Mystery Field Trip

If you recall, a few weeks ago I was supposed to go to Bayn al-Qasrayn on a field trip, but it did not happen. I had speculated that it had something to do with the Khan al-Khalili bombing- it didn't. The organization that is in charge of the old buildings in Cairo has not innaugerated the area, yet, so we are unable to go inside for the time being. We went somewhere else instead that we had not yet studied. As far as I know, we still have not studied the buildings we went to, but as Bill O'Reilly would say, WE'll DO IT LIVE! I'LL WRITE IT AND WE'LL DO IT LIVE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tJjNVVwRCY warning: explicit language)!!

Wherever it is we went, it was next to the Citadel:

Entrance to Mystery Building #1:


I believe Mystery Building #1 was a multi-purpose building and among its uses was as a school. Where as most schools at the time would teach just one of the Islamic schools of thought, this one taught all four major schools. Each school had its own entrance in this courtyard:

One of the entrances:
The school also had dorms for its students. This is in the courtyard-like area that is surrounded by the dorms:

Hallway by the dorm rooms:
Mystery Building #1 was also a mausoleum. This is an entrance to one of the crypts:
The mahrab is Mystery Building #1:

Mystery building #2
I do not remember much about this building..
The script at the top right goes all the way across the front of the building:

I think there was some significance to the windows..
The building was surrounded by rubble:
Toward the end, I had a sneaking suspicion that the professor was just trying to kill time and walk down the street, looking at various mosques.
Mystery Building #3 (I think):

Mystery Building #4:
A look down the street from Mystery Building #4:

We continued walking down the street and I realized we were close to the Mosque of Ibn Tulun. Jesssica and I thought it would be funny if we ended up going in that mosque we went into on accident when we tried to go to the Mosque of Ibn Tulun. Then we did:

The tomb of whoever's mausoleum/mosque this is:

After this building, we went to another place. I took pictures, but I cannot seem to find them on my memory card. It was a hang out spot for Sufi Muslims back in the day. It is normally closed off to the public, but we were allowed to go in. We just had to find the person with the key. A shop owner told the professor where that key-holding person lived (across the street from the Sufi hang out). One of the students began to shout, hoping that the key holder would hear through an open window and come down. That did not happen, so the student went in to the apartment complex and came out a few minutes later with the key. That is how it's done in Egypt. I hope to find the pictures, it was probably the building that I remember most about!

That it for that field trip. Thanks again for reading and we will leave you with Sting and a cut off his new album..

Arab Cinema and Other Musings..

Today is Taba Liberation Day! God bless the Egyptian Army, no classes! -I had a professor say that. Taba is a small, town on the border with Israel. It was the last town to be given back to Egypt following the 6-Day War and the Yom Kippur War. The university did not announce that classes would be canceled until a week ago, so I would guess this is not a big holiday.

My friend Oliver is landing in Cairo today, as well. The plan is to go Alexandria for the weekend and then he will be here for the following week and weekend- he is spending his spring break here! I may finally go to the pyramids while he is here, too! More on Alexandria when we return..

Last Thursday, I went with a bunch of friends to see the movie 'The Watchmen'. It is based off a graphic novel, but I know nothing about it. I was just excited to go to a movie theater and see a film! It was an interesting experience: The tickets at this theater were 15 pounds, which is a little less than $3. When you buy your tickets, you are shown a seating chart and you have to select where you would like to sit (I do not know if this only happens in this theater or not). The popcorn was cheap, although it did not come in the size that I prefer, two-gallon bucket. An usher showed us to our assigned-seats and we waited for the movie to start. I think there was one movie preview, but I cannot remember for what..

'The Watchmen' was one of few non-Arab films showing in the city. It was in English with Arabic subtitles- no dubbing. The movie was going smooth until the INTERMISSION. For whatever reason, there was an intermission- I do not know how global intermissions are, but I disapprove of them. It was a very short intermission, too, which made it seem even more pointless. I was already upset that there had to be a break in the film, but if I had gotten up to use the restroom, err Wash Closet, I would have been even more upset to find out that the intermission was 45-seconds long.

My friend Darren tells me that the film had been edited from the original. The one thing I remember him saying was that the full body shot of the character Dr. Manhattan (imagine a blue, radioactive Mr. Clean that is nude) is cut out. I do not remember if there was anything else that was edited in the Egyptian version- Darren, perhaps if you read this, you can tell us.

It was comforting to see a movie. Hopefully some more decent films get shown here (not to knock the Arab films, I just will not understand everything).

Last weekend the field trip was supposed to go to an area called Bayn al-Qasrayn (literally, 'between the two palaces'). It is filled with many architecturally-significant mosques and complexes that I could tell you all about due to the massive amount of studying I have done for the midterm in that class (I think it went well). However, we did not go there. The school has not approved of the trip, yet, and we will not be going to it this weekend, either. My theory is that the school will not let us go there because it is very close to Khan al-Khalili, where a bombing and stabbing of an American have occurred in the last month or six-weeks (I have lost track). Of course, it could simply be some sort of bureaucratic-issue within the school.

Instead of Bayn al-Qasrayn we went to- well, I don't actually know. I want to say it was the mosque of Sultan Hassan and some other stuff nearby, but we have not studied it, yet, so I know nothing about it. I have a lot of cool pictures, though. I will post those once I know what they are of- hopefully next week.

