Chapter I: 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.