The Day of the Dead

I left my prescription sunglasses when I set out on the last leg of my trip and had to get another pair in Cairo. I did not have a lot of time and like most things done in haste compromises had to be made. I had to choose a certain shape and style of sunglasses that I would not otherwise have bought and when I put the glasses on with their new lenses I felt they were weird but could not quite say why. Things were not helped by the fact that I was wearing brand new shoes with a whole new philosophy on walking. The soles are not flat but curved, making you ‘roll’ when you walk instead of planting one flat foot on the ground after the other.  They take a bit of getting used to but are very comfortable and are supposed to help or prevent joint problems.

I left Cairo the next day - definitely rolling. The problem was that far from fluidity in motion, my rolling was accompanied by much stumbling. I kept looking down at my feet to see why - Cairene sidewalks may not be the smoothest on the planet but what was I falling over? It took me another day to figure it out. As long as I looked straight ahead the sunglasses were fine but as soon as I looked down, up or to the side the curvature of the lens was way off - I first realized this when on looking down at my feet I was pleasantly surprised to see them appear so small and dainty. Closer inspection without the sunglasses revealed that the ‘rolling’ shoes while comfortable could not remotely be called dainty and my feet were the same size as before. It is as well I figured out this potentially dangerous lens curvature before I set off on one of my solitary ruins inspections. Clambering over some broken-down walls one day before jumping off what looked to be a low wall, I looked again without my glasses - fortunately as it turns out since the real jump was considerably higher than it had seemed......

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.) .......

An Egyptian wedding

I have been waiting in Cairo to attend a wedding. As my trip has been interrupted anyway there was no way I was going to miss such a memorable event.

1. The Marriage Contract
Ibn Battuta was married several times but he never describes the marriage ceremonies even thought he was married in different countries and presumably the rites differed a little from place to place. Summer is wedding season in Cairo and the contract-signing ceremony I attended which was held in a small side room of a Mosque, resembled our registry office wedding. Only a few people were invited and we all sat in front of a raised dias where the imam sat at a desk between the father of the bride and her brother on one side, and the groom and bride on the other. The bride wore palazzo pants and a tunic in white chiffon with blue trim and the groom wore a suit. She was not veiled and nor were most of the women guests. Dress code was everything from glamorous to smartly casual, long skirts to capri pants, suits to jeans and jackets. The imam said a few words followed by a short prayer then got down to the marriage contract. The groom and the bride’s father shook hands in front of the imam, the gesture was held and both hands were then covered by the imam with a white cloth. He put his hand on top of theirs then spoke the words of the marriage vows which both parties repeated in turn - the same as our marriage ceremony except the bride was represented by her father. Everyone at the desk, including the bride, then sealed the written contract with their signatures on the document. The whole ceremony which took about 20 minutes, is the official one and at its conclusion the bride and groom are married according to law. However in almost all instances, including this one, the bride and groom then go to their respective homes and the marriage is not consummated until the celebration party takes place. Not all weddings are like this; in some circumstances, dowries are still the order of the day....

Getting 'kitted out' for the evening's entertainment

Mistaken Identity and Assassination in the Hammam

Most visitors to Cairo see no more of ‘medieval Cairo’ than the Khan al-Khalili, which is a pity as a few steps behind that well-trodden path is a plethora of small boutiques and workshops producing beautiful hand-made items by local artisans and craftsmen. This old part of the city is still lived in and a walking tour provides a glimpse of everyday life of this fascinating city, called by its 16-17 million inhabitants ‘Umm al-Dunya”, ‘Mother of the World’ .

The brass and copper souk where you can find everything from antiques to mosque tops......

Cairo; Mother of the World - Part 1. The City of the Dead

At the time of Ibn Battuta’s visit to Cairo in 1326, the ruling Sultan was of the Bahri Mamluk line; al Malik (King) an-Nasir Muhammed. The Mamluks were slaves of Circassian, Turkish or Slavic origin who were purchased by the Ayyubid sultanate (1171-1250) to perform military service. Those of merit rose to become commanders or amirs of the army, but by 1250 they had become powerful enough to overthrow the Ayyubids and establish their own dynasty, the Mamluks, which lasted until 1517 and the coming of the Ottomans, under whom they retained considerable power.

Cairo was founded by the Fatimid dynasty in 969AD as ‘al-Qahira’ or 'Victorious'. At the time of the Muslim conquest in 641AD Egypt was ruled from Alexandria, and the only settlement in the area now known as Cairo, was the 2nd century Roman fortress of Babylon founded by Trajan, which had grown under the Byzantines to house the Coptic Christian population. The conqueror of Egypt, Arab general Amr ibn al-’As, established his own capital nearby the Christian quarter, which he called al-Fustat, or 'encampment'. The name refers to the fact that early Muslim conquerors did not mix with the local populations and their armies lived in garrisons outside existing cities. Al-Fustat prospered and expanded until the 10th century, but its importance declined as the fortunes of Cairo rose, and by the time of the Mamluks the wealthier classes had moved out, leaving only the poor and dispossessed.