Southern Cemetery

[Although it says this was posted on March 11th, it was actually posted early on March 18th- I don't know.]

This is my first real update of March- I apologize. There will definitely be more in the days to come.

I have come up with several excuses for my lack of updating. I had a few midterms these past few weeks (although they were fairly easy), my computer has been randomly shutting off (there was an issue with the fan, I fixed it), I had a paper due (it was only 2 pages), and last Monday (a week ago) was Muhammad's birthday (but I don't know that I left the dorm that day).

Two weekends ago, I had a field trip to the Southern Cemetery. The trip did not sound too exciting until my professor said that going to this area by myself would be a bad idea. Danger! I thought. After going there, what I think she meant by that is the extreme difficulty of navigating the area and knowing what you are looking at. One of the interesting things about the area is that a number of the mausoleums are treated like dumps by the people in the neighborhood. If you were just passing by, you would probably not realize you were walking by something semi-significant.

It was a bad day (for me) for the field trip. The temperature randomly jumped up to the mid-90's, a sign that I am sure to suffer once it gets above 100 in April and May, and there was a random sand storm. The sand storms are not nearly as cool as they sound. In fact, they are just annoying. It is hazy outside and little grains of sand are in the air. Occasionally some will get in your eyes or mouth and you feel kind of grimey after being outside for awhile, but that is it. You do not have to wear special suits to deal with it like in Dune.

This was the first thing I took a picture of, but I could not tell you what it is. However, this guy in my class who looks like an Arab Zach Braff (Scrubs, Garden State) got in the picture and that is important.

Don't you see it?

This is the Mausoleum of Shajarat al-Durr:

Here is the explanation for the hand: I have noticed that there is this guy and girl who try to ruin each others' pictures by doing things like putting hands up at the last second. Funny. I hope they are readers of my blog and look up to me and are now crushed that I disapprove of their actions.

I forget al-Durr's significance, I believe she was married to someone in power. My notes say "She killed her husband, husband's first wife killed her. She wanted to be buried near the Prophet's family." Hopefully I am not tested on that..

It is one of the places treated like a dump:

The most architecturally important part of this structure is its mahrab. It is the first existing example in Cairo of a mahrab made of glass:

The people restoring this building only restored two panels inside the squinches to show what it looked like compared to what it looks like now. I may have made that up, but they only restored two panels:

After this mausoleum, we went to the Mausoleum of Sayyida Ruqayya, the wife of a Fatimid Caliph. It was across the street.

There was a shrine inside:
I am pretty sure I heard that the shrine was added later.

The writing in the circle on the right says "and Ali". This phrase is in a lot of Shi'a art and architecture.

After this mausoleum, we headed across the alley to the Mausoleum of Sayyida Atika (the aunt of the Prophet) and Sidi al-Ja'fari (I believe he was a son of one of the founders of one of the main schools of Islamic thought).
Those two domes are what we are looking for..
..however, this is one of my favorite pictures of Cairo I have taken.

The ribbed dome is the one with the aunt of Mohammed. This is also why I said earlier that Shajarat al-Durr wanted to be buried near the family of the Propeht. Shajarat al-Durr's mausoleum is across the street from this.

I do not think there was anything too significant about the building, other than it being the mausoleum of two celebrities. It has interesting squinches, but that is not very interesting..

After this, we took a short bus ride over to another area.

The first place we went was the Tomb of Imam al-Shafi. I do not remember his importance, but his tomb was nice.

The dome of the tomb is the largest wooden structure in Cairo..
..I think this is the only wooden dome we have studied, so it also the only wooden structure we have seen..

The lighting inside was funky, which is a shame because it was absolutely beautiful! Here are the few pictures that turned out decent:
Almost all of what you see now was painted later by the Ottomans.

Everything was painted or decorated!
Calligraphy!Green lights inside of the shrine
Amidst all of the old beauty was this chandelier:
..atleast it will cut down carbon emissions and save them money on their electic bill

The last place we went to was the mausoleum of the granddaughter of Husayn, son of Ali and grandson of Mohammed. Husayn is an important figure in Islam.

There was not much to this mausoleum, it was a plain room with a shrine inside of it. Apparently, I only took a picture of the entrance:

Some cats:

That was the Southern Cemetery field trip. Not the most exciting place, but interesting.

Regarding the Citadel..

I just got out of my Cairo architecture class where I learned that what I have been calling the Citadel, is not actually the Citadel. It is the Mosque of Mohamed Ali. This mosque is inside of the Citadel complex, but it is wrong to say that it is the Citadel. The professor said that this is a common mistake that even Egyptians make.

I apologize.

Here is a reel of my mistakes:

This picture was from my post about the Mosque of Ibn Tulun. I believe the caption was something along the lines of "a close up of the Citadel". It actually is a close up of the Citadel, but I was referring to the mosque. What you can see of the Citadel are the walls that are around the mosque:

This is a similar situation. Again, it would be correct to say that I was trying to get a picture with the Citadel in the background, but my intention was to get the mosque in the picture:

This picture was taken from al-Hakim Mosque. I said that you could see the Citadel in the background (to the right). I should have said (if I knew better), that is the Mosque of Mohamed Ali, which is in the Citadel: