
be covered with glass to keep out the weather, and the open windows
should invariably be furnished with wire-netting outside to exclude the
birds, which do much mischief in the interiors. All covered-in mosques
require frequent inspection with this view, and every cranny which could
admit rain or birds should be carefully stopped.
3. A more expensive but absolutely necessary step is the compulsory
expropriation of the shops or booths which cling like limpets to the
façades of many of the mosques. The proprietors of these shops use the
mosques behind as dust-bins, and throw their refuse and broken crockery
through the windows. The appearance of the mosques, both inside and out,
is seriously impaired by these excrescences which narrow the street
(_e.g._, the Suk-en-Nahhasin), impede traffic, and prevent the façades
of the mosques being seen in their true proportion and effect.
In order to avoid the risk of any historical monument being overlooked
and neglected, it would be well if the Commission were to divide Cairo
into a certain number of definite quarters, and that the scheduled
monuments in each quarter should be periodically visited by the Sub-
Committee of Inspection and the architect at least once a year. The
number of monuments in the list is so large, that it might be impossible
to arrange more than one or two inspections of each in every season.
Such visits should be recorded, with notes on the condition of each
monument, in a special book.
An important question is that of the private monuments, whether mosques,
houses, _sebils_, _wekalas_, or other buildings. The Government
apparently has no power either to compel owners to maintain and preserve
the historical buildings which they inhabit or let, or to force them to
sell. The few mediæval houses still standing in Cairo are artistically
more valuable than the mosques maintained by private wakfs, for they
form almost the sole remaining examples of the domestic style of Arab
art. It is greatly to be wished that they could be brought under the
control of the Commission, and if due compensation were made for
ejectment or interference, the owners would have little ground for
complaint.
_Restoration._—The Commission has not confined its labours strictly to
preservation, it has also undertaken the complete restoration of several
monuments. There is a well-founded prejudice in artistic and
archæological circles against restoration of any and every description;
but I believe that an examination of some of the recent restorations
carried out by Herz Bey would remove these natural and generally just
apprehensions. This architect’s principle, as he explained it to me,
appears sound and reasonable. It is this. No unique monument (_e.g._,
the Mosque of Ibn-Tulun) or monument belonging to an architectural
period of which there are very few examples (_e.g._, the Fátimid
Mosques), must on any account be restored; preservation is the only
possible treatment for such cases, and nothing more must be done than is
absolutely necessary for the stability of the building, and its security
from weather and other injury. But when there are numerous mosques of
the same period, nearly resembling one another in style, and often even
in detail of ornament (_e.g._, at the period of Kait-Bey), then a few
may safely be selected for complete restoration at all points, so as to
present as nearly as possible their original appearance, as when first
opened for public worship. Herz Bey has given a few examples of his
theory of restoration in mosques of a well-represented period. They are
not equally successful, and it is evident from the latest specimens that
experience has taught him much, especially in regard to colour. But I
think the most rigid opponent of restoration would find very little to
criticize in the careful and beautiful manner in which the little mosque
of [Kády] Abu-Bekr ibn Muzhir in the Bargawan has been restored to
almost its original condition; and whatever may be said about the
tampering to which the mosque of el-Muayyad was subjected under a former
régime, there is no doubt that the inscriptional frieze and the painted
ceiling have been restored as perfectly and as scrupulously as skill and
knowledge could attain. I can assert from personal observation that
nothing can exceed the care and precautions which are observed by the
architect of the Commission in order to make sure that he has really
discovered the original design and colouring beneath centuries of dirt
and whitewash, or the pains he takes to reproduce them faithfully. And I
may here observe that the staff of the Commission includes workers in
metal and wood, who are able to copy the designs so accurately, that it
is almost impossible to distinguish them from the originals. (They are
not yet successful in stained glass, however.) This merit has the
obvious drawback that, unless great care is taken, the details of the
monuments (_e.g._, the bronze bosses and plaques on doors, or the wood
and ivory carvings and inlay work of doors and _minbars_) may be
falsified.
In recent restorations of Arabic inscriptions the inscription itself is
made to tell the date of its restoration; but many small details of
ornament are not distinguished at all from the original work whose gaps
they supply. This defect calls for immediate correction before the
distinction is forgotten by the restorers themselves. Every _plaque_ of
metal or panel of wood or mosaic should bear an unmistakable
distinguishing mark, such as the date of restoration in Arabic cyphers;
and detailed plans of all restored monuments should be preserved in the
archives of the Commission, in which the new portions should be clearly
distinguished by colour or shading. If this rule is carefully observed I
confess I can see nothing but advantage in the complete restoration of a
_limited_ number of mosques _under the restrictions_ already mentioned.
When the work is executed with the skill and honesty which one observes
in the case of the Mosque of Abu-Bekr ibn Muzhir, there is no
falsification but rather preservation in the most complete and
satisfactory sense. The beauty of these restored mosques seems to appeal
to the eyes of the worshippers, and there is no doubt that the Mosque of
el-Muayyad has been far more frequented for prayer since its _liwan_ was
restored to something of its original beauty and richness of gold and
colour. This is a consideration to which the Ministry of Wakfs can
hardly fail to attach considerable importance. At the same time there is
possibly some risk of the vital work of preservation being sometimes
neglected in order that restorations, which are naturally more
interesting and effective to both the architect and the public, should
be carried out.
At present there are five mosques in course of restoration,[88] viz.,
those of Zeyn-ed-din Yahya, near the Musky; Gami‘-el-Benat; of
Asunbugha, in the Darb-es-Sa‘ada, and of Kagmas el-Ishaky; besides el-
Muayyad and Abu-Bekr ibn Muzhir, which may be regarded as finished. Two
of these mosques, however, are private wakfs, and are being paid for by
private persons. Still, in my opinion, enough restoration has been
undertaken for the present, and the chief attention of the Commission
should be directed for the next two or three years to a fresh and
complete examination of all the monuments on their list with a view to
their thorough preservation. At all events the selection of a new mosque
for complete restoration should be a subject of anxious thought, and
should not be lightly undertaken. Restoration, it must be remembered, is
costly, and cannot judiciously be embarked upon so long as the funds of
the Commission are scarcely sufficient for preservation alone. . . .
Such, my Lord, are the conclusions which suggested themselves to me
after my inspection of the results of the Commission’s labours. I have
confined my remarks to Cairo, because I had no opportunity this year to
examine the work that has been done in other towns of Egypt. In Cairo,
as I have endeavoured to show, the Commission has done excellent work,
and has accomplished a great deal in face of inadequate funds and
frequent obstruction and opposition. The few suggestions and criticisms
I have ventured to make are trifles in comparison with the quantity and
generally high quality of the work of preservation and restoration
carried out under the authority of the Commission. In my opinion the
Wakfs and the Public Works together should raise the annual budget of
the Commission to £10,000, and then leave it to manage its own affairs,
as it is fully competent to do. Were it possible to create a Ministry of
Fine Arts, which should include the Archæological Directorate as well as
the Commission, the Giza as well as the Arab Museum, this would probably
be the most satisfactory course. But the consideration of so thorough a
reconstruction is beyond the scope of the Report which your Lordship has
asked me to submit.”
To these remarks I have nothing to add. All subsequent observation has
confirmed the belief that the Commission has done and is still doing a
noble work for the monuments of Cairo. The passages omitted in the
preceding extracts related to the financial status of the Commission,
and the result of these recommendations is thus stated in Lord Cromer’s
covering report, which also strongly supported the various suggestions
offered for the better protection of the monuments, and added some
excellent provisions for the inclusion of the Coptic churches in the
field of operation of the Commission. Lord Cromer wrote:—
“I have for long been well aware that the grants heretofore obtained
from the Wakf Administration were inadequate, and that, if greater
activity was to be displayed in this branch of the Administration,
additional expenditure would have to be incurred. Indeed, one of the
main objects I had in view in consulting Mr Stanley Lane-Poole was to
obtain suggestions from him as to the best method of spending more
money, supposing it to be available.
“On receipt of Mr Stanley Lane-Poole’s Report, I placed myself in
communication with the authorities of the Financial and Public Works
Department with the result that a proposal was made to the Commissioners
of the Public Debt that they should grant a sum of £20,000 from the
Reserve Fund at their disposal to be spent under the direction of the
Preservation Committee during the years 1896 and 1897. I am glad to say
that this proposal was received by the Commissioners in a very friendly
spirit. The money has been granted, and the details of the expenditure
now alone remain to be settled. . . .
“I should add that, in addition to the £20,000, which is to be spent
exclusively on works of different sorts, the Egyptian Government has
consented to give a permanent grant of £1000 a-year from the Treasury in
order to provide for the additional staff which will without doubt be
required.”
The effects of this munificent addition to the funds placed at the
disposal of the Commission have been far-reaching. The list of monuments
that have benefited by the timely succour is too long to quote, but the
repairs effected in the great mosque of el-Maridány at a cost of £4000
must be specially mentioned: it was a work greatly needed, and the money
has been well spent. Every visitor to Cairo is struck by the difference
in the condition of the mosques since the Commission took them under its
charge. Many which seemed doomed are now safe; others have their lives
at least prolonged; and no fragment of Arab art, no vestige of the city
wall, no piece of carving or inscription, is beneath the watchful care
of the Commission. When a monument cannot be preserved, such fragments
of ornament or inscriptions as remain are carefully gathered and
transported to the Arab Museum, which itself is evidence of the good
work that has been done in the past twenty years. These years have
indeed been fruitful in serious labour to repair the injury which
natural decay, and unnatural confiscation, neglect, and vandalism have
worked in the past upon the relics of mediæval Cairo.
[Illustration: A MUSLIM GRAVEYARD]
RULERS AND MONUMENTS OF CAIRO[89]
* * * * *
1. ARAB PERIOD
A.D. A.H. A.H.
640-868 20-254 Ninety-eight governors †Mosque of ‘Amr 21
under caliphs of
Damascus and Baghdād
Town of the Tent 21
(el-Fusṭāṭ)
First Nilometer at 98
er-Rōḍa
Faubourg el-‘Askar 133
*Second Nilometer 247
at er-Rōḍa
2. TURKISH PERIOD
HOUSE OF ṬŪLŪN
868 254 Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn Faubourg el-Ḳaṭāi‘ 256
Palaces of 256 ff.
el-Ḳaṭāi‘
Māristān 259
*Mosque of Ibn-Ṭūlūn 263-5
883 270 Khumāraweyh b. Aḥmad Palaces of 270 ff.
el-Ḳaṭāi‘
895 282 Geysh b. Khumāraweyh
896 283 Hārūn b. Khumāraweyh
904 292 Sheybān b. Aḥmad b. Ṭūlūn
CALIPHS’ GOVERNORS
905-934 292-323 Thirteen governors
HOUSE OF EL-IKHSHĪD
934 323 Moḥammad el-Ikhshīd Palace in Kāfūr’s
Garden and at Rōḍa
946 334 Abū-l-Ḳāsim Ūngūr b. Māristān at Fusṭāṭ 346
el-Ikhshīd
960 349 Abū-l-Ḥasan ‘Aly b. Mosque of el-Gīza 350
el-Ikhshīd
966 355 Abū-l-Misk Kāfūr
968 358 Abū-l-Fawāris Aḥmad b.
‘Aly
3. FĀṬIMID PERIOD
969 358 el-Mo‘izz Foundation of 358
el-Ḳāhira
Great East Palace, 358
etc.
*Mosque el-Azhar 359
975 365 el-‘Azīz West Palace, etc.
*Mosque of el-Ḥākim 380-403
996 386 el-Ḥākim Mosque of Rāshida 393-5
„ el-Maḳs
1021 411 eẓ-Ẓāhir
1036 427 el-Mustanṣir *Mosque el-Guyūshy 478
*Bāb-en-Naṣr, 480-484
*Bāb-el-Futūḥ,
*Second wall,
*Bāb-Zuweyla
Mosque of Nilometer 485
1094 487 el-Musta‘ly
1101 495 el-Āmir *Mosque el-Aḳmar 519
Several mesgids
(Yānis, Kāfūry,
Bāb-el-Khawkha)
*Mihrābs of Azhar
and Seyyida Ruḳeyya
1131 524 el-Ḥāfiẓ
1149 544 eẓ-Ẓāfir †Mosque el-Afkhar 543
1154 549 el-Fāiz
1160 555 el-‘Āḍid *Mosque of eṣ-Ṣālih 555
Ṭalāi‘
4. HOUSE OF SALADIN
1169 565 en-Nāṣir Ṣalāḥ-ed-dīn Mosque of 566
(Saladin) ibn Ayyūb Negm-ed-dīn Ayyūb
College Nāṣirīya 566
„ Ḳamḥiya 566
„ Ḳuṭbīya 570
„ Ibn-el-Arsūfy 570
„ Suyūfīya 572
Citadel and 3rd 572
Wall begun
Māristān 575
College el-Fāḍilīya 580
1193 589 el-‘Azīz, son of Saladin Mosque of c. 591
Ibn-el-Benā
College Ushkushīya 592
1198 595 el-Manṣūr b. el-‘Azīz „ Ghaznawīya
1200 596 el-‘Adil Seyf-ed-dīn „ ‘Ādilīya
„ Sherīfīya 612
1218 615 el-Kāmil b. el-‘Ādil Restor. of M. of 607
Shāfi‘y
*College Kāmilīya 622
„ Fakhrīya 622
Zāwiya Ḳaṣry c. 633
M. Ibn-esh-Sheykhy c. 633
1238 635 el-‘Ādil II. b. el-Kāmil College Ṣayramīya c. 636
„ Fāizīya 636
1240 637 eṣ-Ṣāliḥ Ayyūb b. „ *Ṣāliḥīya 639
el-Kāmil
Mosque, etc., of
er-Rōḍa
1249 647 el-Mu‘aẓẓam Tūrān-Shāh Zāwiya Khaddām 647
b. eṣ-Ṣāliḥ
5. TURKISH MAMLŪKS
1250 648 Queen Sheger-ed-durr *Tomb of eṣ-Ṣāliḥ 648
1250 648 el-Mo‘izz Aybek College Ḳuṭbīya 650
„ Ṣāḥibīya 654
1257 655 el-Manṣūr ‘Aly b. Aybek
1259 657 el-Muẓaffar Ḳuṭuz
1260 658 eẓ-Ẓāhir Beybars *College Ẓāhirīya 660
Meshhed el-Ḥoseyny 662
College Megdīya 663
Mosque el-Afram 663
*Mosque eẓ-Ẓāhir 665
College
Muhedhdhibīya
„ Fārikānīya 676
1277 676 es-Sa‘īd Baraka b.
Beybars
1279 678 el-‘Ādil Selāmish b.
Beybars
1279 679 el-Manṣūr Ḳalā’ūn *College Manṣūrīya 684
and Māristān Ḳalā’ūn
Zāwiya el-Gemīzy 682
„ el-Ga‘bary 687
„ el-Halāwy 683
Convent 688
el-Bunduḳdārīya
1290 689 el-Ashraf Khalīl b. *Gate from ‘Akka
Ḳalā’ūn
1293 693 en-Nāṣir Moḥammad b.
Ḳalā’ūn
1294 694 el-‘Ādil Ketbughā
1296 696 el-Manṣūr Lāgīn Restor. M. of 696
Ibn-Ṭūlūn
College Ṭafagīya c. 698
„ Mangūtimurīya 698
1298 698 en-Nāṣir, second reign „ *Nāṣirīya 699-703
„ Karāsunḳurīya 700
„ Gemālīya 703
Restor. of Ḥākim, 703-4
Azhar, Ṭalāi‘
Mosque of Ṭaybars 707
1308 708 el-Muẓaffar Beybars *Convent of Beybars 706-9
_Gāshnekīr_
1309 709 en-Nāṣir, third reign *College Ṭaybarsīya 709
Zāwiya of el-Ḥimṣy 709
Mosque of el-Gāky 713
*Citadel palace, 713
aqueduct
College Sa‘īdīya 715
Convent of Arslān c. 717
*Mosque of Citadel 718
*Mosque of emīr 719
Ḥoseyn
*College Ālmelikīya 719
*College Gāwalīya 723
*Tomb of Ordūtegīn 724
*College 725
Mihmandāriya
„ Buktumurīya 726
Mosque of 729
el-Khazāny
„ *of Almās 730
„ el-Barḳīya 730
*Mosque of Ḳūṣūn 730
„ of Sārūgā c. 730
*College Aḳbughawīya 734
*Tomb of Tāshtimur 734
*Palace of Beshtāk c. 735
*Convent of Ḳūṣūn 736
„ at Siryāḳūs 736
†Mosque of Beshtāk 736
„ Aydemir 737
„ et-Turkmāny 738
„ *el-Māridāny 740
1341 741 el-Manṣūr Abū-Bekr} „ *Sitta Miska 740
}
} „ Ibn-Ghāzy 741
}
1341 742 el-Ashraf Kuguk }
}
1342 742 en-Nāṣir Aḥmad }sons
} of
1342 743 eṣ-Ṣāliḥ Ismā‘īl }en- Mosque of 745
}Nāṣir eṭ-Ṭawāshy
}
1345 746 el-Ḳāmil Sha‘bān } „ Ibn-eṭ-Ṭabbākh 746
}
1346 747 el-Muẓaffar Ḥāggy } „ *Kuguk 747
}
1347 748 en-Nāṣir Ḥasan } „ †Āḳsunḳur 747
„ †el-Ismā‘īly 748
„ *Ḳutlubugha 748
„ el-Asyūṭy c. 749
*Convent of Umm-Anūk c. 749
„ Algībughā c. 750
*Mosque of Mangak 750
„ *Sheykhū 750
College of 750
el-Kharrūba
*Cistern of Lāgīn 750
College Ḳaysarānīya 751
„ Ṣaghīra 751
1351 752 eṣ-Ṣāliḥ Ṣāliḥ b. Nāṣir
1354 755 Ḥasan, second reign *Convent of Sheykhū 756
College Fārisīya 756
„ 756
*Ṣarghitmishīya
„ *Sulṭān Ḥasan 757 ff.
