Ramadan in Cairo

Cairo, Egypt.
Ramadan, the ninth month in the Islamic or Hegira calendar, is when the Koran was revealed to the Prophet Mohammed and is thus considered the ‘Holy Month’. A time of spiritual reflection, Muslims fast for the entire month from daybreak to sundown, eschewing even drinking-water. If for some reason you cannot fast for the entire month, the days are to be made up elsewhere or you must volunteer and feed someone or do other charitable deeds. This year Ramadan began September 24 and will end October 23, after which a three day feast/holiday called Eid al-Fitr begins. It is perhaps the equivalent of the Christian Christmas since it is a time of exchanging gifts, and buying new clothes. The Islamic calendar is lunar and it moves eleven days ahead each Gregorian calendar year. So when Ramadan falls in summer, the heat and long daylight hours make fasting a not inconsiderable undertaking for a whole month. And yet most Muslims view it as a time of celebration. The meal breaking the fast called iftar, starts around 1730 and the last meal before the fast called suhour, takes place anywhere from 0100 until daybreak which according to the Koran is defined, “until the white thread of light becomes distinguishable from the dark thread of night at dawn.” The times change every day and obviously are different throughout the world. (I have never asked what a Muslim living in Iceland does when Ramadan falls within Summer - conversely in winter it is hardly a challenge.) .......

The Living King

So to pick up where we left Ibn Battuta in what is now the Street of the Dead - and the tomb of Qutham ibn Abbas, which is still very much there.

“The people of Samarqand go out to visit it on the eve of every Tuesday and Friday, and the Tatars too come and visit it and make large votive offerings to it bringing to it cattle and sheep, dirhams and dinars all of which is devoted to the expenditure for the maintenance of travelers and the servitors of the hospice and the blessed tomb. The latter is sumounted by a dome resting on four pilasters each of which is combined with two marble columns, green, black, white and red. The walls of the cell beneath the cupola are of marble inlaid with different colors and decorated with gold and its roof made of lead. The tomb itself is covered with planks of ebony inlaid with gold and jewels and with silver cornerpieces; above it are three silver lamps. The hangings of the dome are of wool and cotton.....”

Samarkand; The Pearl of the East and the Cemetery of Forty Evil Spirits

Ibn Battuta gives a rare (and incomplete) glimpse of his personal life here - en route to Samarkand, one of his slave girls gave birth to a girl although he was told it was a boy, and he did not learn the truth until the following week when according to tradition, the child is named. But he believed the child was blessed and brought him luck, although she did not survive for long. He does not say the child was his.

....... I journeyed to the city of Samarqand, which is one of the greatest and finest of cities and most perfect of them in beauty........There were formerly great palaces on its bank and constructions which bear witness to the lofty aspirations of the townsfolk, but most of this is obliterated and most of the city itself has fallen into ruin. It has no city wall, and no gates and there are gardens inside it.”

One of the domes of the Bibi Khanum Mosque built by Tamerlane as the city's Friday mosque. The ailing emir wanted it completed in a great hurry - too great perhaps as bits of masonry began crumbling shortly after its completion. The mosque itself is still closed.

Of Mausolea, brides and pagans

“I visited at Bukhara also the tomb of the learned imam Abu Abdullah al-Bukhari, compiler of al-Jami al-Sahih, the Sheikh of the Muslims and over it is inscribed; This is the grave of Muhammed ibn Ismail al-Bukhari who composed such and such books. In the same manner the tombs of the learned men of Bukhara are inscribed with their names and the titles of their writings. “

Al-Bukhari is not just ‘a learned imam’, he is considered to be the greatest compiler of the Hadith, sayings of the Prophet Mohammed collected over the years, as an additional source of canonical law. For a sunni Muslim, such as Ibn Battuta, there are essentially only two sources of Islamic jurisprudence; the Koran and the Hadith. Al-Bukhari was respected by all Sunni Muslims because of the scrupulous detail he attached to his research - he did not include any hadith that could not be traced to a respected source. And because he did not align himself fully with any particular school of law, he was considered fair-minded by all.

The Last Khan and his Dancing Boys

En route to Bukhara, Ibn Battuta traveled to Kath, formerly an important city in Khwarezm but one which no longer exists. Over its ruins however is a place called Bereni about which the guidebooks have nothing to say, and it took me some time to realize that Bereni is Kath - named after the famous afore-mentioned scholar al-Buruni (after a fashion) who was born there. I did not visit because I was working and it was not part of the itinerary. It will have to wait for another time. We did however visit Khiva - capital of the notorious Khanate of slave traders, thieves and brigands. Ibn Battuta did not visit because in the 14th century the town was of little importance - it came into its own as a den of iniquity in the 18th century. Nowadays its newly-restored cobbled streets ring out to the cries of vendors and tourists and not to the shrieking of unfortunates being thrown off the top of a minaret.

The heavily restored mud brick walls of Khiva Old Town, the Ichon-Kala.

Melons, cotton and the Aral Sea

“The melons of Khwarizm have no equal in any country of the world, East or West, except it may be the melons of Bukhara.....Their rind is green and the flesh red, of extreme sweetness and firm texture. A remarkable thing is that they are cut into strips, dried in the sun, and packed in reed baskets....they are exported from Khwarizm to the remotest parts of India and China and of all dried fruits there are none which excel them in sweetness.”

It was unanimously decided as we daily munched our way through water melon and a yellow-fleshed variety that truly the melons here were the best in the world.

Konye-Urgench and The King's Foolish Mistake

“After journeying through this desert we have arrived at Khwarizm which is the largest, most beautiful and most important city of the Turks. It has fine bazaars and broad streets, a great number of buildings... the city is in the dominions of the Sultan Uzbek who is represented in it by the great Emir called Qutludumur. It was he who built the college and the dependencies annexed to it. As for the Mosque, it was built by his wife, the pious Khatun Turabak.”

Konye-Urgench (what Ibn B calls Khwarizm) is today a ruin. There are no bazaars and no streets. There are no crowds and very few buildings. There is no cathedral Mosque - only the stump of a minaret remains - and no college, standing or otherwise. The once thriving city has returned to the earth and at first glance is now little more than scattered mounds of caked mud. Genghis Khan destroyed the city (and many others) because of a short-sighted decision by one of the Khorezmshah kings, Mohammed II, who ruled from Urgench. Ibn Battuta relates the story and it is worth the re-telling in his words, since the story is historical fact.

A day at the Races, Tolkuchka Bazaar and the Evil Eye

Our guide, Bava, told us that in honor of a local holiday - the Holiday of the Turkmen Bakhshi - there was horse racing at the Hippodrome and would we like to go. We would miss the livestock sale at Tolkuchka Bazaar but it might be interesting. It was unique. Local lads and lasses were decked out in national costume, children were painting illustrations of the Ruhnama, (the month of September in Turkmenistan is called Ruhnama), young boys performed martial arts, (a very noticeable thing throughout Central Asia is the number of young men who have their right hand and wrist bandaged up, martial arts, wrestling and boxing being very popular sports here), while portraits of the president watching over his flock studded the grounds of the Hippodrome including the racetrack, and the colorful Turkmen flag fluttered around the perimeter.
The Turkmen flag; a green background representing the color of Islam, (green is the color of paradise), the white crescent moon and five stars of Islam as well as five gul patterns representing the five provinces of the country.