Old Cairo

I spent the afternoon today in Old Cairo (so named because it's old, but that doesn't really distinguish it from the rest of Cairo. The appellation 'old' is more or less meaningless). There's a nice collection of churches, mosques, synagogues, etc. Actually, that's it - Egypt has outlawed all religions besides those alluded to above. Thanks for playing, Ba'hai Fellowship.

I'm not really going to go into the historical aspect much here, because
a) it's late, and;
b) that would require work
But I'll give you some pictures, and I'll tell you what they're of, and I'll provide you with a link to a great website (called Wikipedia) that should be able to answer any questions you might have.



We hit the Coptic and Eastern Orthodox churches first. The actual churches are surrounded on three sides by an overflowing graveyard (not literally overflowing, of course... interesting mental picture, though, isn't it? But it's quite full). It was hard to pick a single picture to sum up the graveyard, but I finally settled on the above.



This is from a crypt beneath the Coptic church. Purportedly this is where Mary, Joseph, and Jesus stayed while hiding in Egypt. I have no idea how this was determined later, as I would assume that since they were hiding they wouldn't have announced their presence. But there it is.



Next was the Church of St. George right next door. I was initially surprised at seeing the patron saint of England so far from home, but apparently he's the patron saint of a dozen different countries (Egypt isn't on the list, but George was supposed to have grown up in Palestine, so maybe he came down on vacation sometime) and the Boy Scouts. You learn something new every day. The interior of the church is pretty standard Eastern Orthodox, arches and marble and gilt everything, and the lighting was terrible, so no pictures. Above is a pretty impressive frieze of St. George and the dragon, though.

Our last stop was the first mosque to be built in Egypt. The title is actually a bit misleading, as parts of it have been rebuilt or replaced since its establishment - another mosque built in the 10th century is the oldest actual building. Anyway, you can probably tell what some of the more recent additions have been.



A renovated minaret, complete with an array of loudspeakers for a 21st century call to prayer.



Something resembling the original facade, with a 21st century neon الله أكبر. Picturesque.