„ Bedīrīya 758
„ *Ḥigāzīya 761
„ Beshīrīya 761
„ Sābiḳīya 763
1361 762 el-Manṣūr } „ Sābiḳīya 763
Moḥammad } grand-sons
} of
1363 764 el-Ashraf } en-Nāṣir *Tomb of Ṭulbīya 765
Sha‘bān }
*Mosque of Sha‘bān 771
*College Bubekrīya 772
(Asunbughā)
*College of Gāy 775
el-Yūsufy
„ Baḳrīya c. 775
1376 778 el-Manṣūr ‘Aly b. Sha‘bān „ Ibn-‘Irām 782
1381 783 eṣ-Ṣāliḥ Ḥāggy b. Tomb of Umm-Ṣāliḥ 783
Sha‘bān (dep. 1382,
restored 1389-90)
6. CIRCASSIAN MAMLŪKS
1382 784 eẓ-Ẓāhir Barḳūḳ *Tomb of Anas 783
[interrupted 791-2 by *College of Aytmish 785
Ḥāggy]
*College of Barḳūḳ 788
*Mosque of 790
Zeyn-ed-dīn
*College of Īnāl 795
_Ustāddār_
„ Maḥmūdīya 797
„ *Muḳbil 797
Zemāmīya
„ Ibn-Ghurāb 798
1399 801 en-Nāṣir Farag b. Barḳūḳ M. of 803
Ibn-‘Abd-eẓ-Ẓāhir
*College of Sūdūn 804
„ Mahally c. 806
1405 808 el-Manṣūr ‘Abd-el-‘Azīz *Convent and Tomb 803-13
b. Barḳūḳ of Barḳūḳ and
Farag, and College
of Farag
1405 809 Farag, second reign *College of 811
Gemāl-ed-dīn
Mosque of Hōsh 812
(Citadel)
1412 815 el-Musta‘īn (caliph) „ 814
Birket-er-Raṭly
1412 815 el-Mu’ayyad Sheykh M. of eḍ-Ḍiwa 815
(Citadel)
Mosque of el-Bāsiṭy 817
„ el-Ḥanafy 817
„ ez-Zāhid 818
*Māristān of 818
el-Mu’ayyad
*Mosque of 819-23
el-Mu’ayyad
*Coll. of 821
‘Abd-el-Ghany
Mosque of el-Fakhry 821
*Coll. of Ḳāḍy 823
‘Abd-el-Bāsiṭ
1421 824 el-Muẓaffar Aḥmad b.
Sheykh
1421 824 eẓ-Ẓāhir Ṭaṭar
1421 824 eṣ-Ṣāliḥ Moḥammad b.
Ṭaṭar
1422 825 el-Ashraf Bars-Bey *College of Bars-Bey 827
*Mosque of Gāny-Bek 830
*College of Feyrūz 830
*Conv. and tomb of 835
Bars-Bey
1438 842 el-‘Azīz Yūsuf b.
Bars-Bey
1438 842 eẓ-Ẓāhir Gaḳmaḳ *College of 844
Taghry-Berdy
*Mosque of Ḳāny-Bey 845
1453 857 el-Manṣūr ‘Othmān b. *M. and tomb Ḳāḍy 848-50
Gaḳmaḳ Yaḥyā
*Mosque of Gaḳmaḳ 853
1453 857 el-Ashraf Īnāl *Coll., Conv., tomb 855-60
of Īnāl
1461 865 el-Mu’ayyad Aḥmad b. Īnāl
1461 865 eẓ-Ẓāhir Khūshḳadam *Tomb of Gāny-Bek 869
*Mosque of 870
Nūr-ed-dīn
*Mosque of Sūdūn c. 870
*College of Ḳānim c. 870
1467 872 eẓ-Ẓāhir Yel-Bey
1467 872 eẓ-Ẓāhir Timurbughā
1468 873 el-Ashraf Ḳā’it-Bey *Mosque of Timrāz 876
*M. of Ezbek b. 880
Tutush
*Palace of Yeshbek 880
*Ḳā’it-Bey’s Coll. 879
and tomb
„ *Coll. in town 880
„ *Wekāla by 882
Azhar
„ *Sebīl 884
„ Wekāla, B. 885
en-Naṣr
„ *Wek., c. 885
Surūgīya
„ *Faḍawīya c. 886
cupola
„ *Palace and 890
mekān
„ *Restor. of 890
S. gates
„ *Coll. at 896
er-Rōḍa
*Mosque of Gānim 883
*Coll. of Abū-Bekr 885
b. Muzhir
*Mosque of Ḳagmās 886
*Coll. of Ezbek 900
el-Yūsufy
1496 901 en-Nāṣir Moḥammad b. *Palace of Mamāy 901
Ḳā’it-Bey (Beyt-el-Ḳāḍy)
1498 904 eẓ-Ẓāhir Ḳānṣūh *Tomb of Ḳānṣūh 904
1500 905 el-Ashraf Gānbalāt
1501 906 el-‘Ādil Ṭūmān-Bey
1501 906 el-Ashraf Ḳānṣūh el-Ghūry *Tomb el-‘Ādil 906
Ṭūmān-Bey
*Mosque of Kheyr-Bek 908
*Coll. Ḳāny-Bek 908
emīr akhōr
*Coll. of el-Ghūry 909
†Tomb-mosque of 909
el-Ghūry
*Tomb of Sūdūn c. 910
*College of 911
Ḳāny-Bek Ḳarā
Restoration of
aqueduct to
Citadel 911
1516 922 el-Ashraf Ṭumān-Bey
1517 922 ‘OTHMĀNLY CONQUEST OF EGYPT
[Illustration: CAIRO.]
TABLE FOR CONVERTING HIJRA YEARS INTO ANNI DOMINI.
+----+----+-------+
|A.H.|A.D.|BEGINS |
+----+----+-------+
| 1| 622|Jy. 16|
| | | |
| 2| 623|Jy. 5|
| | | |
| 3| 624|Ju. 24|
| | | |
| 4| 625|Ju. 13|
| | | |
| 5| 626|Ju. 2|
| | | |
| 6| 627|My. 23|
| | | |
| 7| 628|My. 11|
| | | |
| 8| 629|My. 1|
| | | |
| 9| 630|Ap. 20|
| | | |
| 10| 631|Ap. 9|
| | | |
| 11| 632|M. 29|
| | | |
| 12| 633|M. 18|
| | | |
| 13| 634|M. 7|
| | | |
| 14| 635|F. 25|
| | | |
| 15| 636|F. 14|
| | | |
| 16| 637|F. 2|
| | | |
| 17| 638|Ja. 23|
| | | |
| 18| 639|Ja. 12|
| | | |
| 19| 640|Ja. 2|
| | | |
| 20| 640|D. 21|
| | | |
| 21| 641|D. 10|
| | | |
| 22| 642|N. 30|
| | | |
| 23| 643|N. 19|
| | | |
| 24| 644|N. 7|
| | | |
| 25| 645|O. 28|
| | | |
| 26| 646|O. 17|
| | | |
| 27| 647|O. 7|
| | | |
| 28| 648|S. 25|
| | | |
| 29| 649|S. 14|
| | | |
| 30| 650|S. 4|
| | | |
| 31| 651|Ag. 24|
| | | |
| 32| 652|Ag. 12|
| | | |
| 33| 653|Ag. 2|
| | | |
| 34| 654|Jy. 22|
| | | |
| 35| 655|Jy. 11|
| | | |
| 36| 656|Ju. 30|
| | | |
| 37| 657|Ju. 19|
| | | |
| 38| 658|Ju. 9|
| | | |
| 39| 659|My. 29|
| | | |
| 40| 660|My. 17|
| | | |
| 41| 661|My. 7|
| | | |
| 42| 662|Ap. 26|
| | | |
| 43| 663|Ap. 15|
| | | |
| 44| 664|Ap. 4|
| | | |
| 45| 665|M. 24|
| | | |
| 46| 666|M. 13|
| | | |
| 47| 667|M. 3|
| | | |
| 48| 668|F. 20|
| | | |
| 49| 669|F. 9|
| | | |
| 50| 670|Ja. 29|
| | | |
| 51| 671|Ja. 18|
| | | |
| 52| 672|Ja. 8|
| | | |
| 53| 672|D. 27|
| | | |
| 54| 673|D. 16|
| | | |
| 55| 674|D. 6|
| | | |
| 56| 675|N. 25|
| | | |
| 57| 676|N. 14|
| | | |
| 58| 677|N. 3|
| | | |
| 59| 678|O. 23|
| | | |
| 60| 679|O. 13|
| | | |
| 61| 680|O. 1|
| | | |
| 62| 681|S. 20|
| | | |
| 63| 682|S. 10|
| | | |
| 64| 683|Ag. 30|
| | | |
| 65| 684|Ag. 18|
| | | |
| 66| 685|Ag. 8|
| | | |
| 67| 686|Jy. 28|
| | | |
| 68| 687|Jy. 18|
| | | |
| 69| 688|Jy. 6|
| | | |
| 70| 689|Ju. 25|
| | | |
| 71| 690|Ju. 15|
| | | |
| 72| 691|Ju. 4|
| | | |
| 73| 692|My. 23|
| | | |
| 74| 693|My. 13|
| | | |
| 75| 694|My. 2|
| | | |
| 76| 695|Ap. 21|
| | | |
| 77| 696|Ap. 10|
| | | |
| 78| 697|M. 30|
| | | |
| 79| 698|M. 20|
| | | |
| 80| 699|M. 9|
| | | |
| 81| 700|F. 26|
| | | |
| 82| 701|F. 15|
| | | |
| 83| 702|F. 4|
| | | |
| 84| 703|Ja. 24|
| | | |
| 85| 704|Ja. 14|
| | | |
| 86| 705|Ja. 2|
| | | |
| 87| 705|D. 23|
| | | |
| 88| 706|D. 12|
| | | |
| 89| 707|D. 1|
| | | |
| 90| 708|N. 20|
| | | |
| 91| 709|N. 9|
| | | |
| 92| 710|O. 29|
| | | |
| 93| 711|O. 19|
| | | |
| 94| 712|O. 7|
| | | |
| 95| 713|S. 26|
| | | |
| 96| 714|S. 16|
| | | |
| 97| 715|S. 5|
| | | |
| 98| 716|Ag. 25|
| | | |
| 99| 717|Ag. 14|
| | | |
| 100| 718|Ag. 3|
| | | |
| 101| 719|Jy. 24|
| | | |
| 102| 720|Jy. 12|
| | | |
| 103| 721|Jy. 1|
| | | |
| 104| 722|Ju. 21|
| | | |
| 105| 723|Ju. 10|
| | | |
| 106| 724|My. 29|
| | | |
| 107| 725|My. 19|
| | | |
| 108| 726|My. 8|
| | | |
| 109| 727|Ap. 28|
| | | |
| 110| 728|Ap. 16|
| | | |
| 111| 729|Ap. 5|
| | | |
| 112| 730|M. 26|
| | | |
| 113| 731|M. 15|
| | | |
| 114| 732|M. 3|
| | | |
| 115| 733|F. 21|
| | | |
| 116| 734|F. 10|
| | | |
| 117| 735|Ja. 31|
| | | |
| 118| 736|Ja. 20|
| | | |
| 119| 737|Ja. 8|
| | | |
| 120| 737|D. 29|
| | | |
| 121| 738|D. 18|
| | | |
| 122| 739|D. 7|
| | | |
| 123| 740|N. 26|
| | | |
| 124| 741|N. 15|
| | | |
| 125| 742|N. 4|
| | | |
| 126| 743|O. 25|
| | | |
| 127| 744|O. 13|
| | | |
| 128| 745|O. 3|
| | | |
| 129| 746|S. 22|
| | | |
| 130| 747|S. 11|
| | | |
| 131| 748|Ag. 31|
| | | |
| 132| 749|Ag. 20|
| | | |
| 133| 750|Ag. 9|
| | | |
| 134| 751|Jy. 30|
| | | |
| 135| 752|Jy. 18|
| | | |
| 136| 753|Jy. 7|
| | | |
| 137| 754|Ju. 27|
| | | |
| 138| 755|Ju. 16|
| | | |
| 139| 756|Ju. 5|
| | | |
| 140| 757|My. 25|
| | | |
| 141| 758|My. 14|
| | | |
| 142| 759|My. 4|
| | | |
| 143| 760|Ap. 22|
| | | |
| 144| 761|Ap. 11|
| | | |
| 145| 762|Ap. 1|
| | | |
| 146| 763|M. 21|
| | | |
| 147| 764|M. 10|
| | | |
| 148| 765|F. 27|
| | | |
| 149| 766|F. 16|
| | | |
| 150| 767|F. 6|
| | | |
| 151| 768|Ja. 26|
| | | |
| 152| 769|Ja. 14|
| | | |
| 153| 770|Ja. 4|
| | | |
| 154| 770|D. 24|
| | | |
| 155| 771|D. 13|
| | | |
| 156| 772|D. 2|
| | | |
| 157| 773|N. 21|
| | | |
| 158| 774|N. 11|
| | | |
| 159| 775|O. 31|
| | | |
| 160| 776|O. 19|
| | | |
| 161| 777|O. 9|
| | | |
| 162| 778|S. 28|
| | | |
| 163| 779|S. 17|
| | | |
| 164| 780|S. 6|
| | | |
| 165| 781|Ag. 26|
| | | |
| 166| 782|Ag. 15|
| | | |
| 167| 783|Ag. 5|
| | | |
| 168| 784|Jy. 24|
| | | |
| 169| 785|Jy. 14|
| | | |
| 170| 786|Jy. 3|
| | | |
| 171| 787|Ju. 22|
| | | |
| 172| 788|Ju. 11|
| | | |
| 173| 789|My. 31|
| | | |
| 174| 790|My. 20|
| | | |
| 175| 791|My. 10|
| | | |
| 176| 792|Ap. 28|
| | | |
| 177| 793|Ap. 18|
| | | |
| 178| 794|Ap. 7|
| | | |
| 179| 795|M. 27|
| | | |
| 180| 796|M. 16|
| | | |
| 181| 797|M. 5|
| | | |
| 182| 798|F. 22|
| | | |
| 183| 799|F. 12|
| | | |
| 184| 800|F. 1|
| | | |
| 185| 801|Ja. 20|
| | | |
| 186| 802|Ja. 10|
| | | |
| 187| 802|D. 30|
| | | |
| 188| 803|D. 20|
| | | |
| 189| 804|D. 8|
| | | |
| 190| 805|N. 27|
| | | |
| 191| 806|N. 17|
| | | |
| 192| 807|N. 6|
| | | |
| 193| 808|O. 25|
| | | |
| 194| 809|O. 15|
| | | |
| 195| 810|O. 4|
| | | |
| 196| 811|S. 23|
| | | |
| 197| 812|S. 12|
| | | |
| 198| 813|S. 1|
| | | |
| 199| 814|Ag. 22|
| | | |
| 200| 815|Ag. 11|
| | | |
| 201| 816|Jy. 30|
| | | |
| 202| 817|Jy. 20|
| | | |
| 203| 818|Jy. 9|
| | | |
| 204| 819|Ju. 28|
| | | |
| 205| 820|Ju. 17|
| | | |
| 206| 821|Ju. 6|
| | | |
| 207| 822|My. 27|
| | | |
| 208| 823|My. 16|
| | | |
| 209| 824|My. 4|
| | | |
| 210| 825|Ap. 24|
| | | |
| 211| 826|Ap. 13|
| | | |
| 212| 827|Ap. 2|
| | | |
| 213| 828|M. 22|
| | | |
| 214| 829|M. 11|
| | | |
| 215| 830|F. 28|
| | | |
| 216| 831|F. 18|
| | | |
| 217| 832|F. 7|
| | | |
| 218| 833|Ja. 27|
| | | |
| 219| 834|Ja. 16|
| | | |
| 220| 835|Ja. 5|
| | | |
| 221| 835|D. 26|
| | | |
| 222| 836|D. 14|
| | | |
| 223| 837|D. 3|
| | | |
| 224| 838|N. 23|
| | | |
| 225| 839|N. 12|
| | | |
| 226| 840|O. 31|
| | | |
| 227| 841|O. 21|
| | | |
| 228| 842|O. 10|
| | | |
| 229| 843|S. 30|
| | | |
| 230| 844|S. 18|
| | | |
| 231| 845|S. 7|
| | | |
| 232| 846|Ag. 28|
| | | |
| 233| 847|Ag. 17|
| | | |
| 234| 848|Ag. 5|
| | | |
| 235| 849|Jy. 26|
| | | |
| 236| 850|Jy. 15|
| | | |
| 237| 851|Jy. 5|
| | | |
| 238| 852|Ju. 23|
| | | |
| 239| 853|Ju. 12|
| | | |
| 240| 854|Ju. 2|
| | | |
| 241| 855|My. 22|
| | | |
| 242| 856|My. 10|
| | | |
| 243| 857|Ap. 30|
| | | |
| 244| 858|Ap. 19|
| | | |
| 245| 859|Ap. 8|
| | | |
| 246| 860|M. 28|
| | | |
| 247| 861|M. 17|
| | | |
| 248| 862|M. 7|
| | | |
| 249| 863|F. 24|
| | | |
| 250| 864|F. 13|
| | | |
| 251| 865|F. 2|
| | | |
| 252| 866|Ja. 22|
| | | |
| 253| 867|Ja. 11|
| | | |
| 254| 868|Ja. 1|
| | | |
| 255| 868|D. 20|
| | | |
| 256| 869|D. 9|
| | | |
| 257| 870|N. 29|
| | | |
| 258| 871|N. 18|
| | | |
| 259| 872|N. 7|
| | | |
| 260| 873|O. 27|
| | | |
| 261| 874|O. 16|
| | | |
| 262| 875|O. 6|
| | | |
| 263| 876|S. 24|
| | | |
| 264| 877|S. 13|