Ibn B mentions the Mosque of Amr Ibn al-’As which still stands in al-Fustat although even by the 14th century it had been rebuilt far beyond its founding in 642AD. The latest re-building is 20th century and while the building itself is no longer of historic interest, the Mosque still holds such special significance for Egyptians that towards the end of Ramadan, when the days are held to be the most important of the month, people come from all over the country to pray here.

Nothing is left architecturally that is of historic importance but its significance to Egyptians is still considerable

And so to the City of the Dead or Qarafa.

“At Cairo too is al-Qarafa, a place of vast repute for blessed power...These people build in the Qarafa beautiful domed chapels and surround them by walls so that they look like houses...There are some of them who build a religious house or a madrasa by the side of the mausoleum.”

By the time of Ibn Battuta’s visit the City of the Dead was seven centuries old, having been founded as the cemetery of al-Fustat. Nowadays the Qarafa is separated by the citadel into two parts; the northern cemetery and the southern cemetery. The more important and spectacular of the two is the northern cemetery but most of its tombs were built after Ibn Battuta’s time. One of the oldest tombs is the Tomb of Tashtimur which Ibn Battuta does not mention because the man in question was very much alive when Ibn B. was in Cairo. In fact he mentions him as one of the amirs of Cairo;

“Another {amir} was Tushtu who was known as ‘Green Chickpeas’; he was one of the best of the amirs and had to his credit many charities to orphans for clothing and upkeep and payment of salary to a teacher to instruct them in the Koran. He also made large benefactions to the vagabonds known as harafish who are a large organized body, hard-faced folk and lewd.”

He goes on to relate that the King once imprisoned ‘Tushtu’ in the citadel whereupon thousands of harafish gathered below the ramparts and chanted;

“Ho, thou ill-starred limper, fetch him out”.

The ill-starred limper was of course the King who did let him out, but he imprisoned him a second time and again the harafish made a scene and he was released once more. Arrested again in 1342 the King (now Nasr Mohammed's son), taking no chances, swiftly had him executed.

View of the citadel taken from the top of the Qait Bey minaret of al-Azhar Mosque.

The Qarafa had ‘blessed power’ because Sufi brotherhoods or tariqas had established tekkes (Turkish word for convent) there. Outside the city walls and far from the commercial concerns and political intrigue of Cairo, they devoted themselves to the spiritual. Many of them were later buried here and their tombs, venerated by locals, gave the cemetery special status. The Bahri Mamluks supported the sufis by building khanqahs (convents) to house their members, and when they died they built their tombs in the vicinity of the sufis in the hope that some of their baraka or blessing would rub off on them. Most of the tombs that Ibn Battuta mentions in the southern cemetery are no longer to be found - with an acute shortage of housing in Cairo people took to living in the graveyards. The tombs were of such size and magnificence that thousands of people could be housed quite easily within their walls and consequently whole townships of the living grew up within the City of the Dead. In the process many of the tombs became wholly incorporated into housing units, which remains the case today.

One of the tombs mentioned by Ibn Battuta is that of Sayyida Nafisa, a great, great-grandaughter of Ali, the 4th Caliph, whose tomb is still venerated to this day. He also mentions the tomb of

“...Imam Abu Abdullah Mohammed ibn Idris al-Shafi, close by which is a large convent. The mausoleum enjoys an immense revenue and is surmounted by the famous dome of admirable workmanship and marvellous construction, an exceedingly fine piece of architecture and exceptionally lofty, the diameter of which exceeds thirty cubits. “

Shafi, who died in 820, was the founder of one of the four schools of canonical law in Sunni Islam. The dome, painted in arabesques and floral patterns in muted shades of red, blue and gold, is indeed immense and is the largest mortuary temple in Egypt. Inside the mausoleum are several tombs in addition to that of al-Shafi, including the wife of al-Adil, the second Ayyubid Sultan, who built it. I was the only foreigner at the tomb.

One of the sayings attributed to al-Shafi is; “Diligence (al-jidd) brings near each distant aim, and fortune (al-jadd) opens every bolted door.” I have decided to use this as my motto for the trip as it pretty much sums it up perfectly.

