The Beginning of My Obsession With the Call to Prayer

May 3 was the day for our tour of Coptic and Jewish Cairo. More than just a complex of religious sites, though, this area is really a testament to the many cultures that have influenced Egypt. First we visited the ruins of a Roman temple, built in 98 AD (it’s funny to realize that was almost 2000 years ago, and yet Egyptian civilization was already old by that point). From there, we visited a few Coptic Christian sites, like the Hanging Church (pictured to the right), the Convent of St. George, and the Church of St. Sergius (this one is built over a cave where Mary, Joseph, and Jesus were supposed to have slept for a night while fleeing Herod).

Next was the Ben-Ezra Synagogue, the oldest in Egypt. Right outside the synagogue is a well, and it is claimed that it lies over the spot where Moses was pulled from the Nile by the pharaoh’s daughter. Our final stop was at the Mosque of Amr Ibn Al-As, and it was the first mosque built in Egypt. The picture here cannot do it justice; the size was enormous (a few of us estimated the size of the entire site to be somehwere between 8-12 acres). I took this picture shortly after we'd walked in the entryway, and it's facing the courtyard of the mosque, with another prayer section on the other side.

Seeing the blend of all these cultures that went into the making of Egypt left a strong impression on me. As Prof. Sullivan said, you can see globalization here millenia before the word or its meaning had ever been imagined. It was really cool to see how these cultures could mesh and blend. For instance, in Ben-Ezra, we talked about how in that synagogue, women and men were separated for prayer, just like in Islam. In the news, we hear so much more often about the divide between Judaism and Islam (Palestine and Israel are the obvious notables), and to see this proof of strong connection and shared values between the two almost made me want to cry. Sometimes I think humanity is too obsessed with dividing itself down into these infinitesimal groups instead of seeing the larger connections (cross-cutting cleavages, as Prof. Rezvani would tell us).

(The picture to the left is the Well of Moses, where he was supposedly pulled from the Nile).

Later in the evening, we enjoyed a felucca ride on the Nile, drifting right through Cairo. It was a beautiful time to be out, as the sun was just setting. And sunset happens to be one of the five times each day during which the call to prayer is announced from the minarets of mosques all over. I have to say, it’s the call to prayer that in large part has helped it sink in for me that we are in EGYPT. It’s so foreign from anything I’ve ever heard or known. And I love it. Faithful readers have already seen my awesome video, but trust me, like all the photos and videos I will post, justice is not being done.

Things got interesting after the felucca ride. We all decided to walk back from the area right near our embassy all the way to our hotel on Zamalek, which was a good hike (eventually over an hour). After using the bathroom at the Four Seasons, we started on our way, and soon enough I noticed a man escorting us. I was confused- people are friendly, but was someone from the hotel walking us all the way home? Then I saw the heat he was packing, and I do mean guns- a toolbelt full of them. This man was from the Egyptian government and had been assigned- by Mubarak himself- to keep an eye out for us. So because we decided to walk home, this guy had to stress every single block- making sure we all crossed the street safely (no easy feat given Cairo traffic), ensuring that we stayed together, etc. All for a group of forty American students. Granted, the publicity would be bad if anything happened to us, but it was surprising that we merited so much attention.

I don’t think you could pay me to take that man’s job. First of all, he works for a president who isn’t enjoying popularity (for instance, May 4 is Mubarak’s birthday, and there were whispers about potential riots and demonstrations that day, although apparently the heavy security presence downtown quelled those would-be protesters). Then, in the course of working for this president, he is assigned to guard a bunch of American students. Can you imagine stepping out into busy traffic to stop the cars so that forty college kids can cross the street? You have to halt your fellow countrymen (and believe me they are none too eager to yield to you) because you were assigned by a president they don’t like to guard students from a country that they’re not that much more fond of.

Additionally, it was strange to me to be part of this huge group of kids. A few of us crossing the street at a time would have been just like a few Egyptians crossing the street. But 40 people plus a government official stopping traffic is a different thing. I feel a little like we are in this weird bubble, which both impedes us from experiencing the real culture as well as gives these misconceptions about us to Egyptians (for instance, that we can’t hack it here on our own and need Daddy Mubarak to look out for us). Perhaps there are other factors at play that I don’t know about right now which necessitate these kind of arrangements. Also, I know right now we are doing some of the touristy stuff before we really settle down. I’m hoping that once we’re all initally acquainted with Egypt and begin taking classes that some of these things will change. I really want to start meeting people and actually getting to know Egyptians.

Speaking of that, I was able to begin with this goal on the same night. Some of us decided to go to a local shisha (hookah) bar. Lily, Julia, and I decided to head over together. The instructions we had weren’t quite clear, so I ended up asking a policeman (in Arabic) where the den was. He must have thought that my Arabic wouldn’t have been good enough to understand the directions, because he immediately called to this young Egyptian on the street to ask him if he spoke English. He did, and by chance he was headed to the same place as us. So we all walked together. His name is Ramees, and he lives here in Zamalek (apparently two blocks from our hotel or something). A recent graduate from a university in New Brunswick, he has come back to Egypt to work in his father’s stationary business. He ended up hanging out with us in the shisha place all night (and taking quite a liking to Julia!). Just to be able to meet someone from Egypt and sit down and talk to them for a while was like a breath of fresh air, and I hope that we can continue to make these kinds of connections in order to have an escape from our little American enclave as well as to form a more well-rounded idea of this country.

My final thought on the experience tonight was that if the Egyptian government put as much effort into looking after its own citizens and their best interests as it did to protecting forty American students (and all tourists in general, more on that in the next entry), that a lot of progress could be made. But, and readers bear with me, the gift and curse of the IAF major is the ability to understand both sides of a story and being able to argue anyone, even yourself, into the ground without ever going anywhere because you can see valid points on either side of the divide. So while I don’t necessarily like the decision the government here has made in terms of favoring tourists, I also understand that a lot of the country’s revenue must come from this source, and in order to maintain that cash flow they must cater to the interests of tourists. I’m not really sure that there can be a satisfactory solution to this dilemma, but I think in the long run the strategy is going to backfire on the government; how could the people not get fed up? Then again, if Alaa Al-Aswany is to be believed, “the Egyptian keeps his head down his whole life long so he can eat…The moment you take power, they submit to you and grovel to you and you can do what you want with them” (p. 85 of The Yacoubian Building). So perhaps my assumption that people will eventually work for their own interests and essentially rebel is incorrect also. Maybe I’ll be able to gain some insight into this over the next few weeks.