| | | |
| 265| 878|S. 3|
| | | |
| 266| 879|Ag. 23|
| | | |
| 267| 880|Ag. 12|
| | | |
| 268| 881|Ag. 1|
| | | |
| 269| 882|Jy. 21|
| | | |
| 270| 883|Jy. 11|
| | | |
| 271| 884|Ju. 29|
| | | |
| 272| 885|Ju. 18|
| | | |
| 273| 886|Ju. 8|
| | | |
| 274| 887|My. 28|
| | | |
| 275| 888|My. 16|
| | | |
| 276| 889|My. 6|
| | | |
| 277| 890|Ap. 25|
| | | |
| 278| 891|Ap. 15|
| | | |
| 279| 892|Ap. 3|
| | | |
| 280| 893|M. 23|
| | | |
| 281| 894|M. 13|
| | | |
| 282| 895|M. 2|
| | | |
| 283| 896|F. 19|
| | | |
| 284| 897|F. 8|
| | | |
| 285| 898|Ja. 28|
| | | |
| 286| 899|Ja. 17|
| | | |
| 287| 900|Ja. 7|
| | | |
| 288| 900|D. 26|
| | | |
| 289| 901|D. 16|
| | | |
| 290| 902|D. 5|
| | | |
| 291| 903|N. 24|
| | | |
| 292| 904|N. 13|
| | | |
| 293| 905|N. 2|
| | | |
| 294| 906|O. 22|
| | | |
| 295| 907|O. 12|
| | | |
| 296| 908|S. 30|
| | | |
| 297| 909|S. 20|
| | | |
| 298| 910|S. 9|
| | | |
| 299| 911|Ag. 18|
| | | |
| 300| 912|Ag. 29|
| | | |
| 301| 913|Ag. 7|
| | | |
| 302| 914|Jy. 27|
| | | |
| 303| 915|Jy. 17|
| | | |
| 304| 916|Jy. 5|
| | | |
| 305| 917|Ju. 24|
| | | |
| 306| 918|Ju. 14|
| | | |
| 307| 919|Ju. 3|
| | | |
| 308| 920|My. 23|
| | | |
| 309| 921|My. 12|
| | | |
| 310| 922|My. 1|
| | | |
| 311| 923|Ap. 21|
| | | |
| 312| 924|Ap. 9|
| | | |
| 313| 925|M. 29|
| | | |
| 314| 926|M. 19|
| | | |
| 315| 927|M. 8|
| | | |
| 316| 928|F. 25|
| | | |
| 317| 929|F. 14|
| | | |
| 318| 930|F. 3|
| | | |
| 319| 931|Ja. 24|
| | | |
| 320| 932|Ja. 13|
| | | |
| 321| 933|Ja. 1|
| | | |
| 322| 933|D. 22|
| | | |
| 323| 934|D. 11|
| | | |
| 324| 935|N. 30|
| | | |
| 325| 936|N. 19|
| | | |
| 326| 937|N. 8|
| | | |
| 327| 938|O. 29|
| | | |
| 328| 939|O. 18|
| | | |
| 329| 940|O. 6|
| | | |
| 330| 941|S. 26|
| | | |
| 331| 942|S. 15|
| | | |
| 332| 943|S. 4|
| | | |
| 333| 944|Ag. 24|
| | | |
| 334| 945|Ag. 13|
| | | |
| 335| 946|Ag. 2|
| | | |
| 336| 947|Jy. 23|
| | | |
| 337| 948|Jy. 11|
| | | |
| 338| 949|Jy. 1|
| | | |
| 339| 950|Ju. 20|
| | | |
| 340| 951|Ju. 9|
| | | |
| 341| 952|My. 29|
| | | |
| 342| 953|My. 18|
| | | |
| 343| 954|My. 7|
| | | |
| 344| 955|Ap. 27|
| | | |
| 345| 956|Ap. 15|
| | | |
| 346| 957|Ap. 4|
| | | |
| 347| 958|M. 25|
| | | |
| 348| 959|M. 14|
| | | |
| 349| 960|M. 3|
| | | |
| 350| 961|F. 20|
| | | |
| 351| 962|F. 9|
| | | |
| 352| 963|Ja. 30|
| | | |
| 353| 964|Ja. 19|
| | | |
| 354| 965|Ja. 7|
| | | |
| 355| 965|D. 28|
| | | |
| 356| 966|D. 17|
| | | |
| 357| 967|D. 7|
| | | |
| 358| 968|N. 25|
| | | |
| 359| 969|N. 14|
| | | |
| 360| 970|N. 4|
| | | |
| 361| 971|O. 24|
| | | |
| 362| 972|O. 12|
| | | |
| 363| 973|O. 2|
| | | |
| 364| 974|S. 21|
| | | |
| 365| 975|S. 10|
| | | |
| 366| 976|Ag. 30|
| | | |
| 367| 977|Ag. 19|
| | | |
| 368| 978|Ag. 9|
| | | |
| 369| 979|Jy. 29|
| | | |
| 370| 980|Jy. 17|
| | | |
| 371| 981|Jy. 7|
| | | |
| 372| 982|Ju. 26|
| | | |
| 373| 983|Ju. 15|
| | | |
| 374| 984|Ju. 4|
| | | |
| 375| 985|My. 24|
| | | |
| 376| 986|My. 13|
| | | |
| 377| 987|My. 3|
| | | |
| 378| 988|Ap. 21|
| | | |
| 379| 989|Ap. 11|
| | | |
| 380| 990|M. 31|
| | | |
| 381| 991|M. 20|
| | | |
| 382| 992|M. 9|
| | | |
| 383| 993|F. 26|
| | | |
| 384| 994|F. 15|
| | | |
| 385| 995|F. 5|
| | | |
| 386| 996|Ja. 25|
| | | |
| 387| 997|Ja. 14|
| | | |
| 388| 998|Ja. 3|
| | | |
| 389| 998|D. 23|
| | | |
| 390| 999|D. 13|
| | | |
| 391|1000|D. 1|
| | | |
| 392|1001|N. 20|
| | | |
| 393|1002|N. 10|
| | | |
| 394|1003|O. 30|
| | | |
| 395|1004|O. 18|
| | | |
| 396|1005|O. 8|
| | | |
| 397|1006|S. 27|
| | | |
| 398|1007|S. 17|
| | | |
| 399|1008|S. 5|
| | | |
| 400|1009|Ag. 25|
| | | |
| 401|1010|Ag. 15|
| | | |
| 402|1011|Ag. 4|
| | | |
| 403|1012|Jy. 23|
| | | |
| 404|1013|Jy. 13|
| | | |
| 405|1014|Jy. 2|
| | | |
| 406|1015|Ju. 21|
| | | |
| 407|1016|Ju. 10|
| | | |
| 408|1017|My. 30|
| | | |
| 409|1018|My. 20|
| | | |
| 410|1019|My. 9|
| | | |
| 411|1020|Ap. 27|
| | | |
| 412|1021|Ap 17|
| | | |
| 413|1022|Ap. 6|
| | | |
| 414|1023|M. 26|
| | | |
| 415|1024|M. 15|
| | | |
| 416|1025|M. 4|
| | | |
| 417|1026|F. 22|
| | | |
| 418|1027|F. 11|
| | | |
| 419|1028|Ja. 31|
| | | |
| 420|1029|Ja. 20|
| | | |
| 421|1030|Ja. 9|
| | | |
| 422|1030|D. 29|
| | | |
| 423|1031|D. 19|
| | | |
| 424|1032|D. 7|
| | | |
| 425|1033|N. 26|
| | | |
| 426|1034|N. 16|
| | | |
| 427|1035|N. 5|
| | | |
| 428|1036|O. 25|
| | | |
| 429|1037|O. 14|
| | | |
| 430|1038|O. 3|
| | | |
| 431|1039|S. 23|
| | | |
| 432|1040|S. 11|
| | | |
| 433|1041|Ag. 31|
| | | |
| 434|1042|Ag. 21|
| | | |
| 435|1043|Ag. 10|
| | | |
| 436|1044|Jy. 29|
| | | |
| 437|1045|Jy. 19|
| | | |
| 438|1046|Jy. 8|
| | | |
| 439|1047|Ju. 28|
| | | |
| 440|1048|Ju. 16|
| | | |
| 441|1049|Ju. 5|
| | | |
| 442|1050|My. 26|
| | | |
| 443|1051|My. 15|
| | | |
| 444|1052|My. 3|
| | | |
| 445|1053|Ap. 23|
| | | |
| 446|1054|Ap. 12|
| | | |
| 447|1055|Ap. 2|
| | | |
| 448|1056|M. 21|
| | | |
| 449|1057|M. 10|
| | | |
| 450|1058|F. 28|
| | | |
| 451|1059|F. 17|
| | | |
| 452|1060|F. 6|
| | | |
| 453|1061|Ja. 26|
| | | |
| 454|1062|Ja. 15|
| | | |
| 455|1063|Ja. 4|
| | | |
| 456|1063|D. 25|
| | | |
| 457|1064|D. 13|
| | | |
| 458|1065|D. 3|
| | | |
| 459|1066|N. 22|
| | | |
| 460|1067|N. 11|
| | | |
| 461|1068|O. 31|
| | | |
| 462|1069|O. 20|
| | | |
| 463|1070|O. 9|
| | | |
| 464|1071|S. 29|
| | | |
| 465|1072|S. 17|
| | | |
| 466|1073|S. 6|
| | | |
| 467|1074|Ag. 27|
| | | |
| 468|1075|Ag. 16|
| | | |
| 469|1076|Ag. 5|
| | | |
| 470|1077|Jy. 25|
| | | |
| 471|1078|Jy. 14|
| | | |
| 472|1079|Jy. 4|
| | | |
| 473|1080|Ju. 22|
| | | |
| 474|1081|Ju. 11|
| | | |
| 475|1082|Ju. 1|
| | | |
| 476|1083|My. 21|
| | | |
| 477|1084|My. 10|
| | | |
| 478|1085|Ap. 29|
| | | |
| 479|1086|Ap. 18|
| | | |
| 480|1087|Ap. 8|
| | | |
| 481|1088|M. 27|
| | | |
| 482|1089|M. 16|
| | | |
| 483|1090|M. 6|
| | | |
| 484|1091|F. 23|
| | | |
| 485|1092|F. 12|
| | | |
| 486|1093|F. 1|
| | | |
| 487|1094|Ja. 21|
| | | |
| 488|1095|Ja. 11|
| | | |
| 489|1095|D. 31|
| | | |
| 490|1096|D. 19|
| | | |
| 491|1097|D. 9|
| | | |
| 492|1098|N. 28|
| | | |
| 493|1099|N. 17|
| | | |
| 494|1100|N. 6|
| | | |
| 495|1101|O. 26|
| | | |
| 496|1102|O. 15|
| | | |
| 497|1103|O. 5|
| | | |
| 498|1104|S. 23|
| | | |
| 499|1105|S. 13|
| | | |
| 500|1106|S. 2|
| | | |
| 501|1107|Ag. 22|
| | | |
| 502|1108|Ag. 11|
| | | |
| 503|1109|Jy. 31|
| | | |
| 504|1110|Jy. 20|
| | | |
| 505|1111|Jy. 10|
| | | |
| 506|1112|Ju. 28|
| | | |
| 507|1113|Ju. 18|
| | | |
| 508|1114|Ju. 7|
| | | |
| 509|1115|My. 27|
| | | |
| 510|1116|My. 16|
| | | |
| 511|1117|My. 5|
| | | |
| 512|1118|Ap. 24|
| | | |
| 513|1119|Ap. 14|
| | | |
| 514|1120|Ap. 2|
| | | |
| 515|1121|M. 22|
| | | |
| 516|1122|M. 12|
| | | |
| 517|1123|M. 1|
| | | |
| 518|1124|F. 19|
| | | |
| 519|1125|F. 7|
| | | |
| 520|1126|Ja. 27|
| | | |
| 521|1127|Ja. 17|
| | | |
| 522|1128|Ja. 6|
| | | |
| 523|1128|D. 25|
| | | |
| 524|1129|D. 15|
| | | |
| 525|1130|D. 4|
| | | |
| 526|1131|N. 23|
| | | |
| 527|1132|N. 12|
| | | |
| 528|1133|N. 1|
| | | |
| 529|1134|O. 22|
| | | |
| 530|1135|O. 11|
| | | |
| 531|1136|S. 29|
| | | |
| 532|1137|S. 19|
| | | |
| 533|1138|S. 8|
| | | |
| 534|1139|Ag. 28|
| | | |
| 535|1140|Ag. 17|
| | | |
| 536|1141|Ag. 6|
| | | |
| 537|1142|Jy. 27|
| | | |
| 538|1143|Jy. 16|
| | | |
| 539|1144|Jy. 4|
| | | |
| 540|1145|Ju. 24|
| | | |
| 541|1146|Ju. 13|
| | | |
| 542|1147|Ju. 2|
| | | |
| 543|1148|My. 22|
| | | |
| 544|1149|My. 11|
| | | |
| 545|1150|Ap. 30|
| | | |
| 546|1151|Ap. 20|
| | | |
| 547|1152|Ap. 8|
| | | |
| 548|1153|M. 29|
| | | |
| 549|1154|M. 18|
| | | |
| 550|1155|M. 7|
| | | |
| 551|1156|F. 25|
| | | |
| 552|1157|F. 13|
| | | |
| 553|1158|F. 2|
| | | |
| 554|1159|Ja. 23|
| | | |
| 555|1160|Ja. 12|
| | | |
| 556|1160|D. 31|
| | | |
| 557|1161|D. 21|
| | | |
| 558|1162|D. 10|
| | | |
| 559|1163|N. 30|
| | | |
| 560|1164|N. 18|
| | | |
| 561|1165|N. 7|
| | | |
| 562|1166|O. 28|
| | | |
| 563|1167|O. 17|
| | | |
| 564|1168|O. 5|
| | | |
| 565|1169|S. 25|
| | | |
| 566|1170|S. 14|
| | | |
| 567|1171|S. 4|
| | | |
| 568|1172|Ag. 23|
| | | |
| 569|1173|Ag. 12|
| | | |
| 570|1174|Ag. 2|
| | | |
| 571|1175|Jy. 22|
| | | |
| 572|1176|Jy. 10|
| | | |
| 573|1177|Ju. 30|
| | | |
| 574|1178|Ju. 19|
| | | |
| 575|1179|Ju. 8|
| | | |
| 576|1180|My. 28|
| | | |
| 577|1181|My. 17|
| | | |
| 578|1182|My. 7|
| | | |
| 579|1183|Ap. 26|
| | | |
| 580|1184|Ap. 14|
| | | |
| 581|1185|Ap. 4|
| | | |
| 582|1186|M. 24|
| | | |
| 583|1187|M. 13|
| | | |
| 584|1188|M. 2|
| | | |
| 585|1189|F. 19|
| | | |
| 586|1190|F. 8|
| | | |
| 587|1191|Ja. 29|
| | | |
| 588|1192|Ja. 18|
| | | |
| 589|1193|Ja. 7|
| | | |
| 590|1193|D. 27|
| | | |
| 591|1194|D. 16|
| | | |
| 592|1195|D. 6|
| | | |
| 593|1196|N. 24|
| | | |
| 594|1197|N. 13|
| | | |
| 595|1198|N. 3|
| | | |
| 596|1199|O. 23|
| | | |
| 597|1200|O. 12|
| | | |
| 598|1201|O. 1|
| | | |
| 599|1202|S. 20|
| | | |
| 600|1203|S. 10|
| | | |
| 601|1204|Ag. 29|
| | | |
| 602|1205|Ag. 18|
| | | |
| 603|1206|Ag. 8|
| | | |
| 604|1207|Jy. 28|
| | | |
| 605|1208|Jy. 16|
| | | |
| 606|1209|Jy. 6|
| | | |
| 607|1210|Ju. 25|
| | | |
| 608|1211|Ju. 15|
| | | |
| 609|1212|Ju. 3|
| | | |
| 610|1213|My. 23|
| | | |
| 611|1214|My. 13|
| | | |
| 612|1215|My. 2|
| | | |
| 613|1216|Ap. 20|
| | | |
| 614|1217|Ap. 10|
| | | |
| 615|1218|M. 30|
| | | |
| 616|1219|M. 19|
| | | |
| 617|1220|M. 8|
| | | |
| 618|1221|F. 25|
| | | |
| 619|1222|F. 15|
| | | |
| 620|1223|F. 4|
| | | |
| 621|1224|Ja. 24|
| | | |
| 622|1225|Ja. 13|
| | | |
| 623|1226|Ja. 2|
| | | |
| 624|1226|D. 22|
| | | |
| 625|1227|D. 12|
| | | |
| 626|1228|N. 30|
| | | |
| 627|1229|N. 20|
| | | |
| 628|1230|N. 9|
| | | |
| 629|1231|O. 29|
| | | |
| 630|1232|O. 18|
| | | |
| 631|1233|O. 7|
| | | |
| 632|1234|S. 26|
| | | |
| 633|1235|S. 16|
| | | |
| 634|1236|S. 4|
| | | |
| 635|1237|Ag. 24|
| | | |
| 636|1238|Ag. 14|
| | | |
| 637|1239|Ag. 3|
| | | |
| 638|1240|Jy. 23|
| | | |
| 639|1241|Jy. 12|
| | | |
| 640|1242|Jy. 1|
| | | |
| 641|1243|Ju. 21|
| | | |