One piece of jadd I have had is finding the Hotel Talisman which has become my home away from home in Cairo. Located downtown on Talaat Harb Street, this charming boutique hotel opened in 2005. Its 24 rooms and public areas, are decorated in Egyptian-Ottoman style, featuring colored glass chandeliers and lampstands, brass lanterns, local textiles, pearl-inlay wooden furniture and mashrabbiya, the wooden screen that was used over balconied windows to allow the women of the house to see out without letting anyone see in. You can contact the hotel by phone at (+20-2) 393 9431 or by email at talisman_hoteldecharme@yahoo.fr. Should you decide to stay here, the hotel staff will give you directions because, being very discreet, nobody knows where it is.

Shifting Sands

“That district abounds in date palms and fruit trees, in sea-fowl and the fish known as al-buri.”

Ibn Battuta was describing the town of Baltim on the eastern edge of Lake Burullus where they still sell buri and where there are groves of date palms to this day.

There are 8 million date palms in Egypt and the majority of the crop is for domestic consumption.

Driving there we saw bundles of reeds stacked against walls and houses and nobody seemed to know what the were for – but when we arrived in Baltim we saw fishermen using them to build their ‘summer homes’ on the shore of the lake and the Mediterranean. My guide, Galal, told me that in winter the fishermen use their nets vertically to catch quail and other birds. This is very probably the ‘seafowl’ Ibn B refers to. If we go by his dates, he was in the delta in spring and summer and thus would not have seen this winter pastime, but we already know for certain given his own conflicting dates, that he made the journey through the delta on several occasions and here just lumped all the towns together.
As for us, we were not as lucky here as we had been the day before and did not find either the hermitage of ‘Shaikh Shams ad-Din al-Falawi’ which according to Ibn Battuta was in Nastaraw, today called Mastaraw, or the tomb of Marzuq. Half-buried in the sand we could see the remains of old barrel-vaulted graves, and as this region was known for its ascetics it seemed reasonable to assume that one of them might have been that of Marzuq, but nobody we met knew anything about them and any writing on the graves had long been erased. The town sits on shifting sands which in the intervening seven centuries has probably moved the poor sheikh to the bottom of the sea. He has not survived the passage of time even in memory.

Summer homes in Baltim

”I traveled next through a sandy region to the city of Dumyat.”

The coastline may have changed considerably from the 14th century but the new International Road, which runs along the top of North Africa, still keeps sand dunes at bay along the northern tongue of land between lake Borullus and the Mediterranean. The city of Damietta, as it is known in English, is forever linked to the Crusades. Taken by French King Louis IX in 1249, the Egyptians offered him Jerusalem if he would leave Damietta, but he refused. But a year later perhaps as a result of plague, the Crusaders fell to illness and disease and Louis decided to accept the offer. But now the Egyptians were in a position of strength and under the famous Mamluk general, Baybars, they attacked Damietta and captured Louis who had to pay a huge ransom to get released. (Hence the origin of the phrase; “a king’s ransom”) Baybars, who became Sultan in 1260, ordered the town of Damietta to be moved further inland to protect it from sea attack and so it remains today – Egypt’s 3rd largest port after Alexandria and Port Said.

We had a funny moment here when trying to find the hermitage of Sheikh Jamal ad-Din al-Sawi. I had gotten a tad testy with the guide in Mastaraw – our police escort was trying to be helpful but not surprisingly they were not quite sure what a lone traveler was doing wandering a sandy peninsula nobody ever went to in search of some obscure 14th century mystic. I had the distinct feeling that they thought if they only kept saying there was nothing there that I would give up and we could all go off and have a cup of tea. The guide had been thinking the same thing and when we arrived in Damietta, he immediately stopped the oldest looking man on the street and asked him where the old part of town was. We set off, drove around in circles until the guide now bereft of all patience leapt into a taxi and sailed off with me, the driver and the police escort in tow, much to the amusement of the bystanders. We were taken first to a mosque which had just been pulled down and was being rebuilt by the Ministry of Antiquites who went on to tell us there was no such hermitage as al-Sawi. Undaunted we drove off to the next place - which proved to be a large hole in the ground, a construction site. It appears that with the ground water level rising and the mosque’s foundations being non-existent that the building was in danger of collapse. It had been dismantled and was going to get put back together when the foundation had been built. I had to laugh, but the driver who told the site foreman what we were looking for then took me to a spot lying undisturbed which had a stone floor and under this, we were informed, was the tomb of the revered saint. I remain sceptical. Jamal al-Din al-Sawi was the founder of the sufi sect known as the calandariyya who were recognizable by shaving all the hair from their heads including eyebrows, and were known as wandering dervishes (dervish or darwish being the Persian for sufi) as they had no organizational rite nor tekke, or convent. When he died in 1233 he was buried in the hermitage which could now be part of the dismantled mosque but again it is interesting that his fame has diminished and the people working at the Ministry of Antiquities have never heard of him.

