Rituals of Life: Old Cairo: Coptic, Jewish, and Islamic

January 5, 2012

A beautiful girl selling cauliflower bigger than her head from her roadside cart.

Best served roasted in olive oil.

Old Islamic Cairo is astonishing.

I can’t tell you how many churches and temples I’ve seen, but it’s certainly a lot. But I have to admit, the age, embellishment, and design of these buildings left me slack-jawed. The stone walls, windy corridors, and wooden beams darkened with centuries of candle soot and incense smoke and lit by streams of color filtered through stained glass windows were breathtaking.

Above is Old Islamic Cairo at night contrasted below with daytime views.

Traditional coffee shop

A woman balances on her head the bread that she sells.

Extraordinary window lattice work. Below is a closeup.

The bedroom ceiling of a rich merchants house. I'm a little jealous.

Ana Paula, even in Egypt,there is corn.

The last shop that makes Fezzes in Egypt

Though Coptic Cairo is beautiful, the roadblocks, checkpoints, and military patrols were unsettling. It's a constant reminder of the fragility of peace which exists in this historically diverse country.

Say what you will about Muslim women’s head scarves, but they can be immensely practical. I watched a woman walking down a busy street, decked out in black with red highlights; she had tucked her matching red cell phone into her head scarf as a hands-free device, genius…work!

Metro trains...

Let me warn you; since my travel guide didn’t warn me, there are women only trains on the metro. They’re intended to allow unattended women to travel without being harassed. On the one hand I think it’s a great work-around to a prevalent problem, on the other I can’t help but think its jury rigged bandage for the obvious sexual inequality. I made the mistake of taking the metro at rush hour. There appeared to be a very religious man with a full length beard and his head covered policing the station. I believe he is a Salafist, one of the volunteer religious vigilantes that patrol looking vice and for violations of virtue or anything which violates Sharia / Islamic law. No doubt tweaking this concept would be a wet dream for many American evangelical social conservatives. In his attempt to police citizens’ etiquette, I saw the man push, pull, and shout at passengers. Despite the salafist’s harsh scolding and rigorous tugging, I still witnessed a fat man jostle all but his stomach onto a train car. As the train pulled from the station, his jiggling belly kept the sliding doors wedged open.

I kept noticing everywhere I went that some of the men have dark bumps on their foreheads. I asked someone about it, thinking maybe they were Shi’ite, some of whom partake in a festival called Ashura in which striking the head is common. However, it turns out the bump is called Zebiba, which means something like “raisin,” and is a sign of piety (or maybe pride /socio-religious status?) since it is caused by the repetitive and (very) rigorous bowing during prayers. It appears to be trendy in Egypt. I say trendy because it’s not seen in most of the Islamic world except sometimes among very old men who have been praying for a life time.

I am amazed at how friendly and outgoing Egyptian men are. I’m continuously greeted and questioned and only a small handful of times a day are these interactions disingenuous (as in, they trying to con or sell me something). A few men like my tattoos, but for the most part they don’t know what to make of them. Through a thick veil of cigarette smoke, I had a taxi driver lecture me on how I’m desecrating God’s temple by marking it. I didn't waste my time trying to explain the hypocrisy of his statement and his apparent carcinogenic nicotine habit. After two days in Cairo I have a cough. When I pat my hoodie a cloud of city’s sediment is already visible. This town is filthy.

Before I left for Egypt, everyone expressed a teasing or genuine concern for my safety. I have to admit you were all right. Cairo may be the most dangerous city I’ve ever visited. But it’s not the police, military, protesting youth, the Islamic Brotherhood, or any other assorted bogeymen, it’s the friggin’ traffic! I’ve met a toothless and scarred up man who had been disfigured by a car, half the city appears to have a limp, I’ve seen pedestrians punch cars, and keep in mind, I’ve only been here a couple of days!

I rounded off my time in Cairo visiting a church above the cave where Joseph and Mary crashed for a time and the river spot where Moses was plucked from the waters. It sits behind the only remaining synagogue. Unfortunately, they do not allow any photographs inside. In the 1940’s there were 75,000 Jews, today there are less than 100 in all of Egypt. Unfortunately, they do not allow any photographs inside. They're kind of touchy so I didn't try to sneak one ;)-