| 642|1244|Ju. 9|
| | | |
| 643|1245|My. 29|
| | | |
| 644|1246|My. 19|
| | | |
| 645|1247|My. 8|
| | | |
| 646|1248|Ap. 26|
| | | |
| 647|1249|Ap. 16|
| | | |
| 648|1250|Ap. 5|
| | | |
| 649|1251|M. 26|
| | | |
| 650|1252|M. 14|
| | | |
| 651|1253|M. 3|
| | | |
| 652|1254|F. 21|
| | | |
| 653|1255|F. 10|
| | | |
| 654|1256|Ja. 30|
| | | |
| 655|1257|Ja. 19|
| | | |
| 656|1258|Ja. 8|
| | | |
| 657|1258|D. 29|
| | | |
| 658|1259|D. 18|
| | | |
| 659|1260|D. 6|
| | | |
| 660|1261|N. 26|
| | | |
| 661|1262|N. 15|
| | | |
| 662|1263|N. 4|
| | | |
| 663|1264|O. 24|
| | | |
| 664|1265|O. 13|
| | | |
| 665|1266|O. 2|
| | | |
| 666|1267|S. 22|
| | | |
| 667|1268|S. 10|
| | | |
| 668|1269|Ag. 31|
| | | |
| 669|1270|Ag. 20|
| | | |
| 670|1271|Ag. 9|
| | | |
| 671|1272|Jy. 29|
| | | |
| 672|1273|Jy. 18|
| | | |
| 673|1274|Jy. 7|
| | | |
| 674|1275|Ju. 27|
| | | |
| 675|1276|Ju. 15|
| | | |
| 676|1277|Ju. 4|
| | | |
| 677|1278|My. 25|
| | | |
| 678|1279|My. 14|
| | | |
| 679|1280|My. 3|
| | | |
| 680|1281|Ap. 22|
| | | |
| 681|1282|Ap. 11|
| | | |
| 682|1283|Ap. 1|
| | | |
| 683|1284|M. 20|
| | | |
| 684|1285|M. 9|
| | | |
| 685|1286|F. 27|
| | | |
| 686|1287|F. 16|
| | | |
| 687|1288|F. 6|
| | | |
| 688|1289|Ja. 25|
| | | |
| 689|1290|Ja. 14|
| | | |
| 690|1291|Ja. 4|
| | | |
| 691|1291|D. 24|
| | | |
| 692|1292|D. 12|
| | | |
| 693|1293|D. 2|
| | | |
| 694|1294|N. 21|
| | | |
| 695|1295|N. 10|
| | | |
| 696|1296|O. 30|
| | | |
| 697|1297|O. 19|
| | | |
| 698|1298|O. 9|
| | | |
| 699|1299|S. 28|
| | | |
| 700|1300|S. 16|
| | | |
| 701|1301|S. 6|
| | | |
| 702|1302|Ag. 26|
| | | |
| 703|1303|Ag. 15|
| | | |
| 704|1304|Ag. 4|
| | | |
| 705|1305|Jy. 24|
| | | |
| 706|1306|Jy. 13|
| | | |
| 707|1307|Jy. 3|
| | | |
| 708|1308|Ju. 21|
| | | |
| 709|1309|Ju. 11|
| | | |
| 710|1310|My. 31|
| | | |
| 711|1311|My. 20|
| | | |
| 712|1312|My. 9|
| | | |
| 713|1313|Ap. 28|
| | | |
| 714|1314|Ap. 17|
| | | |
| 715|1315|Ap 7|
| | | |
| 716|1316|M. 26|
| | | |
| 717|1317|M. 16|
| | | |
| 718|1318|M. 5|
| | | |
| 719|1319|F. 22|
| | | |
| 720|1320|F. 12|
| | | |
| 721|1321|Ja. 31|
| | | |
| 722|1322|Ja. 20|
| | | |
| 723|1323|Ja. 10|
| | | |
| 724|1323|D. 30|
| | | |
| 725|1324|D. 18|
| | | |
| 726|1325|D. 8|
| | | |
| 727|1326|N. 27|
| | | |
| 728|1327|N. 17|
| | | |
| 729|1328|N. 5|
| | | |
| 730|1329|O. 25|
| | | |
| 731|1330|O. 15|
| | | |
| 732|1331|O. 4|
| | | |
| 733|1332|S. 22|
| | | |
| 734|1333|S. 12|
| | | |
| 735|1334|S. 1|
| | | |
| 736|1335|Ag. 21|
| | | |
| 737|1336|Ag. 10|
| | | |
| 738|1337|Jy. 30|
| | | |
| 739|1338|Jy. 20|
| | | |
| 740|1339|Jy. 9|
| | | |
| 741|1340|Ju. 27|
| | | |
| 742|1341|Ju. 17|
| | | |
| 743|1342|Ju. 6|
| | | |
| 744|1343|My. 26|
| | | |
| 745|1344|My. 15|
| | | |
| 746|1345|My. 4|
| | | |
| 747|1346|Ap. 24|
| | | |
| 748|1347|Ap. 13|
| | | |
| 749|1348|Ap. 1|
| | | |
| 750|1349|M. 22|
| | | |
| 751|1350|M. 11|
| | | |
| 752|1351|F. 28|
| | | |
| 753|1352|F. 18|
| | | |
| 754|1353|F. 6|
| | | |
| 755|1354|Ja. 26|
| | | |
| 756|1355|Ja. 16|
| | | |
| 757|1356|Ja. 5|
| | | |
| 758|1356|D. 25|
| | | |
| 759|1357|D. 14|
| | | |
| 760|1358|D. 3|
| | | |
| 761|1359|N. 23|
| | | |
| 762|1360|N. 11|
| | | |
| 763|1361|O. 31|
| | | |
| 764|1362|O. 21|
| | | |
| 765|1363|O. 10|
| | | |
| 766|1364|S. 28|
| | | |
| 767|1365|S. 18|
| | | |
| 768|1366|S. 7|
| | | |
| 769|1367|Ag. 28|
| | | |
| 770|1368|Ag. 16|
| | | |
| 771|1369|Ag. 5|
| | | |
| 772|1370|Jy. 26|
| | | |
| 773|1371|Jy. 15|
| | | |
| 774|1372|Jy. 3|
| | | |
| 775|1373|Ju. 23|
| | | |
| 776|1374|Ju. 12|
| | | |
| 777|1375|Ju. 2|
| | | |
| 778|1376|My. 21|
| | | |
| 779|1377|My. 10|
| | | |
| 780|1378|Ap. 30|
| | | |
| 781|1379|Ap. 19|
| | | |
| 782|1380|Ap. 7|
| | | |
| 783|1381|M. 28|
| | | |
| 784|1382|M. 17|
| | | |
| 785|1383|M. 6|
| | | |
| 786|1384|F. 24|
| | | |
| 787|1385|F. 12|
| | | |
| 788|1386|F. 2|
| | | |
| 789|1387|Ja. 22|
| | | |
| 790|1388|Ja. 11|
| | | |
| 791|1388|D. 31|
| | | |
| 792|1389|D. 20|
| | | |
| 793|1390|D. 9|
| | | |
| 794|1391|N. 29|
| | | |
| 795|1392|N. 17|
| | | |
| 796|1393|N. 6|
| | | |
| 797|1394|O. 27|
| | | |
| 798|1395|O. 16|
| | | |
| 799|1396|O. 5|
| | | |
| 800|1397|S. 24|
| | | |
| 801|1398|S. 13|
| | | |
| 802|1399|S. 3|
| | | |
| 803|1400|Ag. 22|
| | | |
| 804|1401|Ag. 11|
| | | |
| 805|1402|Ag. 1|
| | | |
| 806|1403|Jy. 21|
| | | |
| 807|1404|Jy. 10|
| | | |
| 808|1405|Ju. 29|
| | | |
| 809|1406|Ju. 18|
| | | |
| 810|1407|Ju. 8|
| | | |
| 811|1408|My. 27|
| | | |
| 812|1409|My. 16|
| | | |
| 813|1410|My. 6|
| | | |
| 814|1411|Ap. 25|
| | | |
| 815|1412|Ap. 13|
| | | |
| 816|1413|Ap. 3|
| | | |
| 817|1414|M. 23|
| | | |
| 818|1415|M. 13|
| | | |
| 819|1416|M. 1|
| | | |
| 820|1417|F. 18|
| | | |
| 821|1418|F. 8|
| | | |
| 822|1419|Ja. 28|
| | | |
| 823|1420|Ja. 17|
| | | |
| 824|1421|Ja. 6|
| | | |
| 825|1421|D. 26|
| | | |
| 826|1422|D. 15|
| | | |
| 827|1423|D. 5|
| | | |
| 828|1424|N. 23|
| | | |
| 829|1425|N. 13|
| | | |
| 830|1426|N. 2|
| | | |
| 831|1427|O. 22|
| | | |
| 832|1428|O. 11|
| | | |
| 833|1429|S. 30|
| | | |
| 834|1430|S. 19|
| | | |
| 835|1431|S. 9|
| | | |
| 836|1432|Ag. 28|
| | | |
| 837|1433|Ag. 18|
| | | |
| 838|1434|Ag. 7|
| | | |
| 839|1435|Jy. 27|
| | | |
| 840|1436|Jy. 16|
| | | |
| 841|1437|Jy. 5|
| | | |
| 842|1438|Ju. 24|
| | | |
| 843|1439|Ju. 14|
| | | |
| 844|1440|Ju. 2|
| | | |
| 845|1441|My. 22|
| | | |
| 846|1442|My. 12|
| | | |
| 847|1443|My. 1|
| | | |
| 848|1444|Ap. 20|
| | | |
| 849|1445|Ap. 9|
| | | |
| 850|1446|M. 29|
| | | |
| 851|1447|M. 19|
| | | |
| 852|1448|M. 7|
| | | |
| 853|1449|F. 24|
| | | |
| 854|1450|F. 14|
| | | |
| 855|1451|F. 3|
| | | |
| 856|1452|Ja. 23|
| | | |
| 857|1453|Ja. 12|
| | | |
| 858|1454|Ja. 1|
| | | |
| 859|1454|D. 22|
| | | |
| 860|1455|D. 11|
| | | |
| 861|1456|N. 29|
| | | |
| 862|1457|N. 19|
| | | |
| 863|1458|N. 8|
| | | |
| 864|1459|O. 28|
| | | |
| 865|1460|O. 17|
| | | |
| 866|1461|O. 6|
| | | |
| 867|1462|S. 26|
| | | |
| 868|1463|S. 15|
| | | |
| 869|1464|S. 3|
| | | |
| 870|1465|Ag. 24|
| | | |
| 871|1466|Ag. 13|
| | | |
| 872|1467|Ag. 2|
| | | |
| 873|1468|Jy. 22|
| | | |
| 874|1469|Jy. 11|
| | | |
| 875|1470|Ju. 30|
| | | |
| 876|1471|Ju. 20|
| | | |
| 877|1472|Ju. 8|
| | | |
| 878|1473|My. 29|
| | | |
| 879|1474|My. 18|
| | | |
| 880|1475|My. 7|
| | | |
| 881|1476|Ap. 26|
| | | |
| 882|1477|Ap. 15|
| | | |
| 883|1478|Ap. 4|
| | | |
| 884|1479|M. 25|
| | | |
| 885|1480|M. 13|
| | | |
| 886|1481|M. 2|
| | | |
| 887|1482|F. 20|
| | | |
| 888|1483|F. 9|
| | | |
| 889|1484|Ja. 30|
| | | |
| 890|1485|Ja. 18|
| | | |
| 891|1486|Ja. 7|
| | | |
| 892|1486|D. 28|
| | | |
| 893|1487|D. 17|
| | | |
| 894|1488|D. 5|
| | | |
| 895|1489|N. 25|
| | | |
| 896|1490|N. 14|
| | | |
| 897|1491|N. 4|
| | | |
| 898|1492|O. 23|
| | | |
| 899|1493|O. 12|
| | | |
| 900|1494|O. 2|
| | | |
| 901|1495|S. 21|
| | | |
| 902|1496|S. 9|
| | | |
| 903|1497|Ag. 30|
| | | |
| 904|1498|Ag. 19|
| | | |
| 905|1499|Ag. 8|
| | | |
| 906|1500|Jy. 28|
| | | |
| 907|1501|Jy. 17|
| | | |
| 908|1502|Jy. 7|
| | | |
| 909|1503|Ju. 26|
| | | |
| 910|1504|Ju. 14|
| | | |
| 911|1505|Ju. 4|
| | | |
| 912|1506|My. 24|
| | | |
| 913|1507|My. 13|
| | | |
| 914|1508|My. 2|
| | | |
| 915|1509|Ap. 21|
| | | |
| 916|1510|Ap. 10|
| | | |
| 917|1511|M. 31|
| | | |
| 918|1512|M. 19|
| | | |
| 919|1513|M. 9|
| | | |
| 920|1514|F. 26|
| | | |
| 921|1515|F. 15|
| | | |
| 922|1516|F. 5|
| | | |
| 923|1517|Ja. 24|
| | | |
| 924|1518|Ja. 13|
| | | |
| 925|1519|Ja. 3|
| | | |
| 926|1519|D. 23|
| | | |
| 927|1520|D. 12|
| | | |
| 928|1521|D. 1|
| | | |
| 929|1522|N. 20|
| | | |
| 930|1523|N. 10|
| | | |
| 931|1524|O. 29|
| | | |
| 932|1525|O. 18|
| | | |
| 933|1526|O. 8|
| | | |
| 934|1527|S. 27|
| | | |
| 935|1528|S. 15|
| | | |
| 936|1529|S. 5|
| | | |
| 937|1530|Ag. 25|
| | | |
| 938|1531|Ag. 15|
| | | |
| 939|1532|Ag. 3|
| | | |
| 940|1533|Jy. 23|
| | | |
| 941|1534|Jy. 13|
| | | |
| 942|1535|Jy. 2|
| | | |
| 943|1536|Ju. 20|
| | | |
| 944|1537|Ju. 10|
| | | |
| 945|1538|My. 30|
| | | |
| 946|1539|My. 19|
| | | |
| 947|1540|My. 8|
| | | |
| 948|1541|Ap. 27|
| | | |
| 949|1542|Ap. 17|
| | | |
| 950|1543|Ap. 6|
| | | |
| 951|1544|M. 25|
| | | |
| 952|1545|M. 15|
| | | |
| 953|1546|M. 4|
| | | |
| 954|1547|F. 21|
| | | |
| 955|1548|F. 11|
| | | |
| 956|1549|Ja. 30|
| | | |
| 957|1550|Ja. 20|
| | | |
| 958|1551|Ja. 9|
| | | |
| 959|1551|D. 29|
| | | |
| 960|1552|D. 18|
| | | |
| 961|1553|D. 7|
| | | |
| 962|1554|N. 26|
| | | |
| 963|1555|N. 16|
| | | |
| 964|1556|N. 4|
| | | |
| 965|1557|O. 24|
| | | |
| 966|1558|O. 14|
| | | |
| 967|1559|O. 3|
| | | |
| 968|1560|S. 22|
| | | |
| 969|1561|S. 11|
| | | |
| 970|1562|Ag. 31|
| | | |
| 971|1563|Ag. 21|
| | | |
| 972|1564|Ag. 9|
| | | |
| 973|1565|Jy. 29|
| | | |
| 974|1566|Jy. 19|
| | | |
| 975|1567|Jy. 8|
| | | |
| 976|1568|Ju. 26|
| | | |
| 977|1569|Ju. 16|
| | | |
| 978|1570|Ju. 5|
| | | |
| 979|1571|My. 26|
| | | |
| 980|1572|My. 14|
| | | |
| 981|1573|My. 3|
| | | |
| 982|1574|Ap. 23|
| | | |
| 983|1575|Ap. 12|
| | | |
| 984|1576|M. 31|
| | | |
| 985|1577|M. 21|
| | | |
| 986|1578|M. 10|
| | | |
| 987|1579|F. 28|
| | | |
| 988|1580|F. 17|
| | | |
| 989|1581|F. 5|
| | | |
| 990|1582|Ja. 26|
| | | |
| 991|1583|Ja. 25*|
| | | |
| 992|1584|Ja. 14|
| | | |
| 993|1585|Ja. 3|
| | | |
| 994|1585|D. 23|
| | | |
| 995|1586|D. 12|
| | | |
| 996|1587|D. 2|
| | | |
| 997|1588|N. 20|
| | | |
| 998|1589|N. 10|
| | | |
| 999|1590|O. 30|
| | | |
|1000|1591|O. 19|
+----+----+-------+
* Here the change to the Gregorian New Style occurs.
INDEX
[Cross references are within square brackets.]
A.
‘Abbās, Fāṭimid vezīr, 158.
‘Abbāsids [Caliphs].
‘Abdallāh ibn Meymūn, Shī‘y, 114.
‘Abdallāh ibn Ṭāhir, governor, 43, 67.
‘Abdallāh ibn ez-Zubeyr, 35.
‘Abd-el-‘Azīz, governor, 61.
‘Abd-el-Ḥakam, Ibn, historian, 77, 185.
‘Abd-el-Laṭīf, geographer, 191, 194.
‘Abd-er-Raḥmān Kiaḥya, 298-301.
‘Ab’dīn, 34, 299.
‘Abid-esh-shera, 145.
Abī-th-Thanā, Funduḳ, 111.