Damietta is nowadays the center of Egypt’s furniture industry and there are hundreds of shops turning out chairs, sofas, beds and tables in styles ranging from simple pine to Louis XV. Donkey carts loaded with these furniture pieces transport them from the factory to the shop. Stopped at a traffic light, one enterprising lad stuffed a card through the open window into my hand; it advertised the furniture-making skills of Abu Hashish….

“Outside Damyat is the sanctuary known as Shata, a place where the divine power is manifested. It is visited by people from all parts of Egypt.”

My guide, Galal, thought this referred to the 55th sura of the Koran, the Rahman sura;

“He has let free the two bodies of flowing water meeting together: Between them is a Barrier which they do not transgress:”

This is rendered as meaning salt and freshwater, and it is apparently the case that at the point where the waters of the sea and river meet they do not intermingle and according to my guide this was indeed a place which people used to consider blessed and came on pilgrimage. (Shata could be translated as “beach” although this is normally translated as ‘shatti”)

We started off south through Fareskur to Dikirnis, the town Ibn Battuta called Ashmun ar-Rumaan;

“ From there I traveled to the town of Ashmun al-Rumman ….it is a large and ancient town on one of the canals derived from the Nile and it has a wooden bridge by which all vessels anchor. About mid-afternoon the baulks are lifted and the vessels pass up and down.”

Dikirnis today still has a steel bridge which was built to open to allow ships to pass but there is no longer any commercial traffic on the Nile and the river here is now clogged with water hyacinth. We ended our Delta sojourn with a visit to Tinnis, the ancient Pharaonic capital of Tanis.

“Tinnis was formerly a great and famous town but it is now in ruins.”

Ancient Tanis was the most important of the delta towns in Pharaonic times and was the main center of weaving in Egypt in the 10th and 11th centuries. Today, the new town of Tinnis is of no importance while the old site has been plundered of its monuments. Little remains of Egypt’s early civilization in the delta even though several important dynasties were founded here. In contrast to Upper Egypt, the delta climate is hot and humid, the earth is fertile and the Nile has changed course over the years – conditions which are are not conducive to preserving stone, carved and painted records. Also there are no stone quarries here and all the stone had to be brought from the south. While re-cycling of building materials always took place, in Tanis succeeding generations found it more convenient to build with whatever existing stone they could cart off, rather then haul it from several hundred miles away.

The site is most interesting for the tombs of Psusennes I (1039-991BC) and Osorkon II (874-850BC) which were found by Pierre Montet in 1939, but the important discoveries were overshadowed by the outbreak of WWII. Fallen obelisks, chunks of carved stone and the fallen statue of mighty Ramses II all contribute to the sense of long past glory.

Not even Ramses II escapes time.

Many thanks to my old friend and colleague, Khaled Baheer and his team at South Sinai Travel, for their invaluable help and assistance in arranging this trip for me.

Delta One

“During my stay at Alexandria I heard tell of the pious shaikh Abu Abdullah al-Murshidi who lived a life of devotion in retirement from the world….he was indeed one of the great saints who enjoy the vision of the unseen…..I set out then from the city of Alexandria to seek this shaikh……”.

The Nile Delta is a vast fan-shaped green mosaic; canals, ditches, streams and tributaries criss-cross the patchwork fields like putty, while banana trees, date palms and maize line the dusty roads. It is indeed 'a place of exceeding beauty', as Ibn Battuta was wont to say, and as you trundle along its country roads life seems unchanged from the time of the pharaohs. (Lovely to the passer-by, it is undoubtedly back-breaking for the people who toil this fertile land.) This timeless quality is evoked still further because the favored method of transportation in the countryside is even now the donkey - sometimes attached to a cart, sometimes not.

But this bucolic loveliness ceases immediately upon entering the towns. Unattractive and in some cases almost determinedly ugly, the towns are a blight of brick and concrete apartment blocks that look as if they were erected sometime during the previous night, rebar sticking up out of houses like post-nuclear antennae, piles of rubble and associated construction garbage unused and never removed, no streets to speak of – row after row of apartment buildings and not a paved street in sight, and mounds of litter; paper, plastic bags and bottles, tin cans and broken glass. What is so odd about this is that every morning and evening one sees people assiduously sweeping and watering down the dust outside their individual homes or shops, and their homes are invariably spotless – yet the common area is an eyesore. Ugly architecture is by no means an Egyptian phenomenon - it is a worldwide disease. But I have been told by local people that in Egypt as in many other countries (China for example), one is not taxed on the house until it is complete. The unintended consequence of this law is that houses are never completed. I have also been informed that the reason for the rebar sticking up in the air is that people build the house in stages; either as much of the house as they can afford at the time, or because when eventually a son gets married and brings his bride to live at his parents’ home, another floor will then be added. In any event the result is the same – the house remains forever unfinished.

