The mosques of ancient Cairo are numerous and omnipresent. There are more than 3,000 and the city could well be known as the City of Mosques. The mosques stand one beside another along the streets, sometimes two, three and four in a row. At places, they lean against one another and to an inexperienced eye, they look like a single mosque for they seem to have merged.
The minarets of the mosque shoot up into the air, embellished with arabesques, carved, and decorated with changing times. These mosques have their little balconies, their rows of little columns which allow light into the mosque. Some of the mosques are far away; others are close by, their minarets pointing to the sky. No matter where one looks, he is greeted with mosques. Their colors are similar, a brown turning into rose. Once inside, there are corridors that are astonishingly lofty.
A visitor is immediately greeted by a sense of coolness and experiences a feeling of peace from all sides. He begins to be filled with a spirit of devotion, and he instinctively keeps his voice low for fear of disturbing others within. In the narrow streets outside, there are the clamorous noises of crowds, the cries of the sellers and the noise of traders with men and beasts jostling one another. However, in the mosque, there is complete silence, broken only by prayers from the devout, and the sweet songs of birds from the garden outside, enclosed by high walls.
The mosques are visited by devout Muslims five times a day. At other times, there are those who isolate themselves in chosen corners to read from morning till night from the Holy Qur’an and ponder the mysteries of Creation, their purpose in life, and of the sure and certain death awaiting every human. They can be seen with their white turbans, beards and serious faces. The mosque is also a home for poor homeless people, who come there to seek the hospitality of God and sleep stretched to their full lengths on mats.
The gardens of the mosque are often extensive and enclosed by high walls that shut out the world beyond. Palm trees grow inside the mosque, either singly or in clusters and they lessen the light of the hot sun on the rose-bushes and flowering hibiscus that are planted beneath them.
There is no noise in the gardens, any more than in the mosque. Birds live here and sing with complete security, even during the five prayers held everyday. There are small troughs inside the mosque, which the imams of the mosque fill each morning with water from the Nile for the birds.
As for the mosque itself, it is rarely closed on all sides for in Egypt there is no real winter and it scarcely ever rains. One side of the mosque is left open to the garden and the sanctuary is separated from the green grass of the garden by a simple colonnade. Those who gather here five times a day can pray beneath the palm trees along with those inside the mosque.
In every mosque there is a mihrab which is normally an enclosure built inside the wall indicating the direction of Makkah. It is placed at one end of each mosque and from it, the imam leads the congregational prayers.
This sanctuary seen from the garden presents a beautiful spectacle to the visitor, in which the pale gold gleams of the sun fall on the old ceiling of cedar wood. The mosaics of mother-of-pearl shine on the walls of the mosque as if they were embroidered with silver.
There are no fanciful carvings or decorations in the mosques of Egypt as are seen in those in Turkey or Iran. Here it is the triumph of the patient mosaic: mother-of-pearl in every color, marble and porphyry cut into little pieces, precise and equal and put together with geometrical precision into beautiful Arabic designs.
These designs are never borrowed from any animal or human form. They are similar to the crystals of snow that may be seen under a microscope. The mihrab is usually decorated with elaborate richness, fitted with columns of lapis lazuli, intensely blue, embellished with mosaics so delicate that they look like fine lace brocade.
In the old cedar wood ceilings, the color gold in mixed with other colors and all have softened and blended with each other over the passage of time. As for the columns of the mosque, they are always dissimilar: Some of them blue, the others dark green, some of them made from red porphyry with every conceivable style which testifies to the extraordinary past which this valley of the Nile, surrounded by desert, has known. They have a thousand little designs on them that are made so as not to distract the devout during prayer times.
Today great pains are taken to preserve these ancient mosques, which in olden times were delightful retreats. Neglected for centuries, they have never been repaired in spite of being frequented by worshipers. The greater part of the mosques in ancient Cairo have fallen into a sad state of ruin. The fine woodwork of their interiors has become worm-eaten along with the mosaics that cover the floors with mother-of-pearl, porphyry and marble. It seems to some people that repair work on such a scale was impossible. They think it sheer folly even to think of it.
Nevertheless, for 20 years now an army of workers has been at the task, sculptors, marble-cutters and specialists in mosaics. They have renovated some of the oldest and best-known mosques. After having echoed to the sounds of hammers and chisels, during the course of renovations, they have now been returned to peace and prayer and the birds have begun building nests on the roofs once again.
It will redound to the glory of the present rulers that they have preserved this magnificent legacy of Muslim art. When this city of the fabled Arabian Nights has entirely disappeared and is surrounded by a vulgar melting-pot of buildings for commerce and pleasure, to which the rich of the world come every winter to disport themselves, so much at least will remain to bear testimony to the lofty and magnificent thought that inspired earlier Arab life. These mosques will remain there, even when men have gone to their final judgment and the winged guests have departed for want of water in the troughs filled by the imams whose generosity the birds repaid with their songs.
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(Adapted from the diary of a 19th century French traveler to Egypt.)