Abū-‘Aly, vezīr, 154, 157.
Abū-Bekr [Muzhir].
Abū-dh-Dhahab [Moḥammad Bey].
Abū-l-Fidā, 220.
Abū-l-‘Ola, mosque, 260.
Abū-Sarga, church, 56.
Abū-s-Seyfeyn, church, 121.
Abū-s-Su‘ūd, mosque, 258.
Abulusteyn, 203.
Abyssinians’ lake (Birkat-el-Ḥabash), 172.
Academies, 97 [Medresa, Mosque].
Acre [‘Akkā].
Adhana, 86.
‘Āḍid, el-, Fāṭimid caliph, 123, 169, 170, 181.
‘Ādil, el-, Seyf-ed-dīn, Ayyūbid sultan, 176, 193-5, 263.
‘Ādil, el-, II., casket, 272.
Afḍal, el-, Fāṭimid vezīr, 80, 154, 157.
Ageminius, 280.
Aghlabids of Tunis, 116.
Aḥmad [Ṭūlūn].
Aḥmad Pasha, 298.
Akbar, emperor, 142.
Aḳbughāwīya, medresa, 224, 299.
Akhdar, el-, mosque [Fakahany].
Akhōr, emīr, master of the horse, [Ḳāny Bek].
‘Akkā (Acre), 149, 172, 205, 223.
Aḳmar, mosque, 157, 160, 227.
Aḳsunḳur, Mamlūk emīr, mosque, 223, 227, 245, 298.
Aḳūsh, Mamlūk emīr, mosque, 259.
Alexandria, 39, 40, 67, 117, 169, 180, 181, 195, 207, 263.
Alfonso, of Seville, 206.
Algibughā, Mamlūk emīr, mosque, 259.
‘Alids, 114 _ff._
Almās, Mamlūk emīr, mosque, 224, 289.
Almelik, Mamlūk emīr, mosque, 224, 259.
Almohades, 180.
‘Aly, caliph, 19, 113, 119.
‘Aly Bey, 298-301.
‘Aly el-Gelfy, ketkhudā, 290.
Amalric, k. of Jerusalem, 110, 130, 167-9.
Ambassadors, 125, 139-2, 204.
Amber, 94.
Amīr [Emīr].
Āmir, el-, Fāṭimid caliph, 97, 123, 157, 160, 163.
Amnis Trajanus, 40.
‘Amr ibn el-‘Āṣy, conqueror of Egypt, 34-43, 59, 61; mosque, 33,
42-48, 66, 69, 89, 94, 97, 104, 107, 111, 142, 185, 188.
“Antar’s stable,” 41.
Anthropophagy, 148, 195.
Antioch, 86, 205.
Anwar, el-, mosque (el-Ḥākim), 137.
Aqueducts, 76, 77, 223, 253.
Arab conquest, 34 _ff._; tribes, 42, 60, 66, 67, 88.
Arabia, 144.
Arabian Nights [Thousand and One Nights].
Arch, keelform or Persian, 124, 138; pointed, 8, 85.
Archery, 258.
Architects, Christian, 78, 153.
Architecture—
Byzantine, 54, 83, 85, 153.
Franco-Syrian, 153, 175, 180.
Saracenic (Arab), 4 [Medresa, Mosque, Palace].
Turkish (Ottoman), 298-301.
Arḍ-eṭ-Ṭabbāla, 259.
Arghūn el-Ismā‘īly, Mamlūk emīr, mosque, 224, 227.
Ark in Coptic church, 55.
Armenians, 121, 122, 149-157, 216.
Armour, 94, 125; horse-, 134, 145.
Army, 34, 37, 42, 60, 76, 88, 89, 91, 92, 94, 109, 117, 139, 143, 144,
146, 147, 149, 158, 173, 197, 198, 203-5, 207, 209, 210, 235, 241,
288.
Arsūf, 205.
Artīn Pasha, Ya‘ḳūb, 304.
Arts, Saracenic, 271 _ff._
Ascalon, 167.
Ashraf, el- [Bars-Bey, Sha‘bān].
Ashrafīya mosque, 233, 250.
Ashrafy mamlūks, 210.
‘Ashūra (10th Moḥarram), 22, 23.
‘Aṣim, Ibn el-, poet, 100.
‘Askar, el-, official faubourg, 32, 75, 89, 91; mosque, 65.
‘Aṣmat-ed-dīn [Sheger-ed-durr].
Assassins (Ismā‘īlīs), 116, 137, 205.
Astrology, 118, 142.
Astronomy, 296.
Asunbughā, Mamlūk emīr, mosque, 311.
Aswān, 215.
Asyūṭy, el, mosque, 259.
Aybek, Mamlūk sultan, 201, 202.
Aydemir el-Khaṭīry, 259.
‘Aydhāb, port on Red Sea, 205, 263.
‘Ayn-eṣ-Ṣīra, 85, 282.
‘Ayny, el-, historian, 238.
Ayyūb [Ṣāliḥ].
Ayyūbid dynasty, 196, 170-201.
Azab troops, 288-291.
‘Azab [Bāb].
Azhar, el-, university mosque, 123-125, 163, 188, 245, 253, 296, 297,
299.
‘Azīz, el-, Fāṭimid caliph, 121, 122, 126, 127, 134, 137.
‘Azīz, Ibn, painter, 134.
Azzimina, 280.
B.
Bāb (gate)—
Bāb-el-‘Azab, 291.
B.-el-Baḥr or el-Ḥadīd, 107, 175, 258, 260.
B.-el-Barḳīya or el-Ghureyyib, 126, 129, 266, 299.
B.-el-Farag, 129.
B.-el-Futūḥ, 126, 129, 145, 150-154, 188, 299.
B.-el-Gedīd, 129.
B.-el-Ḳantara, 129, 145, 166, 188, 258.
B.-el-Ḳarāfa, 299.
B.-el-Kharḳ, 293.
B.-el-Khawkha, 129.
B.-el-Lūk, 107, 217, 258.
B.-el-Maḥrūḳ, 129.
B.-el-Mudarrag, 176.
B.-en-Naṣr, 129, 145, 150-154, 188, 219, 254, 259.
B.-Sa‘āda, 129, 188.
B.-el-Wezīr, 174, 175.
B.-Zuweyla (Zawīla), 10, 80, 126, 129, 145, 150-154, 158, 159, 168,
181, 188, 203, 211, 218, 219, 238, 254, 269, 270.
Babylon, fortress, 34, 37, 39, 40, 41, 48-57, 63, 107, 218.
Baghdād, 65, 72, 91, 92, 104, 119, 144, 148, 158, 164, 190, 201, 261.
Baḥr [Bāb].
Bahrām, Fāṭimid vezīr, 154.
Baḥry (Turkish) Mamlūks, 198-232.
Baḳār, el-, Ḳāḍy, 99.
Bakbak, 72.
Bakhtary, el-, 100.
Balsam, 50.
Banquets, 101, 102.
Baraka, khān of the Golden Horde, 206.
Barbara, St, church, 56.
Bargawān, Fāṭimid emīr, 139; quarter, 128, 145.
Barḳīya quarter, 128; troops, 168.
Barḳīya [Bāb].
Barḳūḳ, Mamlūk sultan, 235, 238, 266; medresa, 241, 250; tomb-mosque,
241, 245.
Bars-Bey, el-Ashraf, Mamlūk sultan, 237, 238; mosque, 238, 250.
Basil, emperor, 134.
Bāsiṭy, el-, mosque, 259.
Baṣra, el-, painters from, 133.
Bastions, 153, 179.
Bath (ḥammām), 17, 66, 148, 184.
Bath, Night of the (Leylat-el-Ghiṭās), 95.
Bāṭilīya quarter, 145.
Baṭūṭa, Ibn, 215, 224.
Bāzār (market, sūḳ), 24.
Beacon, Castle of the [Babylon].
Bedawīs, 146, 157, 215
Bedr-el-Gemāly, Fāṭimid vezīr, 80, 149-154, 157, 164, 174, 175.
Bedrooms, 17.
Beer, 140, 207.
Belvedere (manẓara), 90.
Benāt, Gāmi‘-el-, 311.
Benjamin of Tudela, 48, 146.
Berbers, 116, 139, 143, 146, 147, 148.
Berchem, M. van, 86, 138, 139, 153, 175, 253, 296.
Bernard, bishop of Palermo, 196.
Bersīm, 3.
Beshtāk, Mamlūk emīr, palace, 270; mosque, 224.
Beybars, eẓ-Ẓāhir, Mamlūk sultan, 198, 203, 205-9, 218, 273; mosque,
207, 212, 218.
Beybars el-Gashnekīr (taster), Mamlūk sultan, 128, 137, 138, 144, 204,
211; convent, 128.
Beyn-el-Ḳaṣreyn (square “between the two palaces”), 126, 128, 139,
157, 160, 188, 196, 212, 220, 273.
Beyn-es-Sūreyn (street “between the two walls”), 126.
Beysary, Mamlūk emīr, 273, 274.
Beyt-el-Ḳāḍy, chief judge’s court, 271.
Bilāl, khān of, 269.
Bilbeys, 34, 40, 110, 168, 169.
Bīra, el-, 203.
Birkat-el-Fīl (elephant’s lake), 288.
Birkat-el-Ḥabash (Abyssinians’ lake), 172.
Black robes, 118; troops [Sūdānīs].
Boats, 95, 109, 146.
Brass work [Metal work].
Brick, used for piers, 79.
Bridal procession, 3.
Bridges, 65, 96, 109.
Brienne, John de, 195.
Bronze [Metal work].
Buḳalamūn, 108.
Būlāḳ, 237, 257-260, 263, 299, 301.
Burdeyny, el-, mosque, 298.
Burg-eẓ-Ẓafar, 175.
Burgy (Circassian) Mamlūks, 228, 235-254.
Burko‘, 2.
Bustān, 271 [Gardens].
Butler, A. J., 37, 41, 54, 123.
Byzantine architecture, 54, 83, 85, 153.
Byzantine empire [Constantinople, Romans].
C.
Cæsaræa, 203, 237;—205.
Cage for caliph, 144.
Cairo proper [Ḳāhira].
Caliphs [‘Aly, ‘Omar].
„ ‘Abbāsid, 64-72, 86, 91, 94, 118, 144, 164, 170, 201, 206.
„ Fāṭimid, 92, 116-171; graves, 266.
„ Omayyad, 59.
„ Tombs of the, 241, 242.
Cameron, D. A., 264, 265.
Canals (Khalīg), 40, 132, 145, 146, 207, 258, 260.
Cantonments [‘Askar].
Carmathians (Ḳarmaṭis), 116, 117.
Carpet, Holy (Kiswa), 22.
Carter, O. B., 260.
Carving [Wood-carving].
Castle of the Beacon [Babylon].
Castle of the Mountain [Citadel].
Castle of the Ram, 90, 121.
Catholicos, 39.
Ceilings, painted, 281, 282.
Cemetery, eastern, 241, 242.
„ southern [Ḳarāfa].
Censers, 138, 273.
Charles of Anjou, 206.
Chaul, naval engagement off, 254.
Cherkes Bey, 289.
Chess, 140.
Chibouk [Shibūk].
Christians [Architects, Armenians, Copts].
Circassian Mamlūks, 228, 235-254.
Citadel, 27, 65, 175-180, 196, 223, 232, 237, 242, 253, 288, 290.
Cloisters in mosques, 47, 79.
Coins, 59, 119, 201, 301.
Colleges, 111 [Medresa].
Commerce, 262-270 [Trade].
Commission for the Preservation of the Monuments of Arab Art, 160,
303-314.
Conquest, Mosque of, 42.
Constantinople, 173, 215, 298.
Convents, 118, 123, 128, 259.
Coppersmiths’ bāzār [Sūḳ-en-Naḥḥāsīn].
Copts, 38, 39, 44, 61-64, 68, 109, 120-123, 157; churches, 53-57, 61;
art, 55, 62, 85; persecutions, 61-3, 69, 122, 141, 183, 216-220.
Corbett, E. K., 43.
Corvée labour, 179.
Court, Mamlūk, 209.
„ of house, 13.
Cromer, Earl, 303, 313, 314.
“Crown of Mosques,” 42.
Crusades, 110, 111, 137, 164-173, 176, 181, 195, 196, 198, 201, 205,
217, 227.
Cumhdach, 56.
Cyprus, 205, 237.
Cyrus, patriarch of Alexandria, 37, 38.
D.
Dā‘īs, Shī‘a missionaries, 115.
Dam of canal, cutting the, 132, 145, 146.
Damascus, 59, 65, 88, 93, 103, 108, 149, 164-173, 204, 236; tiles, 56,
278, 298.
Damietta, 93.
Dār (mansion, hall), 271.
Dār-el-‘Adl (Hall of Justice), 207.
Dār-el-Ḥadīth (Hall of Tradition), 196.
Dār-el-‘Ilm (Hall of Science), 142, 160.
Dār-el-Ma’mūn (Ma’mūn’s palace), 159, 160, 185.
Dār-el-Wezīr (Palace of Vezīrs), 128, 160, 171; also a khān at Miṣr,
110.
Darb (street), 271.
Darmūn, ed-, gate of, 76.
Defterdār, palace, 289.
Dehlek, Red Sea port, 263.
Deylemīs, quarter, 128, 145, 146, 218.
Dhahab, Abū-dh- [Moḥammad Bey].
Dikka (tribune of mosque), 80.
Dīnār (half-guinea), 59.
Diodorus, 50.
Ḍirghām, eḍ-, Fāṭimid vezīr, 167, 168.
Disert Ulidh, 62.
Divorce, 19, 99.
Docks, 96, 132.
Dome, in mosques, 83-85, 228; in Coptic churches, 54.
Dome of the Air (Ḳubbat-el-Ḥawā), 65, 68, 75.
Dominicans, 217.
Donkeys, 109.
Druzes, 142, 143.
Dukas, 92, 99.
E.
Earthquakes, 92, 104, 195.
“Easterns, the,” 146.
Edessa, architects from, 153.
Embāba, battles at, 43.
Emesa, battles at, 204.
Emīr Akhōr, master of the horse, [Ḳāny Bek].
Emīrate or Government House, 65, 75, 94.
Emīrs, Mamlūk, 209 _ff._, 224, 235 _ff._
Epiphany tank, 54.
Eudoxus, 49.
Euphrates, 75, 205, 215, 237.
Europe, trade with, 91, 263-5.
Eutychius, 96.
Evetts, B.T.A., 122, 123.
Ezbek ibn Tutush, mosque, 295.
Ezbek el-Yūsufy, mosque, 249, 250.
Ezbekīya, 150, 260, 288, 291, 292, 295, 299.
F.
Fāḍil, el-, Ḳāḍy, 171, 191.
Faïence, 298 [Tiles].
Fā’iz, el-, Fāṭimid caliph, 158.
Fakahāny, el-, mosque, 159, 298.
Falconry, 215, 273.
Famine, 117, 143, 148, 194, 195, 207.
Farag, Mamlūk sultan, 241.
Farag [Bāb].
Far‘ūn, Maṣṭaba [Pharaoh].
Fasts, 44, 57, 94.
Fāṭima, 113, 116, 119.
Fāṭimids [Caliphs].
Felek, Ibn-el-, mosque, 259.
Ferghāna, architect from, 85.
Feudal system in East, 197, 198.
Festivals and festivities, 22-26, 94, 101-103, 128, 146, 204.
Fieffees or grantees, 72, 197.
Fiḳārīs, 289.
Fīl (elephant) [Birkat Gezīrat].
Fires, 104, 110, 218.
Firro, Ibn, 191.
Flabellum, 55.
Fleet, 72, 93, 116, 132, 134, 207, 254.
Flowers, 87, 108; market, 270.
Forgers, 297.
Fortress, 175 [Citadel].
Fortress, Roman [Babylon].
Fountain [Sebīl].
Franz Pasha, 304.
Frederick II., 195, 196, 280.
Fruits, 108, 270.
Fulcher, Geoffrey, 130-132.
Fum-el-Khalīg [Dam].
Funduḳ (hostelry), 111, 263-271.
Furāt, Ibn-el-, poet, 99.
Fusṭāṭ (Miṣr, Maṣr), 32, 36, 40-48, 50, 59-61, 64-69, 76, 86, 89,
91-112, 132, 134, 148, 174, 185, 186, 279.
Futūḥ [Bāb].
G.
Ga‘bary, el-, mosque, 259.
Gabarṭy, el-, historian, 44, 289, 295, 296.
Gāmi‘ (congregational mosque), 123, 187.
Gardens, 20, 57, 87, 89, 93, 96, 109, 145.
Garkas el-Khalīly, 266.
Garstin, Sir W. E., 304.
Gāshnekīr (taster) [Beybars II].
Gate [Bāb]—of Succour [Bāb-en-Naṣr], of Conquests [Bāb-el-Futūḥ], of
the Bridge [Bāb-el-Ḳanṭara], of Iron [Bāb-el-Ḥadīd], of el-Ḳaṭāi‘, 76.
Gawdarīya quarter, 128, 145.
Gawhar, Fāṭimid general, 117-127, 132, 141.
Gedīd [Bāb].
Gelfy, el-, 290.
Gemālīya, 128.
George, church of St, 56.
Gezīra, el- (island of Būlāḳ), 107.
Gezīrat-el-Fīl (island of the elephant), 257, 258.
Ghāzy, Ibn, mosque, 258.
Ghurāb, Ibn, mosque, 259.
Ghureyyib [Bāb].
Ghūrīya street, 6, 159, 253.
Ghūry, el-, Ḳānṣūh, Mamlūk sultan, 253-4, 264; mosques, 253.