In the 14th century the delta was a wealthy area due to trade routes with the Far East and South Arabia, which ended in Gaza or Alexandria where the goods were trans-shipped to Europe. The region was especially known for its textile industry of which Ibn Battuta refers specifically to Abyar (Ibyar), our first port of call of the delta towns.

“From there I rode to Abyar, a place of ancient construction and fragrant environment with many mosques and of exceeding beauty….At Abyar are manufactured fine cloths which fetch a high price in Syria, al-Iraq, Cairo and elsewhere….”

There is no cloth manufacturing industry now in Abyar nor is it a place of exceeding beauty but it does have a certain dusty charm. The Nile delta is not an area of tourism in Egypt and as a result - unlike the road to Alexandria - there are few road signs and drivers and guides resident in Cairo are not familiar with the area. This of course can be quite interesting as complete strangers leap into your car at the first question concerning the 'old town' to show you the way. In Ibyar one old gallabiya-clad gray-beard did just that and as a result we came across a lovely 12th century mosque erected, according to a plaque in the wall, by the Bagam family. It may initially have been a khanqah or sufi cell since it is built in open courtyard style surrounded by four halls, of which only two still exist, with one having ‘study cells’ towards the back of the hall. The minaret was much newer - probably late-14th century Mamluk. Greek and Roman columns had been incorporated into the prayer hall – they are not of even height nor has any effort been made to match same-style capitals into any orderly pattern, which are dotted haphazardly throughout. This is a curiosity of mosque construction throughout North Africa until the 11/12th century when an aesthetic form began to develop in Egypt under the Fatimids.

We drove next to Nahrariyya, which was not marked on any map we had and for which we had to ask directions. Men asking directions is a common occurrence here unlike at home, but the results are the same the world over. Invariably after long, involved and detailed explanations concerning bridges right-hand turns, and one way streets, one drives merrily off only to grind to a complete halt three streets away since the street disappears, there is no bridge and nothing matches what you were told. On asking the next available person, he tells you to go back the way you came…. But seven centuries later Ibn Battuta was right and the town is still in the vicinity of Abyar, although the Nile has moved. Here in this long-forgotten town, my guide was elated to discover a stele with the cartouche of Psammetichus I of the 26th Dynasty (663-610BC), incorporated into the entrance of the little 12th century Mohammed Ibn Zayn mosque.

The western delta here is especially beautiful. Technicolor-green rice paddies stretch for miles, fields of grapes, and mango and orange orchards are edged at the side of the road by weeping willow trees, flaming orange poinsiana and pink oleander, interspersed with flashy pink bougainvillea spilling down the sides of walls and fences.

Veiled and straight-backed women with loaded baskets atop their heads stride alongside little boys on donkeys trotting along the pathways next to the irrigation ditches, donkeys bearing enormous loads of reeds stumble by, wooden carts piled high with watermelon or squash and pulled by horse or bullock take precedence over vehicles, as does the odd flock of sheep and goats meandering over the road.

White egrets perch on trees or peck away on the paddies, geese and ducks waddle along the canalsides, waterwheels creak and groan and even the shaduf, a primitive but effective irrigation device is still in use along the river. Ibn Battuta mentions the orchards, but with the building of the dam in Aswan and the end of the annual inundations and fluctuations as well as the changing course of the Nile, the agriculture has changed over the years.

“We then traveled to the town of Fawwa. This town has an attractive appearance….it has a great many orchards, and a remarkable supply of valuable products. In it is the grave of the saintly shaikh Abu’l Najah of celebrated name, the seer of that country.”

His mausoleum, a tiny little domed retreat near the river is still there. We found al-Murshidi’s mausoleum too, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) away from Fawwa in a place called Motubbas.

“The retreat of the shaikh Abu Abdullah al-Murshidi whom I had come to visit lies close by the town {here meaning Fawwa} and separated from it by a canal.”

These are the domes of al-Murshidi's mausoleum and the cemetery next to the canal.

The mausoleum is next to a cemetery which is only a few feet from a canal. Ibn B stayed the night in the retreat and had a dream in which a bird transported him to Yemen and a place he did not recognize where he was left. The saint later that day confirmed to Ibn B the contents of his dream and proceeded to predict other things that would happen to him, all of which came to pass. I did not have any such dreams not did anyone give me any predictions, but at the retreat I did have to flee from the local youngsters who had never seen a foreigner before and overly enthusiastic in their welcome, had to be chased away by the guide and police escort.

