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Al-Ahram Weekly 4 - 10 November 1999 Issue No. 454 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 4 - 10 November 1999 Issue No. 454
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Making room for history
By Aline KazandjianIt is a stimulating experience to walk through the Khayamiya (Tent Makers') area in Cairo. As in mediaeval times, richly coloured, intricate patchworks decorate the tiny shops of the narrow, covered path leading to the 10th-century gateway of Bab Zuweila. An equally stimulating experience is to find a horse-drawn cart loaded with a perfect pyramid of watermelons charging right at you in the same alley! A tourist may panic and dodge for cover in the nearest shop. But the locals are unperturbed. In perfect synchronicity, each passerby finds the precise angle that will just avoid a collision. Then man, beast and melons continue their journey into another busy day.
All this may change very soon. Last year, the government launched a plan to rehabilitate Islamic Cairo, and already the area has witnessed major changes. The restoration of Al-Azhar Mosque was completed earlier this year. The Al-Azhar tunnel was to have started operating in December, but the opening date has been postponed to the end of next year.
This 2.6km-long tunnel will run under the main thoroughfare going from Opera Square to Salah Salem Street. Besides easing the traffic on this axis, the tunnel is intended to alleviate the air and noise pollution caused by the cars that use it, and considered detrimental to the monuments that represent some of the world's finest Mameluke and Ottoman architecture.
Work on the tunnel was disrupted, however, when workers hit on antiquities. "When working in a historic site, you must hit on something," said Gaballa Ali Gaballa, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA). He added, almost with relief, that the items turned out to be blocks from an enclosure wall that surrounded the original city of Al-Qahira, built in 969AD by the Fatimid commander Jawhar Al-Siqilli. The blocks were removed, and construction work proceeded.
Work is moving ahead on the northern section of the same wall, adjacent to the gates of Bab Al-Futouh and Bab Al-Nasr. The wall was submerged almost entirely in the ground, and the Cairo governorate removed some 37 houses built either over or connected to the wall. The residents were to be relocated to Manshiyet Nasser, an informal community outside the project area.
The rehabilitation project is based on a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) study covering an area of roughly four square kilometres. This quadrangle accommodates some 310,000 inhabitants. Imbedded among the more modern buildings are approximately 313 monuments, some almost 1,000 years old. The central axis of the area is Al-Mu'izz Lidin Illah Al-Fatimi Street, which alone has 27 registered monuments. Many of them are in a sorry state, due to years of neglect and recent ailments such as overflowing sewage, polluting industries, traffic and encroachment by a mushrooming population. Only last year, the Musaferkhana burned to the ground. The authorities blamed residents for burning heaps of garbage next to it. The earthquakes of 1992 and 1994 also took their toll on the ageing buildings.
Still, walking down Al-Mu'izz is like passing through a time machine. One minute you are looking at a 14th-century mosque, the next you discover the bronze grilles of an Ottoman sabil. At the corner of an alley, the sign reads Sukkariya; now you are in Naguib Mahfouz territory. Yet all the while there is the omnipresent noise of the crowds, the honking of vans inching there way through a wave of humans and animals. "It's part of the local colour," says Gaballa. "If tourists come and don't find Cairo noisy they will be disappointed. Everybody has been telling them that it is a crazy city. The government is trying to put some order to that madness. The research included every aspect of the area," he explains. "We concluded that we cannot work piecemeal; it has to be a complete package."
Left: Wikalat Ratib Pasha, from Le Khan Al-Khalili: Un Centre Commercial et Artisanal au Caire du XIIIè au XXè Siècle (S Denoix, J-C Depaule and M Tuscherer, eds.), IFAO, 1999. Right: the changing face of the city where priceless monuments jostle for space
This means a comprehensive face-lift to the area that goes below skin depth into sewage systems, water and electricity networks. Upgrading people's lives also necessitates investment in the economic potential of the area. Cairo Governor Abdel-Rehim Shehata believes there is "a treasure" here, so the government is promoting enterprises such as hotels and restaurants as well as craft workshops. All existing industries, such as aluminium-welding, marble cutting, copper smelting, car repair workshops and pickling businesses will be removed from the vicinity: 10 to 15 per cent of the workshops now operating there, according to official figures.
The UNDP study also shows that 30,000 of the area's residents are squatters who live in make-shift rooms on the roofs of crumbling buildings or even inside ruined monuments. Many of the monuments are occupied by the government itself, which has recently decided to evacuate all classified buildings. The decision also prohibits the renting of monuments to individuals and the renewal of existing contracts.
One of the monuments that could be affected is Bab Zuweila. When Nairy Hampikian was commissioned by the American Research Centre in Egypt to head the restoration of the gate, she discovered that a family lived in one of its two towers. The household head is a musician in a traditional Arabic music ensemble (takht); Hampikian believes "he is the right man in the right place." She thinks the residents should not be removed indiscriminately. "This is a living city; if you empty it of its inhabitants it will die." Instead, her team restored the family's beautiful mashrabiya window, which overlooks Al-Mu'izz Street.
Just outside Bab Zuweila lies the 12th-century mosque of Al-Saleh Tala'i, which is also undergoing a major restoration job. But before any archaeological work could begin, the trench surrounding the mosque had to be drained of the water accumulated from broken sewage pipes or leaking taps. The sewage system, installed at the end of the last century, did not take into consideration the depth of the foundations of the monuments. "The amount of trash was unbelievable. People used to throw all sorts of garbage here," says engineer Rajan Patel, whose adventures included fishing live baby shrimp from the sludge thrown out by the vendors of the adjacent fish market.
"We are not against the people, just those who are acting against the law," says Medhat El-Menabbawi, the supervisor of the area's antiquities. His own offices, however, lie in a restored 14th-century palace, Qasr Bishtak. Twenty-five monuments in the area have already been restored since the late '70s and according to the first phase of the development plan 47 more will be completed in the coming two years. El-Menabbawi is confident this target will be reached. On the other hand, "work on monuments never ends," says Gaballa. Recently restored but badly maintained monuments prove his point. Gaballa also points out that 95 per cent of the monuments belong to the Ministry of Religious Endowments (Awqaf). It is unclear just who is responsible for restoring and maintaining these national treasures.
It is hard to imagine what this place will look like if the plan actually works. The view from the top of Bab Zuweila is not encouraging. Once upon a time, these gates opened onto desert. Today, there is no horizon left, just a brown-gray agglomeration wrapped in smog. Yet a sense of history lingers around the "thousand minarets" that pierce the skyline as if gasping for air. It would be a great achievement to give this rich past the future it deserves.