Gidda, 263.
Giorgio Ghisi, Azzimina, 280.
Gīza, el-, 41, 92, 96, 109, 117, 123, 176.
Gīza, el-, dike of, 180.
Glass, 108, 232, 272, 286.
Golden Horde, 205, 206, 215, 223.
Golden House, 61;—87.
Governors under caliphs, 59-72.
Granaries, 48, 146.
Greeks, 49, 75, 236, 238, 241.
„ quarters of the, 128, 150.
Grey mosque (el-Aḳmar), 157, 158.
Gubeyr, Ibn, 111, 171, 176-187.
Guyūshy, el-, mosque, 139.
Gypsum, decoration in, 79, 85.
H.
Ḥadīd [Bāb].
Ḥāfiẓ, el-, Fāṭimid caliph, 122.
Ḥagg, Emīr-el-, 290.
Haggarīn, el-, 129.
Hair, appeal by, 158, 169.
Ḥakar (close), 271.
Ḥākim, el-, Fāṭimid caliph, 122, 137, 139-143; mosque, 107, 126,
137-139, 160, 163, 169, 188, 245, 282.
Hall of Columns, 223.
„ of Justice, 207.
„ of the Ḳāḍy, 271.
„ of el-Ma’mūn, 159, 160, 185.
„ of Science, 142, 160.
„ of Tradition, 196.
„ of the Vezīrs, 128, 171.
„ of Yūsuf, 179, 223.
Ḥamāh, 204, 220.
Ḥammām [Bath].
Ḥamrā (“red” place), 42, 65, 217.
Ḥamzāwy khān (cloth-market), 266.
Ḥanafīs, 97, 301.
Ḥanbalīs, 97.
Ḥāra (quarter), 128, 271.
Ḥarbaweyh, Ibn, 93.
Ḥarīm, 17-21.
Hārūn-er-Rashīd, ‘Abbāsid caliph, 66, 67, 147, 261.
Ḥasan, Mamlūk sultan, mosque of, 190, 228-235, 237, 245, 284, 306,
307.
Ḥasaneyn, mosque and festival, 23-26, 128, 181-183, 185.
Hawdag, 97, 157.
Ḥawkal, Ibn, geographer, 104.
Hay, Robert, 259, 260.
Heliopolis (On), 35, 37, 49, 118, 150, 254.
Helwān, 61.
Heraclius, emperor, 37.
Herz Bey, Max, 138, 160, 231, 238, 250, 282, 305 _ff._
Ḥigāz, el-, 104, 204.
Ḥigāzīya, Ṭaṭar el-, mosque, 224.
Historians, 286.
Holy family, 49, 56.
Holy War, 172, 173, 205, 216.
Horse-armour, 134, 145.
Horse, statue, 94.
Ḥoseyn, the martyr, 23, 114, 147, 181-183, 185; festival, 23-26.
Ḥoseyn, Mamlūk emīr, mosque, 224.
Ḥoseynīya quarter, 257, 259, 299.
Houses, 9-17; 109, 145, 290, 292, 308.
Household of Mamlūk sultan, 209.
Hugh of Cæsarea, 130-132.
Hūlāgū, Mongol of Persia, 203.
Humphrey of Toron, 193.
I.
Ibn. _See_ under second name.
Ibrāhīm Aga, 227, 298.
Iḥrām, 170.
Ikhshīd, el- Moḥammad, 93-100.
Illuminations, 23, 24, 95, 101.
Imām (preacher or precentor), 170, 171, 297.
Imām, Shī‘a doctrine of the, 114-116, 154.
Incarnation, 114-116, 142, 143.
Incrustation [Metalwork].
Indian trade, 91, 211, 254, 263-5.
Industries, 271 _ff._
Inlaying, 272 _ff._
Inscriptions, 80, 85, 124, 138, 154, 160, 163, 245, 246.
Investiture, 94, 206.
Irish art, 54-56, 62.
Irrigation, 196, 207, 253.
Ismā‘īlīs (Shī‘a), 116, 157, 205.
Ismā‘īlīya canal, 258.
Ismā‘īly [Arghūn].
Italy, relations with, 263, 280 [Venice].
Ivory carving, 284.
J.
Jacobites, 38.
Jaffa, 172, 205.
James of Aragon, 206.
James of Lusignan, 237.
Janizaries, 288.
Jerusalem, 167, 172, 193, 196, 205.
Jews, 44, 50, 86, 120, 121, 122.
Jews’ work, 280.
John de Brienne, 195.
John the Monk, 153.
John of Nikiu, 34, 35.
Joseph’s granaries, 48, 146.
Joseph’s Hall, 179, 223.
Joseph’s Well, 179.
K.
Ka‘a, 17.
Ka‘ba, 132, 150.
Ḳāḍy, 33, 69.
Kāfūr, Ikhshīdid vezīr, 100-104.
Kāfūr, Garden of, 93, 104, 118, 126, 128, 139, 188.
Kagmās, Mamlūk emīr, mosque, 250, 311.
Ḳāhira, el- (Cairo proper), 118 _ff._
Ḳā’it-Bey, el-Ashraf, Mamlūk sultan, 238, 241-250; medallion, 246;
mosques, 242-249, 284, 285; pulpits, 245; palace, 270; wekālas, 246,
249, 266.
Ḳal‘at-el-Gebel (Castle of the Hill) [Citadel].
Ḳal‘at-el-Kebsh (Castle of the Ram), 90, 121.
Ḳalā’ūn, el-Manṣūr, Mamlūk sultan, 203, 204, 211, 212, 269, 273, 278;
Māristān, 126, 300; minaret, 139; mosques, 212, 245, 283, 285.
Ḳalendarīya, el-, mosque, 259.
Kāmil, el-, Ayyūbid sultan, 179, 195, 196, 216; medresa Kāmilīya, 196.
Ḳanāṭīr-el-Gīza, 180.
Ḳanṭara [Bāb].
Ḳāny Bek, emīr akhōr (master of the horse), 250.
Ḳarāfa, southern cemetery, 184, 185, 227; mosque of, 133, 134 [Bāb].
Ḳarāḳūsh, vezīr of Saladin, 176, 179; khān, 270.
Ḳarāḳūsh (Punch), 25, 176.
Ḳarmaṭīs [Carmathians].
Ḳārūn, pool of, 104.
Ḳāsimīs, 289.
Ḳaṣr (palace), 289.
Ḳaṣr-el-‘Ayny, 107.
Ḳaṣr-ed-Dubāra, 107.
Ḳaṣr-esh-Shawk, 145.
Ḳaṣr-esh-Shema‘, 41 [Babylon].
Ḳaṣr-Yūsuf (Joseph’s Hall), 179, 223.
Ḳaṣreyn [Beyn-el-Ḳaṣreyn].
Ḳaṭāi‘, el-, Ṭūlūnid faubourg, 33, 75, 76, 89, 107.
Ḳayrawān, 116, 117.
Ḳayṣarīya (great market), 266, 271.
Keelform arch, 124, 138.
Kells, Book of, 55.
Kenna, Ibn, monk, 157.
Kerbelā, 114, 119.
Ketkhudā (kiaḥyā, kikhyā), 290, 298, 299.
Kettāmy, el-, painter, 134.
Keymakhty, el-, mosque, 259.
Khabushāny, el-, 184.
Khalangy, el-, 91.
Khalāṭy, el-, 94.
Khalīg [Canal].
Khalīl, el-Ashraf, Mamlūk sultan, 210, 211, 223; ‘Akka gate.
Khalīly, Garkas el-, 266 [Khān].
Khān (inn), 109, 265-271.
Khān el-Khalīly, 24, 126, 128, 210, 266.
Khāriga, 19.
Kharḳ [Bāb].
Khaṭīb (preacher), 170, 171, 297.
Khaṭīry, el-, Aydemir, mosque, 258.
Khaṭma (recital of Ḳor’ān), 22, 25.
Khawkha, 271 [Bāb].
Kheyr Bek, 254; mosque, 250.
Khilāṭy, el-, mosque, 259.
Khumāraweyh ibn Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn, 87-89, 92.
Khūshḳadam, Mamlūk sultan, 236.
Khuṭba (bidding-prayer, sermon), 170, 171.
Khuṭṭ (district), 271.
Kiaḥyā (Kikhya), 290 [‘Abd-er-Raḥmān, ‘Othmān, Ruḍwān].
Ḳibla (point towards Mekka), 78, 80.
Kieman, Casr, 41.
Killis, Ibn, Fāṭimid vezīr, 137.
Kindy, el-, historian, 100.
King, title of Fāṭimid vezīrs, 159.
Kiosks, 95, 109, 291.
Kipchak, 202, 205.
Kiswa (holy carpet), 22.
Kitāma, 146; quarter, 128.
Kléber, general, 49.
Knighthood conferred on Muslims, 193.
Ḳor’ān, 67-69, 88, 97, 107, 149, 185, 212, 232, 246.
Ḳubbat-el-Ḥawā [Dome of the air].
Ḳubbat-en-Naṣr, 223.
Kufic [Inscriptions].
Kufīya, 2.
Ḳulla, 11.
Kumiz, 207.
Ḳuseyr, el-, convent, 219.
Ḳuseyr, Red Sea port, 263.
Ḳūṣūn, Mamlūk emīr, 197, 216, 235, 291; mosque, 224, 283, 296; wekāla,
270.
Ḳuṭb [Mutawelly].
Ḳuṭuz, Mamlūk sultan, 203, 207.
L.
Labour, forced, 179.
Lāgīn, Mamlūk sultan, 211; his restoration of mosque of Ibn-Ṭūlūn, 80,
83, 283, 285.
Lamps, 108; enamelled glass, 232, 272.
Lamps, Street of, at Miṣr, 108, 111.
Lane, E. W., 259, 266.
Larenda, 237.
Lattice [Meshrebīya].
Lectern, 56.
Le Strange, Guy, 111, 171.
Leylet-el-Ghiṭās, 95.
Libraries, 148, 171, 292, 295.
Lions’ Bridges, 42, 217.
Literature, 95, 98-100, 103, 120, 124, 295, 296.
Līwān (sanctuary, S.-E. end of mosque), 80.
Lock, 12.
Louis IX., crusade of, 198, 201, 217.
Lūḳ [Bāb].
Lunatics, 186, 300.
M.
Macer [Miṣr].
Mādarā’y, el-, treasurer, 92, 93.
Maghraby, Ibn-el-, mosque, 259.
Mahdy, el-, doctrine of, 115, 116, 154, 157.
Maḥmal, 22.
Maḥmūd el-Kurdy, 280.
Maḥmūdīya canal, 260.
Maḥmūdīya mosque, 289.
Maḥrūḳ [Bāb].
Maḥrūsa, el-, 125.
Maidens’ convent, 217.
Maḳrīzy, el-, topographer, 41 et passim.
Maḳs, el-, port of Cairo, 96, 132, 174, 175; mosques, 141, 189, 260.
Maḳṣūra (royal pew), 223.
Mālikīs (orthodox school of theology), 97, 185, 292.
Mamā’y, palace of Mamlūk emīr, 270.
Mamlūks, 197-301.
Ma’mūn, el-, ‘Abbāsid caliph, 68.
Ma’mūn, el-, Fāṭimid vezīr [Dār].
Mandara (manẓara, guest-room), 14.
Manfred, 206.
Mangak, Mamlūk emīr, mosque, 224.
Manṣūra, el-, battle, 198, 208.
Manṣūrīya, el-, quarter of Sūdānīs, 181.
Manṣūrīya medresa (Ḳalā’ūn), 83.
Manẓara (belvedere), 90, 271.
Marble mosaic, 246.
Marg-Dābiḳ, battle, 254.
Marg-es-Suffar, battle, 204.
Māridāny, el-, Mamlūk emīr, mosque, 224, 283-285, 314.
Māristāns, 126, 185, 186, 212, 224, 238, 300.
Marshūshy, el-, ‘Aly, 242.
Martyrs, Place of, 185.
Marwān, last Omayyad caliph, 64, 65.
Maskat vines, 99.
Masmūda, 145, 146.
Maṣr (for Miṣr, name of Egypt and of its capital), 33 [Fusṭāṭ, Miṣr].
Maṣr-el-‘Atīḳa (old Miṣr, “Old Cairo”), 34, 36, 41, 48, 107, 146, 253.
Maṣṭaba Far‘ūn (Pharaoh’s Seat), 90.
Mas‘ūdy, el-, historian, 95, 96.
Maṭarīya, el-, 48; battle, 49.
Medallion of Ḳā’it-Bey, 246.
Medīna, el-, 104, 144, 182, 205.
Medresa (academy, college), 111, 173, 183-192, 224, 250, 298 [Mosque].
Mekka, 22, 86, 104, 132, 205, 253, 263, 299.
Melekites (orthodox Greek church), 38, 39, 121, 219.
Melons, ‘Abdallāwy, 68.
Memdūd, Ibn, 66.
Memphis, 34, 37, 41.
Menageries, 75, 88, 134.
Menāẓir-el-Kebsh (belvederes of the ram), 90.
Mercurius, St., 121.
Mercury, lake of, 87.
Mesgid, 188 [Mosque].
Meshrebīya, 5, 11, 284, 285.
Mesopotamia, 86, 115, 116.
Mesrūr, khān of, 266, 268.
Metal-work, 108, 271-280, 310.
Meydān (racecourse), 75, 271.
Meymūn, Ibn, 114.
Mibkhara (censer), 138.
Mihmandār (master of the ceremonies), Aḥmad, Mamlūk emīr, mosque, 224.
Miḥrāb (niche for prayer in mosque), 80, 83, 163, 231, 299.
Mina, St, 217.
Minarets, 43, 83; of Ibn-Ṭūlūn, 83; of el-Ḥākim, 83, 138, 139; of
Ḳalā’ūn and Āḳbughā, 83; of el-Mu’ayyad, 153, 238; of Sultan Ḥasan,
232, 307.
Minbar [Pulpit].
Miska, Sitta, mosque, 224.
Miṣr (Maṣr), 34-36, 41, 42 [Fusṭāṭ].
Missionaries, Shī‘a, 115.
Mo‘allaḳa, el-, church, 56, 57, 218.
Moḥammad, the Prophet, 20, 95, 113.
Moḥammad ‘Aly, viceroy, 179, 302; mosque, 301; street, 302.
Moḥammad Bey, Abū-dh-Dhahab, 301.
Moḥammad el-Mādarā’y, treasurer, 92, 93.
Moḥammad ibn Suleymān, ‘Abbāsid general, 89.
Moḥammad ibn ez-Zubeyr, 36.
Moḥarram festival, 22, 23, 119.
Mo‘izz, el-, Fāṭimid caliph, 116-119, 125-127, 129, 132, 133, 147.
Mōlids (birthday festivals), 22.
Monasteries, 61, 123, 128.
Mongols, 203, 204, 236.
Monks, 62, 123, 219.
Monopolies, 264.
Mosaic, 246.
Mōṣil artists, 272 _ff._
Mosques:—
Abū-dh-Dhahab [Moḥammad Bey], 301.
Abū-l-‘Olā, 260.
Abū-s-Su‘ūd, 258.
Aḳbughā, 224, 299.
Akhdar [Fakahāny].
Aḳmar, 157, 160, 227.
Aḳsunḳur, 223, 224, 227, 245, 298.
Aḳūsh, 259.
Algibughā, 259.
Almās, 224, 289.
Almelik, 224, 259.
‘Amr, 42-48, etc. [_q.v._].
Anwar [Ḥākim].
Arghūn el-Ismā‘īly, 224, 227.
Ashraf, 238, 250.
‘Askar, 65.
Asunbugha, 311.
Asyūṭy, 259.
Aydemir [Khaṭīry].
Azhar, 123-5, etc. (_q.v._).
Barḳūḳ, 241, 250.
„ and Farag, 241, 245.
Bars-Bey, 238, 250.
Bāsiṭy, 259.
Benāt, 311.
Beshtāk, 224.
Beybars, Ẓāhir, 207, 212, 218.
Beybars, Gāshnekīr, 128.
Burdeyny, 298.
Emīr Akhōr [Ḳāny Bek].
Ezbek ibn Tutush, 295.
Ezbek el-Yūsufy, 249, 250.
Fakahāny, 159, 298.
Farag [Barḳūḳ].
Felek, Ibn-el-, 259.
Ga‘bary, 259.
Ghāzy, Ibn, 258.
Ghurāb, Ibn, 259.
Ghūry, 253.
Guyūshy, 139.
Ḥākim, 107, 126, 137-9 (_q.v._).
Ḥasan, 190, 224, 228-37, 245, 284, 306.
Ḥasaneyn, 128, 181-185.
Ḥigāzīya, 224.
Ḥoseyn, emīr, 224.
Ibrāhīm Aga (Aḳsunḳur), 227, 298.
Ismā‘īly [Arghūn].
Ḳagmās, 250, 311.
Ḳā’it-Bey, 242-9, 284, 285.
Ḳalā’ūn, 212, 245, 283, 285.
Ḳalendarīya, 259.
Kāmilīya, 196.
Ḳāny Bek, emīr Akhōr, 250.
Ḳarāfa, 133, 134.
Keymakhty, 259.
Khaṭīry, 258.
Kheyr Bek, 250.
Khilāṭy, 259.
Ḳūṣūn, 224, 283, 296.
Maghraby, Ibn-el-, 259.
Maḥmūdīya, 289.
Maḳs, 141, 189, 260.
Mangak, 224.
Māridāny, 224, 283-5, 314.
Mihmandār, 224.
Miska, Sitta, 224.
Moḥammad ‘Aly, 301.
Moḥammad Bey, 300.
Mu’ayyad, 232, 250, 284-5, 297, 311.