Because this is not a touristed area I had a police escort for the entire journey in the delta. Sometimes they would be in cars, sometimes in trucks but they were always armed and we were not allowed to go anywhere by car without them. We had had to provide them with our itinerary before leaving Cairo and each day before setting out they would confirm it. They did not stop me from doing anything and were always pleasant, but on occasion they did get a bit nervous if I jumped out the car to take photographs. Tourism is the country’s life-blood and the last thing Egypt needs is for tourists to stay away because they do not feel safe. So the country goes to great lengths to make sure people are safe by deploying thousands of tourist police at sites all over the country.

Our next stop was Rashid, or Rosetta as it is known in English. In 1799 while the French were restoring Fort Rashid, they found a stone written in three languages; hieroglyphic, demotic Egyptian and Greek. Knowing Greek, the French epigrapher, Champollion, was able to decipher hieroglyphics for the first time. (The word cipher comes from the Arabic word ‘zifr’ meaning zero.) The message written on the stone, which is now in the British Museum, is from a temple priest thanking the pharaoh for not taxing them. Rosetta’s fortunes rose and fell with trade and its heyday was the 18th century when it was the most important port in the country. Today it is a backwater town with a few examples of some Ottoman building and not much else. In antiquity the Nile had seven mouths; Canobic, Bolbitine, Sebennytic, Bucolic, Mendesian, Tanite and Pelusian. Now it essentially has two; one in Rosetta the other in Damietta, but fishing and boat building are still local industries.

This is a typical scene up and down the river as it empties into the Mediterranean at Rashid.

Before going back to Tanta for the evening – there are very few hotels in the delta and so we stayed in the large delta town of Tanta – we stopped in Damanhur for a late lunch. It is a large town as Ibn Battuta noted back in 1326, but there is little left of any antiquity. I saw two tiny domes obviously belonging to a small retreat, stuck between and behind some shops. It was that of Sidi Al-Aviena (sp?), but otherwise Damanhur will be remembered for its lack of paved streets all of which have apparently been torn up at the same time to replace underground sewers.

How to carry a heavy load and what you can do with rebar!

Watzyournaym?

I confess I am weary of this phrase. It is inevitably the only phrase in the English language known by legions of errant schoolboys who clearly threw the book away before they got to page 2. This tiresome phrase is immediately followed by gales of hilarious glee by the assembled crowd and this is before one has even said anything. For such purposes nowadays I go by a varied nomenclature; St. Augustine, The Holy Mother, Socrates, Perspehone, Julius Caesar, whatever comes to mind really, the more outrageous the better. Of course sometimes it is the opener – and in this case the next phrase is always “where are you from?” I usually say, “Wick”. This causes momentary confusion and if the streets are busy gives me enough time to melt into the crowd. In Egypt people talk to you and start walking along with you in the streets – it is completely innocuous, but it is simply that having heard it all before, you never know if your interlocutor is measuring you up for a bottle of perfume or a visa to England.

In Alexandria I had a moment like Ibn Battuta in Tunis; nobody knew I was coming and therefore I did not meet anyone, except I did not weep tears of bitterness or anything else – I merely jumped on a train to Cairo. At the station someone who noticed my confusion, pointed me in the direction of the first and second-class ticket counters which were jammed with people on this side of the window while the other side seemed curiously bereft of humans. It transpired that the computers were down - down? - they looked like they had come off the first computer assembly line ever and were not going to ever come up again. This was a vague worry as my train was due in 40 minutes. As the minutes ticked by I asked a friendly face behind me if she thought it was possible to buy the ticket on the train. She said not to worry as she was going on the same train and everyone would get on – they would eventually write the tickets by hand, and so it happened. The second-class ticket was 25 Egyptian pounds – less than $5. I meant to get the first class ticket but as I was holding my hand out with the cash – a woman behind me thrust her money into my hand and said – “get two tickets” and in the general chaos the first class bit got lost in translation. And so I ended up in second class which was perfectly fine – you can get a hot lunch – completely inedible - for one pound more than the cost of the train ticket, or you can get sandwiches, hot and cold drinks and snacks from the trolley which passes through regularly. The woman and I had seats next to each other and on arrival we shared a taxi as she would not let me pay the outrageous prices asked for by the taxi drivers at Ramses station – actually she would not let me pay at all. I begged her to let me give her something towards the taxi but she refused the money and stuffed it down my shirt much to the amusement of the taxi driver.

Tomorrow - the City of the Dead.

