Dar Al-Maaref, one of the older publishing houses in Egypt, and Sirat Al-Qahera, an initiative launched a few years ago to document Cairo’s history, collaborated to produce a series of volumes telling the story of the City of a Thousand Minarets. In January and February, the first two volumes were released.
The first volume, Beiyout Al-Qahera, is written by history researcher Yasmine Abdallah. It explores the structures and stories of Cairene homes since the Muslim Conquest, relying on old manuscripts, 20th-century history books, and personal observations.
The second volume, Khitat Al-Qahera, is an amalgamation of interviews and written works by renowned researcher Fathi Hafez Al-Hadidi, whose volume on Cairo was first published in 1991 by Dar Al-Maaref. Khitat Al-Qahera explores the city’s urban development since its foundation by the Fatimids til the July 23 revolution in 1952.
The two volumes were edited and supervised by Sirat Al-Qaher founder Abdel-Azim Fahmi.
They are part of an effort to revisit the history of Cairo—not to unearth anything new, nor to put forward a specific thesis on the history of the country’s longest-surviving capital. Instead, each of the two volumes offers a stroll through the city’s old streets, with a guide in hand to connect the pieces of the three capitals Egypt had under Muslim rule before the founding of Al-Qahira: Al-Foustat, Al-Asskar, and Al-Qata’a.
In her volume, Abdallah argues that the architecture of the houses in Egypt’s first three capitals was heavily influenced by the styles of Damascus and Baghdad, the leading capitals of the Muslim dynasties between the 7th and 10th centuries. She adds that Cairo’s distinctive house-building style peaked during the Mamluk period, from the 13th to the 16th centuries. Then, the top generals and aides to the Sultan built lavish homes designed for maximum comfort and luxury, to impress visitors. Abdallah’s book is rich in detail about the interiors of the few houses that survived, as well as the grandeur of those that were demolished but documented in the chronicles of historians and travellers or the paintings of Orientalists.
The book also traces the evolution of house construction in Cairo, particularly before and after the Fatimid dynasty, which established Cairo as an exclusive quarter for the Caliph and his aides.
Abdallah notes that this royal Cairo is most reminiscent of the world of One Thousand and One Nights, with halls adorned in gold where the Caliph dined with his aides and a thousand guards would patrol the palace walls from sunset to dawn every day.
Abdallah’s work also highlights the socio-economic divisions that allowed traders and leading religious figures to live in spacious homes, while those in lesser professions resided in roba (large buildings with many rooms, one entrance, and shared utilities) or hosh (large courtyards with rooms at each corner).
She observes that by the late 18th century, around 86 percent of Cairo’s residents lived in independent houses or apartments, while only seven percent resided in roba and four percent in hosh.
The evolution of house construction in Cairo, within the broader context of the city’s urban development, is explored in Al-Hadidi’s book. This volume does not claim to offer a chronological or detailed account of the city’s urban evolution, instead, it spotlights key urban moments based on extensive research, amid what the author describes as a significant lack of original sources.
Al-Hadidi’s book provides a general overview of the city’s expansion, which covers more than 300 times the area of the original Fatimid plot. It also discusses the changing nature of the city’s markets and cafes, the stylistic and directional shift introduced by Khedive Ismail in the 19th century—who opted to preserve old Cairo and build a new capital in a relatively remote area—and the development of modern roads throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.
Additionally, the book offers insights into the changing names of streets and institutions.
Both volumes offer a broader perspective on the city’s streets and surviving medieval buildings.
Together, they contribute to the ongoing debate about Cairo’s history and the future of its architectural heritage, which has gained prominence in recent years with the construction and inauguration of the New Administrative Capital.
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