Muzhir (Mazhar) Abū-Bekr ibn, 250, 285, 309-311.
Nāṣir in Citadel, 179, 223.
„ Naḥḥāsīn, 220, 223.
Naṣr, 259.
Nefīsa, Seyyida, 202, 206, 223, 300.
Rāshida, 141.
Ṣāliḥ Ayyūb, 212, 282.
Ṣāliḥ Ṭalāi‘.
Ṣarghitmish, 224.
Ṣārim, Ibn-, 259.
Sāriyat-el-Gebel, 185.
Sārūgā, 259.
Sennānīya, 301.
Sengar el-Gāwaly, 224.
Seyf-ed-dīn, 185.
Shāfi‘y, Imām, 184, 225, 296, 298, 300.
Shem, 129.
Sheykhū, 224, 284.
Ṭabbākh, Ibn-eṭ, 258.
Ṭalāi‘ ibn Ruzzīk, 163, 167.
Ṭawāshy, 258.
Ṭaybars, 217, 299.
Ṭulbīya, 215.
Ṭūlūn, Aḥmad ibn, 77-86 [_q.v._].
Yūnus, 258, 259.
Ẓāhir [Beybars].
Zeyneb, Seyyida, 185, 299.
Zeyn-ed-dīn Yaḥyā, 311.
[See also Table of Monuments, pp. 317-22].
Mu’ayyad, el-, Mamlūk sultan, 238; mosque, 10, 126, 232, 250, 284,
285, 297, 298, 311.
Mudarrag [Bāb].
Muedhdhin or Muezzin (prayer crier), 43.
Muḳaṭṭam, el-, hills, 41, 42, 59, 65, 88, 121, 134, 142, 175, 219.
Muḳawḳis, el-, Roman governor of Egypt, 37-39.
Mule, Convent of the, 219.
Murād Bey, 43, 44.
Mūsā el-‘Abbāsy, governor, 67.
Muṣallā-l-‘Id (oratory of the Festival), 141.
Musebbiḥy, el-, author, 99, 100.
Museum of Arab Art, 85, 138, 163, 282, 304, 305, 312.
Museum, British, 272, 273.
„ South Kensington, 272, 282, 283.
Music, 102.
Musky street, 6, 126.
Mustanṣir, el-, Fāṭimid caliph, 144-154, 259.
Mutanebby, el-, poet, 100.
Mutawelly, Ḳuṭb el-, 10 [Bāb-Zuweyla].
Muwaffaḳ, el-, ‘Abbāsid, 86.
Muzhir (Mazhar), Abū-Bekr ibn, Ḳāḍy, mosque, 250, 285, 309-311.
N.
Naḥḥāsīn [Sūḳ].
Narthex, 54.
Nāṣir, en-, title of Saladin, 176.
Nāṣir, en-, Moḥammad, Mamlūk sultan, 90, 204, 209-228; mosque in
Citadel, 179, 223; mosque in Naḥḥāsīn, 220, 223; artistic epoch, 279,
282, 284.
Nāṣir, en-, pool of, 217.
Nāṣir-i-Khusrau, philosopher and traveller, 83, 107-110, 127, 129,
132, 144, 145.
Naṣr [Bāb, Ḳubba].
Naṣr ibn ‘Abbās, 158.
Nefīsa, Seyyida, 202, 206, 223, 300.
Nestorius, Ibn, Fāṭimid vezīr, 122.
Niche of mosque [Miḥrāb].
Night of the Bath, 95.
Nikiu, John, bishop of, 35.
Nile, change of bed, 107, 257, 259; festivals, 95, 96, 132, 146.
Nilometers, 61, 85, 96, 147; mosque of, 253.
Niẓām-el-mulk, Seljūḳ vezīr, college of, 190.
Nubians, 35, 36, 62.
Nūr-ed-dīn, sultan of Damascus, 167, 190, 191, 198.
O.
‘Okba, 185.
Old Cairo [Maṣr-el-‘Atīḳa].
‘Omar, caliph, 34, 40.
‘Omar, secretary, 67.
‘Omāra, poet, 160.
Omayyads [caliphs].
On, 49 [Heliopolis].
Osāma, treasurer, 96.
Osāma ibn Munkidh, Arab chief, 158.
‘Othmān Bey Dhū-l-Fiḳār, 289, 290.
‘Othmān Ketkhudā, 299.
‘Othmānly (Osmānli, Ottoman) Turks, 49, 206; mosques, 298-301.
P.
Palaces, Fāṭimid, 126-8, 130, 131, 160; Mamlūk, 223, 270, 274,
288-290; Ṭūlūnid, 75, 76, 87, 88.
Patriarchs, 37, 38, 61, 62, 121, 122, 219.
Paulus Ageminius, 280.
Pavilions, 88, 127, 139.
Pelusium, 34.
Perfumes, 102, 134, 273.
Persia, Mongol khāns of, 203, 206.
Persian arch, 124, 138, 153; art, 133, 280; troops, 146.
Pharaoh’s Oven, 78; Seat, 90.
Physicians, 86, 120, 128.
Pictures, 53, 55, 133.
Pigeon post, 208; tower, 87.
Pilgrims, 22.
Plague, 117.
Planets, 273.
Plaster-work, 79, 85, 245.
Plato, 49.
Pococke, R., 41.
Poets, 98-101.
Polo, 76.
Pottery, 108.
Preacher, 170, 171, 297.
Professors, 97, 107, 124, 297, 300, 301.
Pulpit (minbar), 43, 57, 80, 283, 284, 299.
Punch (Ḳarāḳūsh), 25.
Q.
Quicksilver Lake, 87.
R.
Raḥba (square), 271.
Rā’ik, Ibn, 93.
Rain, prayers for, 44.
Ram, Castle of the, 90.
Ramaḍān, fast, 44, 57, 94.
Ramla, er-, Peace of, 172.
Rashīd [Hārūn].
Rāshida, mosque at, 141.
Raṭly, Birkat-el-, 259.
Ravaisse, M., 128.
Red [Ḥamrā]; tower, 202; sea, 205.
Rents, 145, 195, 266, 270.
Restoration of mosques, 309-312.
Revenue, 59.
Review, 94.
Rhodes, 237; tiles, 56, 298.
Riwāḳs (partitions in Azhar), 291.
Rōḍa, er-, Island, 61, 65, 94-96, 109, 132, 157, 198.
Rogers, E. T., 206, 304.
Romans (Eastern Empire), 34, 35, 39, 58, 86.
Ruḍwān, Fāṭimid vezīr, 158.
Ruḍwān el-Gelfy, 290, 291.
Ruḳeyya, Seyyida, 163.
Rūm, Ḥārat-er-, 128, 145.
Rumeyla, 75, 179, 219, 253.
Ruzzīk, 159 [Ṭalāi‘].
S.
Sa‘āda [Bāb].
Ṣafīya, Seyyida, mosque, 298.
Sāg (teak wood), 76.
Sa‘īd, Ibn, 44, 94, 96, 112, 262.
Sāḳiya (water-wheel), 258.
Saḳḳa (water carrier), 109, 299.
Saladin (Ṣalāḥ-ed-dīn), Ayyūbid sultan, 33, 159, 164-193, 198, 212,
216.
Sālār, Ibn es-, Fāṭimid vezīr, 158, 167.
Ṣalība (crossway) street, 288.
Ṣāliḥ, eṣ-, Ayyūb, 90, 198, 212, 217, 269; tomb, 212, 282.
Ṣāliḥ, eṣ- [Ṭalāi‘].
Ṣāliḥ, Abū-, 122, 153.
Salomonis opus, 280.
Sanctuary [Līwān].
Saphadin [‘Ādil].
Sarga, Abu-, 56.
Ṣarghitmish, Mamlūk emīr, 235; mosque, 224.
Ṣārim, Ibn, mosque, 259.
Sāriyat-el-Gebel, 185.
Sārūgā, mosque, 259.
Sawākin, 205, 215, 263.
Schefer, C., 107.
Schools or sects of Islām, 97, 190, 208, 300.
Screens, Coptic, 53-55, 57.
Sebīl (street fountain), 249, 253, 299.
Sebīl, khān of the, 270.
Sekīna, Seyyida, 299.
Selīm, ‘Othmānly sultan, 254.
Seljūḳs, sultans of western Asia, 164, 167, 190, 203.
Sennānīya, es-, mosque, 301.
Sengar el-Gāwaly, mosque, 224.
Sergius, St, 56.
Severus, bishop of el-Ushmūneyn, 121.
Seyf-ed-din, college, 185 [‘Ādil].
Seyfeyn, Abū-s-, 121.
Sha‘bān, el-Ashraf, Mamlūk sultan, 90.
Shāfi‘īs, 97, 185, 301.
Shāfi‘y, esh-, Imām, mosque, 184, 225, 296, 298, 300.
Sharā’iby family, 292.
Shāri‘ (street), 6.
Shāwar, Fāṭimid vezīr, 110, 159, 167-169.
Sheger-ed-durr, ‘Aṣmat-ed-dīn, Mamlūk queen, 198, 201, 202, 212.
Shem, son of Noah, muṣallā of, 129.
Sherbetly, 3.
Sheykh-el-beled, 288.
Sheykh-el-Islām, 236.
Sheykhū, Mamlūk emīr, 235; mosque, 224, 284.
Shī‘a, 113-120, 180-182.
Shibūk, 5, 288.
Shipbuilders’ island, 96.
Shīrkūh, 168-170.
Shops, 6-9, 24, 108, 145.
Shubrawy, esh-, Aḥmad, 295, 296.
Silversmiths, 272 _ff._
Slaves, 197, 236, 269, 288.
Slavonians, 139.
Smoking, 288.
Spain, refugees from, 67.
Statues, 87.
Stone-work, 138, 139, 245, 284.
Strabo, 49, 50.
Streets of Cairo, 271.
Striped decoration, 50.
Striped Palace (Ḳaṣr-el-Ablaḳ), 223.
Stucco-work, 79, 85, 245, 284.
Sūdān trade, 108, 134; students, 299.
Sūdānīs, black troops, 75, 89, 127, 130, 143, 144, 146, 147, 148, 181.
Suez, 263.
Sūḳ (bazar, market), 271;—Sūḳ-en-Naḥḥāsīn, 93, 126, 185.
Sukkarīya (sugar bāzār), 159, 238.
Sun-dials, 296.
Sunnīs (orthodox Muslims), 113, 119.
Superstition, 297.
Surūgīya, 266.
Syria, 75, 89, 93, 137, 143, 144, 164-173, 175, 196, 203-207, 217, 301
[Damascus].
Syrian trade, 269, 270.
T.
Ṭabary, eṭ-, historian, 95.
Ṭabāṭabā poets, 98.
Ṭabbākh, Ibn-eṭ-, mosque, 258.
Ṭāhir, Ibn, 43, 67.
Ṭalāi‘ ibn Rūzzīk, Fāṭimid vezīr, 158, 159; mosque, 163, 167.
Ṭamweyh, monastery, 61.
Ṭarsūs, 72, 75, 86.
Ṭawāshy, eṭ-, mosque, 258.
Taxes, 36, 60, 72, 134, 207, 216, 241, 253.
Ṭaybars, Mamlūk emīr, mosque, 217; medresa, 299.
Ṭaylasan, 170.
Templars, 158.
Ṭendunyās, 35.
Tent [Fusṭāṭ]; state tents, 148.
Textus case, 56.
Thedosius, edict of, 38.
_Thousand and One Nights_, 261-263.
Throne, ‘Abbāsid, 144.
Tiles, 56, 298, 299.
Tīmūr (Tamerlane), 237.
Tīmūrbughā, 238, 241.
Tombs, 83, 84, 89, 101, 184, 185, 228 [Mosque].
Ṭōr, eṭ-, 263.
Trade, transit, 91, 262-265.
Treasurers, 92, 93.
Treaty, Arab, 35-37.
Tripolis, 167, 205.
Truffles, 134.
Ṭulbīya, wife of en-Nāṣir, 215.
Ṭūlūn, Aḥmad ibn, 72-87, 197, 212; faubourg and palace, 75-77; mosque,
77-86, 107, 187, 188, 245, 281-3, 285, 289; Nilometer, 96.
Ṭūmān-Bey, 254.
Tunis, 116.
Turkish governors, 70 _ff._; troops, 139, 143, 147-149.
Tyre, 167.
Tyre, William of, 33, 130-132, 168.
U.
‘Ulamā (learned men), 300, 302.
Umarā, Hārat-el- (emīrs’ quarter), 145.
Umm-Duneyn, 34, 35.
Umm-Khalīl, 201.
Umm-Kulthūm, 185.
Ustaddār (major domo).
‘Uṭūfīya quarter, 128.
University [Azhar].
V.
Valle, Pietro della, 232.
Venice, consuls, 237, 263-265; art, 277, 279, 280.
Vezīrs’ Palace, 128, 171.
Vezīrs, Fāṭimid, 147 _ff._
W.
Waḳf (religious trusts), 302-5, 311-313.
Wālīs [Governors].
Walls of Cairo, 118, 123, 125-128, 150.
Wardān, 36.
Wards [Ḳaṭāi‘].
Watermills, the Seven, 42, 217.
Watson, Colonel C. M., 223.
Wekāla (hostelry), 265-267.
Well in Citadel, 179.
Wine, 98, 99, 102, 140, 207.
Women, 4, 11, 18-20, 117, 121, 122, 140, 141, 144, 159, 160, 198, 201,
202, 212, 215.
Wood-work, 281-285, 310.
Y.
Yānis, Fāṭimid vezīr, 154.
Yāzūry, el-, Fāṭimid vezīr, 122, 146-148.
Yelbughā, Mamlūk emīr, 160.
Yenbu‘, port of Mekka, 263.
Yeshbek, Mamlūk emīr, palace, 270.
Yeshkur, hill, 65, 75, 78, 90.
Yūnus, mosque, 258, 259.
Z.
Ẓāfir, eẓ-, Fāṭimid caliph, 158; mosque, 159.
Ẓāhir, eẓ-, Fāṭimid caliph, 148, 298.
Ẓāhir, eẓ- [Beybars Barḳūḳ].
Zawīla or Zuweyla [Bāb]; quarter, 128, 145, 218.
Zāwiya (chapel), 189, 259.
Zemzem, 150.
Zeyneb, Seyyida, 185, 299.
Zeyneby, ez-, poet, 99.
Zeyn-ed-dīn Yaḥya, mosque, 311.
Zeyn-el-‘Abidīn, 75, 185.
Ziggurat, 83.
Zikrs, 25.
Zodiac, 273.
Zubeyr, ez-, 36, 185.
Zuhry, ez-, church, 217.
Zuḳāḳ, 271.
Zureyḳ, 87.
Zuweyla [Bāb].
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: See my _Cairo Sketches_ (Virtue, 1897), 120-140.]
[Footnote 2: See _Cairo Sketches_, 174-5.]
[Footnote 3: See my _History of Egypt in the Middle Ages_, 4.]
[Footnote 4: On the very obscure subject of the Mukawkis see Dr A. J.
Butler’s recent paper in the _Proc. Soc. Bibl. Archæology_, 1902, in
which he seeks to identify the Mukawkis with Cyrus, the patriarch of
Alexandria. This identification, however, finds no support from any
Arabic authorities.]
[Footnote 5: Dr Butler’s suggestion is rather strengthened by Pococke’s
statement that in his time the Kasr-esh-Shema‘ was also known by the
name of “Casr Kieman.” It is not, however, quite certain that this Kasr-
esh-Shema‘ represents the principal part of Babylon. There was another
Roman building on a rocky hill, formerly washed by the Nile, south-east
of the Kasr-esh-Shema‘, which according to several Arabic writers quoted
by Makrízy was the town of Misr or Babylon besieged by ‘Amr, and
contained the fortress known as Kasr Babelyún. Possibly the remains of
this are commemorated in “Antar’s Stable,” of which massive foundations
exist. See Lane, _Cairo Fifty Years Ago_, 146. Traces of walls beside
the bed of the Nile have been noticed south of Masr el-‘Atíka, and it is
probable that here we have vestiges of the vanished pre-Muslim city of
Misr, guarded by its two forts. That Misr was a northern extension of
the old but decayed capital, Memphis, is not so impossible as it seems.
The distance it is true between the present ruins of Memphis and the
fortress of Babylon is over ten miles, but it must be remembered that
Memphis once had a circuit of seventeen miles, and stretched as far as
Giza.]
[Footnote 6: In later times the Hamra became known as the quarter of the
“Lions’ Bridges” (over the canal), so-called from the lions sculptured
on them, and the quarter of the “Seven Watermills,” referring to the
machines for raising the Nile water to the aqueduct. _Makrízy_, i. 286.]
[Footnote 7: See Mr E. K. Corbett’s exhaustive and masterly essay on
“the History of the Mosque of ‘Amr at Old Cairo” in _Journal of the
Royal Asiatic Society_, N.S., xxii., 1891.]
[Footnote 8: Lane, _Cairo Fifty Years Ago_, 142, 143.]
[Footnote 9: Jeremiah xliii. 13.]
[Footnote 10: See Dr A. J. Butler’s _Ancient Coptic Churches of Egypt_
(i. 86-9), which for the first time presents a thorough and scholarly
account of these wonderful monuments. Dr Butler’s zeal and research need
no praise of mine to augment their value, but I cannot resist this
opportunity of saying how grateful every one who is interested in the
art of Egypt must be to his admirable and laborious investigations of
every detail of Coptic antiquities. His work is the highest authority we
possess on this fascinating subject, and from it much of this
description is derived.]
[Footnote 11: The dinár was a gold coin of about the weight of a half-
guinea.]