Pearl of the Mediterranean or City of Ghosts

I arrived in Alexandria in record time – the driver drove at speeds of up to 180 kph (112mph) - which is only 80 kph (50mph) - over the speed limit, which one is reminded of every mile or so by a large blue sign. (Unlike Cyrenaica there is also a sign every few kilometers giving you the distance to your destination.) The driver was stopped and fined for speeding – 158 Eygptian pounds ($27.50) When the highway police told him he was clocked at 180kmp, without the slightest trace of irony, he said, “me?” It made no difference – after paying his fine he sped off at 120kmp. Construction is rampant along the coast - the last time I drove along this highway was about 5 years ago en route to Siwa. Then, while construction was underway it was all a bit of a concrete eyesore. But not now; a brand new 2-lane highway runs the entire length of the coast, and high-end resort after resort lines the highway and hugs the coast. From El-Alamein to Alexandria, some 80 miles or so, there is unbroken development – it reminded me of something in Florida or perhaps Mexico, with tastefully-designed buildings in vibrant shades of yellow, lime green, blue, orange, red and vivid pink. The highway is lined on both sides with restaurants, shops, and cafes and there is an undeniable air of prosperity about.

I have always liked Alexandria – for me it is a city of ghosts; site of the greatest library in the world - burned to the ground, the Pharos, one of the ancient Seven Wonders of the World – disappeared into the sea, where Cleopatra, last of the Ptolemies, committed suicide, where Alexander himself may have been buried, and if so now lost, where Christianity was codified and Christians martyred – all of it gone. So little remains of its glittering past that it could all have been a dream were it not for the records which tell of its glories.

Brief History of the Pearl of the Mediterranean
The city was founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BC. On his death his empire was split between three of his generals, with Egypt going to Ptolemy. The dynasty bearing his name reigned for 300 years from 323 BC until 30BC when Cleopatra, having lost the Battle of Actium against Octavian, committed suicide along with Mark Anthony. Egypt then became a province of Rome. Under the Ptolemies, who made Alexandria their capital, the city attracted scholars from across the Hellenistic world and saw advances in science, mathematics and philosophy. It was the earliest center of Christianity with St. Mark, the city’s patron saint, making his first convert in 45AD. Under Diocletian, the city’s streets are said to have turned red with blood as Christian converts were massacred. He reigned from 284-305AD and although an edict banning conversion to Christianity had been in place since 204AD, Alexandria and the delta had many Christian communities. Coptic Christians date their calendar from the reign of Diocletian which they call the ‘Time of Martyrs’, and it is from this time also that the tradition of desert monasticism was born as converts fled to the desert to escape persecution. (Several monasteries in Wadi Natrun, south-west of Alexandria still exist to this day.) Constantine converted to Christianity in 330AD and in 395AD under Emperor Theodosius, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire.

One of the earliest schisms in Christianity took place at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD. The Alexandrians believed that although Christ had been born of a woman, his human nature had been absorbed into the divine, while the main body of Christian thought held that Christ had two natures both divine and human, which were inseparable. However obtuse this may seem to us today, the Coptic Church with its monophysite creed was declared heretical and expelled from the body of the Church. Both sides hold the same beliefs to this day. The decision had severe repercussion because it set Alexandria at odds with Constantinople (seat of the Eastern Roman Church), and when in 641 AD the great Arab general Amr ibn-Amas came riding through at the head of a large army, the Alexandrians preferred to come to an agreement with him rather then the “Greeks”.

The Arabs always preferred the desert to the sea, and after Egypt was absorbed into the rapidly enlarging Islamic Empire, Alexandria’s star dimmed until by the time of the French occupation in 1798, the city was reduced to little more than a small fishing village.

Most of what Ibn Battuta saw when he arrived on April 15, 1326 is also gone. He wrote of the city’s gates;

“the city of Alexandria has four gates; the gate of the Lote-tree….the gate of Rashid, the Sea Gate and the Green Gate.”

He accurately described the Pharos which was already in considerable decay;

“I went to see the lighthouse....and found one of its faces in ruins. One would describe it as a square building soaring into the air……it is situated on a high mound and lies at a distance of one farsakh (3 miles) from the city on a long tongue of land encompassed on three sides by the sea…..so that the lighthouse cannot be reached by land except from the city.”

The 15th century Fort of Qait Bey seen from across the Eastern Harbor. Rebuilt after having been shelled by the British in 1882, it is built over the site of the Pharos of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, which was built between 282 and 246 BC by Sostratus.

He wrote about what he called The Pillar of Columns, which is called Pompey’s Pillar despite the fact it was probably erected during the time of Diocletian, and still exists. But mostly he wrote of the city’s learned saints and qadis, the tombs of two of whom I visited – Sidi Yaqut al-Habashi and Abu al-Abbas al-Mursi - both of whose tombs are venerated to this day.

I first went to the Mosque of Abu al-Abbas al-Mursi, which was built in the 17th century, and later rebuilt in the 20th century over the tomb of its 13th century namesake.

