Living legacy

Four ministers got together to tour restored mosques and revitalise a plan to turn Islamic Cairo's historical sites into an open-air museum. Nevine El-Aref reports

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Al-Selehdar mosque after restoration

Old Cairo's monuments are not just a potentially major tourist attraction. Their allure is a living embodiment of the ages that produced them.

That charm comes with a price; the sheer business of the area -- part of its character -- is also part and parcel of the threats facing the priceless monuments. They range from the destruction wrought by urban encroachment, to the negligence that resulted in a poor drainage system, and frequent misuse of the surroundings by the area's inhabitants.

Six years ago, the Culture Ministry launched an ambitious rehabilitation scheme to save and preserve the area. This month, in anticipation of a mid- October Ramadan inauguration of several of the restored monuments, four ministers and the Cairo governor toured the area to gauge the progress that had been made.

Cairo Governor Abdel-Azim Wazir, Tourism Minister Ahmed El-Maghrabi, Electricity Minister Hassan Younes, and Construction and Housing Minister Ibrahim Suleiman joined Culture Minister Farouk Hosni for last week's inspection.

Hosni was optimistic that the gathering would lead to a resolution of several unsettled issues relating to the wider Islamic Cairo refurbishment project. He told reporters that the session included positive developments: a poor drainage system would be replaced; an end to the ever- expanding haphazard housing problem would be found; and garbage dumps would be removed from the area.

El-Maghrabi pledged his ministry's support for harmonising the area's potential to rise to the top of Egypt's tourism map, while bearing in mind the urban environment in which it is located.

Ayman Abdel-Moneim, head of the Historic Cairo Rehabilitation Project, said the tour truly represented a rebirth of the project, which he said had been on the shelf for almost five years. Although restoration on monuments was in full swing, and Al-Azhar tunnel -- a key part of the overall plan -- was operational, the later stage of converting the area into a pedestrian-only tourist-friendly zone had been on hold for now.

Abdel-Moneim said that work on 76 of 142 monuments slated for restoration had been completed. On Al-Muezz Street alone, from Bab Al-Futouh to Bab Zuweila, 33 monuments await inauguration. Abdel- Moneim said 20 newly restored mosques, including Al- Selehdar, Farag Ibn Barquq, Al-Nasser Ibn Qalawun and Um Al-Ghulam, would be inaugurated during the month of Ramadan.

Egypt's first textile museum is another key project in the area. Scheduled to open in November, the museum's 140 pieces include Islamic carpets and textiles from diverse eras, as well as some of the tools and instruments used in weaving.

The walls of the museum, along with parts of other precious sites like the Al-Selehdar Mosque, have been battling leaking drainage water for some time now. Monuments such as the Ibn Barquq Mosque and the Radwan House have sometimes found themselves a bit too close to nearby flaming garbage heaps. Will all the efforts exerted to rehabilitate Islamic Cairo's historical sites lose out to urban encroachment in the end?