[Footnote 12: For the annals of the governors see my _History of Egypt
in the Middle Ages_, 18-58.]
[Footnote 13: _Korán_, xliv. 50, and vii. 133; _History_, 37, 38.]
[Footnote 14: See _History_, 60-71; Makrízy, i. 313, 315.]
[Footnote 15: He is called by Makrízy merely a Nasrány, Christian, but
had he been a Greek he would certainly have been given the epithet Rúmy.
El-Mas‘údy gives a long account of the conversations of an aged and very
intelligent Copt of Upper Egypt, a great favourite with Ibn-Tulún, who
used to spend much time in his company and learned many curious things
from the ancient man.]
[Footnote 16: See _Art of the Saracens in Egypt_, 54-59. The grilles are
probably of later date.]
[Footnote 17: The _liwán_ of the mosque of Ibn-Tulún has been
considerably altered since its foundation. The vezír Bedr el-Gemály made
some repairs in 1077, after the injuries inflicted during the troubles
of el-Mustansir’s reign; and his son the vezír el-Afdal built a _mihráb_
in 1094; but the chief restoration was made in 1296 by the Mamlúk Sultan
Lagín, whose pulpit still stands in the mosque and bears his
inscriptions.]
[Footnote 18: Makrízy says (_Khitat_, ii. 284) that the minaret of the
small mosque of Akbugha included in the Azhar buildings and erected in
1331 was “the first minaret built of stone in the land of Egypt after
the Mansuríya” of Kalaún; from which we infer that Kalaún’s minaret (of
1284) was the first stone minaret known to the topographer. He would
probably not call the tower of Ibn-Tulún strictly a minaret, and he
evidently knew nothing of the stone minarets of the mosque of el-Hákim
(see below, p. 138).]
[Footnote 19: There is a small cupola over the niche, but this, like the
pulpit and most of the decoration of the liwán, belongs to the
restoration by Lagín in 1296. The central domed ablution tank is also a
later addition, replacing the original marble basin resting on columns
under a roof.]
[Footnote 20: There are some remarkable specimens of arabesque
woodcarving from the mosque of Ibn-Tulún in the Cairo Museum of Arab
Art.]
[Footnote 21: See M. van Berchem, _Notes d’Archéologie Arabe_, Extr. du
Journal Asiatique, 125 (1891).]
[Footnote 22: Makrízy, i. 318 ff.]
[Footnote 23: This curious building, of which a drawing is given on p.
177, was built (very probably on an ancient foundation) by Saladin’s
great-nephew es-Sálih about 1245, and was used as a royal palace. Here
the ‘Abbásid caliph Hakim was installed by Beybars. En-Násir rebuilt the
Castle (or Belvedere) of the Ram in 1323, and the emír Sarghitmish lived
there and built the gate and round towers. It was partly destroyed by
el-Ashraf Sha‘ban, and then used for tenements. Makrízy ii. 133.]
[Footnote 24: Ibn-Sa‘íd, ed. Tallqvist, Arabic text, 14.]
[Footnote 25: The Ikhshíd had a passion for amber, and people used to
give him quantities of it at the New Year and Spring festivals, and he
would sell it for great sums. After his death his widow’s house was
burnt down, and with it £50,000 worth of amber (Ibn-Sa‘íd).]
[Footnote 26: Mas‘údy, _Murúg_, ii. 364, 365. He met the historian
Eutychius at Misr, and it was there that he finished the work entitled
_Kitáb et-Tenbíh_ in A.H. 345.]
[Footnote 27: See my “Arab Classic,” in _Among my Books_, 90.]
[Footnote 28: See _History_, 88, 89, and Dr Tallqvist’s excellent
edition of part of Ibn-Sa‘id, 78 ff.]
[Footnote 29: See Makrízy, ii. 177, 114, 115, 163, 185, etc.]
[Footnote 30: Nasir-i-Khusrau, _Safar Náma_, ed. Schefer, 145 ff.]
[Footnote 31: See my _Saladin_, 93, and see below, p. 169.]
[Footnote 32: Ibn-Gubeyr, ed. Wright, 51. I owe this reference to Mr Guy
le Strange.]
[Footnote 33: Quoted in Makrízy, i. 341.]
[Footnote 34: As evidence may be cited his complete breach with the
Carmathians, although they were the source of the Fátimid revolution.
Twice they invaded Egypt shortly after the Fátimid conquest, in 971 and
again in 974, and even laid siege to Cairo, and forced their way through
one of the gates. The invincible hostility of Mo‘izz to these Arabian
brigands had doubtless a political basis, but had he held the advanced
views of the Shí‘a propaganda he would hardly have quarrelled with its
grand master.]
[Footnote 35: See my _History_, 103, 104.]
[Footnote 36: Abu-Sálih, ed. Evetts, fol. 35.]
[Footnote 37: There are numerous notices of this intimacy between the
caliphs and the Coptic monks in the work of the Armenian Christian Abu-
Salih, written between 1173 and 1208, and excellently edited,
translated, and annotated by Mr B. T. A. Evetts with the assistance of
Dr A. J. Butler (_The Churches and Monasteries of Egpyt_, Anecdota Oxon,
1895): see especially foll. 7_b_, 34_b_-36, 40_b_, 46_b_, 84_a_.]
[Footnote 38: Makrízy, i. 377.]
[Footnote 39: He is clearly referring to the _palace_ wall, for he
distinctly says that the _city_ wall did not then exist. Ed. Schefer,
128.]
[Footnote 40: _Mémoires de la Mission archéologique française au Caire_,
tomes i. and iii., to which every student of the Fátimid palaces should
refer.]
[Footnote 41: Zuweyla is the popular pronunciation; the correct form is
Zawíla, the name of a Berber tribe.]
[Footnote 42: Makrízy, i. 381.]
[Footnote 43: William of Tyre, _Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis
gestarum_, lib. xix., cap. 19, 20, epitomized in my _Saladin_, 86-88.
The embassy is not recorded by the Arabic chroniclers.]
[Footnote 44: _Safar Náma_, ed. Schefer, 126. Broad-bottomed tubs we
should call these ships.]
[Footnote 45: For details of Fátimid art and industries, see my _Art of
the Saracens_, 10, 163, 201, 241, etc.]
[Footnote 46: Makrízy, ii. 318.]
[Footnote 47: See M. van Berchem, _Notes d’Archéologie arabe_ (1891),
27-36.]
[Footnote 48: El-Hákim also built the “Oratory of the Feast”
(Musalla-l-‘Id) beside the Bab-en-Nasr, a mosque at Maks beside the
Nile, and another in the district called Ráshida to the south of Katái‘,
near Mukattam. See _History_, 126.]
[Footnote 49: It was even believed that the ‘Abbásid caliph would be
sent a prisoner to Cairo, and his Fátimid rival had a gilt cage
constructed for him, and spent a couple of million dinárs in preparing
the West Palace for his expected guest. The ‘Abbásid throne and royal
robes and turban were actually deposited in Cairo, and remained there
till the time of Saladin, who restored the robes, but the throne was
kept, and afterwards set up in the mosque of Beybars the Gashnekír. See
_History_, 139.]
[Footnote 50: Násir-el-Khusrau states that the city was then divided
into ten quarters, namely, the Hárat Bargawán, H. Zuweyla, H. el-
Gawdaríya (certain troops originally from Barbary), H. el-Umara (of the
emírs), H. ed-Deylima (Persians), H. er-Rum (Greeks), H. el-Batilíya
(originally some of Gawhar’s veterans), Kasr-esh-Shawk (a subsidiary
palace), ‘Abid-esh-Shera (bought slaves), H. el-Masámida (Masmúda
Berbers). He mentions only five gates: the Bab en-Nasr, B. el-Futúh, B.
el-Kantara, B. Zuweyla, and B. el-Khalíg.]
[Footnote 51: Makrízy gives an inventory of the caliph’s _objets de
virtù_ far too long to quote. It includes (apart from immense stores of
precious stones, plate, crystal and gold vases, rich brocades and cloth
of gold, and all kinds of pottery), cups of bezoar engraved with the
name of Harún er-Rashíd, enamelled plates, the gift of a Roman emperor
to ‘Azíz; the sword of the Prophet, the breastplate of the martyr
Hoseyn, the sword of Mo‘izz, and quantities of jewelled daggers,
javelins, and other arms; inlaid gold dishes, inkstands, etc.; chess
boards worked in gold on silk, with gold and silver, ivory and ebony
pieces; steel mirrors, amber cups, a table of sardonyx, a peacock of
gold with eyes of ruby and feathers of enamel, an antelope spotted with
pearls, and a turban, the jewels of which weighed 17 lbs.; thirty-eight
state-barges, one of silver; the caliph Záhir’s tent of gold thread
resting on silver poles, and the marquee of Yazúry, a mass of exquisite
designs which took fifty artists nine years to complete, the pole of
which was 120 feet high, and the circumference of the tent nearly 1000
feet.]
[Footnote 52: The verse of course refers to the battle of Bedr in the
early career of Mohammad.]
[Footnote 53: Abu-Sálih, f. 51_a_, Makrízy, i. 381. See the admirable
_Notes_ of M. van Berchem (1891), 37-72, for an architectural
examination of the walls and gates.]
[Footnote 54: Published by Mr H. C. Kay, _Journal R. Asiatic Soc._,
N.S., xviii., from a squeeze which he and I caused to be taken with some
difficulty when we were at Cairo in 1883.]
[Footnote 55: The scene is described by the Arab prince Osáma, who was
at Cairo at the time, and was a friend of ‘Abbás, the murderer both of
the vezír and of the caliph. See Derenbourg, _Vie d’Ousama_, 205-260.]
[Footnote 56: This palace, founded by an earlier vezír, was turned into
a college by Saladin. It stood near the present mosque of el-Ashraf in
the Ghuríya street.]
[Footnote 57: The mosque of ez-Záfir, founded by that caliph in 1129,
still exists at the corner of the Sukkaríya, and is known as the Gámi‘
el-Fakihiyín (or el-Fakahány), but it was entirely rebuilt in 1735.]
[Footnote 58: Herz Bey, _Catalogue of the National Museum of Arab Art_,
edited by S. Lane-Poole, xxiv.]
[Footnote 59: _Ibn-Gubeyr_, ed. Wright, 46, 47. This and the following
extracts from the travels of the Spanish Arab are translated by Mr Guy
le Strange.]
[Footnote 60: _Saladin_, 358-360.]
[Footnote 61: See M. van Berchem, _Notes_ (1891), 55, 68-70.]
[Footnote 62: Ibn-Gubeyr, ed. Wright, 49. See Makrízy, ii. 151, on the
“Kanatír el-Giza.”]
[Footnote 63: Ibn-Gubeyr, ed. Wright, 41, 42.]
[Footnote 64: Ibn-Gubeyr, ed. Wright, 44, 45. This intelligent traveller
to whom we owe so many interesting details of Saladin’s period, gives a
curious description of the great Karáfa cemetery to the south of Cairo,
which is one of the few places that carry one back to the days of the
Arab conquest. Here lie the bones of most of the early warriors and
poets and divines of the Town of the Tent, though nothing but tradition
identifies their graves now. In Ibn-Gubeyr’s time the identification was
evidently doubtful, for he declines to be responsible for what he has
taken from the histories, though he adds, piously, that “their
authenticity is above suspicion, if it please God.” Passing by such
legendary tombs as those of the Prophet Sálih, and Reuben son of Jacob,
and Pharaoh’s wife Asiya, we find descriptions of fourteen tombs of the
male descendants of ‘Aly and five women, each in its own beautiful
chapel with its keeper and endowment. Among them were Zeyn-el-‘Abidín,
the son of the martyr Hoseyn, Zeyneb his great-granddaughter, and Umm-
Kulthúm, the daughter of the sixth Imám Ga‘far es-Sádik. There were also
the tombs of ‘Okba, the standard-bearer of the Prophet, of Abu-l-Hasan
his goldsmith, of Sáriya of the Hill (who is also commemorated by a
mosque in the Citadel, though there is nothing to connect him with
Egypt), of two sons and a daughter of the caliph Abu-Bekr, of the son of
ez-Zubeyr the general under ‘Amr, of Ibn-‘Abd-al-Hakam, of el-Gawhary;
besides such notabilities as the Man of the Water-Pot, famous for
wonders, the man who quoted the Korán when he was laid in his grave, the
man who never spoke for forty years, and the bride to whom a miracle was
vouchsafed when she unveiled to her husband. There was the Place of the
Martyrs, where are buried the warriors who fell fighting for Islám under
Sáriya, and the plain was dotted all over with the mounds of their
graves. “All the buildings of the Karáfa, whether mosques or chapels,
give hospitable shelter to all learned and pious strangers, as well as
to mendicants, each building being provided with a grant of money, paid
monthly on behalf of the Sultan, and the same in the case with the
colleges both of Misr and Cairo. It was told us that the sum of those
grants exceeded 2000 Egyptian dinárs a month, which is equal to 4000
Morocco dinárs; and as to the great mosque of ‘Amr at Misr we were
informed that its revenues amounted to about thirty Egyptian dinárs a
day for its upkeep and the salaries of the guardians, precentors, and
Korán readers.”—_Ibid._ 42-6.]
[Footnote 65: Makrízy describes only nineteen _mesgids_ (apart from
those in the Karáfa cemetery), as compared with eighty-seven _gámi‘s_;
and all the nineteen seem to have been unimportant. They were chiefly of
Fátimid or Ayyúbid foundation, and situate outside the Zuweyla, Nasr,
Kantara, and Sa‘áda Gates, or in the garden of Kafúr, though three were
in or near Beyn-el-Kasreyn. None of them is standing now. Makrízy
enumerates twenty-five _Záwiyas_, all but one being Mamlúk foundations,
of which seven were outside the Bab-en-Nasr or B. el-Futúh, four outside
other gates, five at or near Maks. In short, mesgid would appear to be
applied in the Topographer’s time chiefly to the earlier suburban
chapels, and záwiya to outlying chapels of the Mamlúk period.]
[Footnote 66: _Saladin_, 20.]
[Footnote 67: The only coin known of Sheger-ed-durr is in the British
Museum (see my _Catalogue of Oriental Coins_, iv. p. 136). Her surname
was ‘Asmat-ed-din, “Defender of the Faith,” and her title Sultán.
“Sultana” is not an Arabic title.]
[Footnote 68: The extinction of the Crusaders was completed by the
conquest of Margat and Tripolis by Kalaún, and the storming of ‘Akka by
Khalíl in 1292: the few remaining cities fell immediately, and the work
of the Crusaders was wiped out.]
[Footnote 69: The tombs of two of the ‘Abbásid caliphs of Egypt and some
of their relations were discovered by E. T. Rogers Bey in 1883, close to
the mosque of Sitta Nefísa at the southern side of Cairo.]
[Footnote 70: Ibn-Batúta, ed. Defremery, i. 71-4.]
[Footnote 71: See plan, p. 190. Compare the elaborate work of Herz Bey,
_La Mosquée du Sultan Hasan_, full of admirable photographs, drawings,
reconstructions, and plans.]
[Footnote 72: _History of Egypt in the Middle Ages_, 344.]
[Footnote 73: Marble was not commonly used before the thirteenth
century, when it began to be veneered on portals. It is best seen in
tessellated pavements and mural mosaics. The latter, composed of pieces
of various coloured marbles, were either set in mortar or let into a
solid marble slab.]
[Footnote 74: When I was in Cairo in 1883 I made paper squeezes
(strengthened by layers of plaster of Paris mixed with glue) of the
whole of the ornament of this wekála, and plaster casts made from these
squeezes may now be examined in one of the galleries of the Museum at
South Kensington.]
[Footnote 75: See M. van Berchem, _Corpus Inscr. Arabic._, 533 ff., for
an exhaustive discussion of the development of the _plan cruciforme
déformé_.]
[Footnote 76: Makrízy, ii. 130, 131.]
[Footnote 77: _Cairo Fifty Years Ago_, 34, 35.]
[Footnote 78: D. A. Cameron, _Egypt in the Nineteenth Century_, 14, 15.]
[Footnote 79: Makrízy, ii. 91 _ff._]
[Footnote 80: _Khitat_, ii. 105.]
[Footnote 81: See Herz Bey, _Catalogue of the Arab Museum_, 47, 48, a
little handbook which is invaluable to students of Saracenic art.]
[Footnote 82: See my _Art of the Saracens_, 111-150, for detailed
descriptions of these exquisite carvings.]
[Footnote 83: By “deputy” is meant the Ketkhuda, commonly pronounced
Kiahya, or in Egypt Kikhya, who was the deputy of the pasha, and often
corresponded loosely with what we should call Minister of the Interior
or Home Secretary.]
[Footnote 84: Gabarty, ii. 124-143.]
[Footnote 85: Pulled down in 1869. It was built by the famous emír Ezbek
ibn Tutush, from whom the Ezbekíya took its name.]
[Footnote 86: M. van Berchem describes some curious sun-dials in his
_Notes d’Archéologie arabe_ (1892), 13-18. One was set up in the mosque
of Ibn-Tulún in 696 (1296) by Lagín; another may still be seen in the
mosque of Kusún, and is dated 785 (1383); a third exists in the tomb-
mosque of Inál, and bears the date 871 (1466).]
[Footnote 87: [This has been done in the case of Sultan Hasan in the
sumptuous work, _La Mosquée du Sultan Hassan au Caire_, par Max Herz
Bey, published by the Commission, 1899.]]
[Footnote 88: All these are now completed.]
[Footnote 89: Monuments still standing, or of which parts still remain,
are distinguished by an asterisk. An obelus † indicates a restoration on
the same site. b stands for ibn (son). Tables for converting Hijra dates
into A.D. are given at the end.]
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