The Mosque of Abu al- Abbas al-Mursi

Women cannot enter the Mosque itself, Alexandria’s largest, but can visit the mausoleum. When I visited, both men and women were sitting in quiet contemplation or praying. I then went to the next-door Mosque of Sidi Yaqut al-Arshi where this time the tomb had separate rooms for men and women to pray. I was allowed in to visit both sides. While others were perhaps praying for an intercession of some sort, I spent the time trying to decipher the Arabic inscriptions on the two tombs so that I could determine which one belonged to Sidi Yaqut. I am happy to say I eventually figured it out.

The next door Mosque of Sidi Yaqut al-Arshi, who was a pupil of Ab al-Abbas al-Mursi.

Both saints were adepts and teachers of the Shadhili form of Sufism, founded by Sidi ‘Ali Abu-al-Hasan ash-Shadhili in the 12th century, one of the most important in medieval times and which continues in many parts of the Islamic world to this day. He was born in Morocco but opposition to his teachings there drove him out to Alexandria where he remained until his death in 1258.

The Border

No cellphone coverage and no international dialing capability from the hotel – and so no idea if the driver meeting me on the Egyptian side of the border is confirmed or not. Uncertainty is not always a bad thing, but is generally to be avoided at international border crossings. A quick stop at a taxiphone in the town of Bardi, confirms that I am being met - but where? Another call to the Egyptian driver on his cellphone – “where are you?” As-Salloum is a busy border crossing with lots of people hustling, and my Libyan driver has no passport, so after my passport is stamped with the exit from Libya – I am on my own. The answer from the driver is quite unclear and there are several kilometers to as-Salloum from the actual border so I guess I am going to have to live with a degree of uncertainty after all. One thing is certain however; I may not know the driver but there is going to be no mistaking me among this crowd.

Immigration duly taken care of on the Libyan side we drive up to a barriered area about 100 yards prior to Libyan Customs. Another person asks to see the passport and tells Nasser in no uncertain terms that he cannot take the car across here. Nasser protests; “I have always done this” , to no avail. We take the luggage out and start to cross on foot. Halfway across, another uniformed person asks to see the passport and taking it, walks off back the way we have come – of course we can drive. Bags back in the car. Drive off – arrive on the other side. Customs – cleared immediately. Then a policeman asks to see the passport and when Nasser explains who’s who (the policceman asks if we’re married) tells Nasser to drive to the Egyptian Immigration. Nasser explains he has no passport and no papers for the car so ‘no way’. “I am going with you, don’t worry,” said the policeman as he jumped into the back seat. I figure this can only be a good thing, meanwhile Nasser is now in completely virgin territory – this has not happened before.

Sailing through officialdom I am welcomed to Egypt by yet another passport-checker in perfect English. Ushered into the arrivals hall and immediately launched to the front of the line to my acute embarrassment but secret relief, by our newly-acquired minder, I have to go to the bank for the visa stamps since I have no visa. Off we go to the tiny, grimy window of the bank where lines of men in grubby gallabiyas are handing over fistfuls of $100 bills for stacks of Egyptian pounds. Meanwhile for $15 I get two stamps for the passport and off we go back to the line through the back door where my passport is duly stamped.

This is the busiest border crossing of my trip thus far by a long chalk – the others were backwaters in comparison. People are milling around everywhere; money changers, food and drink vendors, trash rummagers and collectors, while cars and trucks stacked with people and goods are going in and out in both directions. I say goodbye to Nasser who is going back with our friend who has been of such help, and walk off towards Egyptian customs. Two uniformed customs agents are about to ask me some questions when a quick-moving man with a NY Yankees baseball cap, a checked shirt and jeans asks for my passport – I look at the customs agents and say “meen hua”? which means, “who is he?” They burst out laughing and tell me he is the police. Right, of course, I knew that.

I am asked to follow him to where three more officials are sitting, get the all-clear and am sent back out through customs again. Getting to the other side the same policeman bids me wait and takes me to a taxi. I tell him I have a driver meeting me to which he explains that yes, but the taxi driver will take me to the customs barrier as my driver cannot pass. (It is indeed fortunate that I understood any of this but I was reading my Egyptian dictionary like a novel.) I could have walked as it was not far but it was melting hot and in retrospect it was really very considerate of him to help me. He loaded the suitcase then jumped into the taxi, when we reached the other side, he unloaded the suitcase, said goodbye and took off back to the other side again with boundless energy. There is now only one last barrier to cross when a very pleasant-looking policeman in immaculate white uniform and polished black shoes holding a walkie-talkie comes towards me and says in excellent English; “Are you Carolyn? Welcome to Egypt, your driver has gone to make a phone call as there is no cellphone coverage here and will be back shortly – please wait here in the shade.”

What’s not to love about Egypt?