The Egypt Syndrome

It's hard to believe that we will finish the program here in Egypt exactly one week from today. The semester has flown by! I have fallen a bit behind on the blogging front, mostly because I've been quite busy with school, teaching, and also trips to Cairo and various other spots in Egypt over the past few weekends. Two weekends ago in Cairo, we visited most of the major spots in Islamic Cairo, Coptic Cairo, and also managed to work in a trip to a camel market that was one of the craziest experiences I have had in Egypt to date (more about that later).

But first, I want to talk about something I have decided to call the "Egypt Syndrome." Having been here now for four months and having visited most of the major tourist sites in the country, I have developed a very skewed perception of time as it relates to history. In the US, just about the oldest buildings you'll find were built in the 19th century and a few still exist from the 18th century (in Boston, for example). In Egypt, however, I have now come to feel normal when I walk into a building or a mosque that was built over 1,000 years ago. It goes without saying, of course, that the Pyramids trump everything else in this country in terms of grandeur in relation to age. I cannot even begin to comprehend that those majestics structures were built over 4,000 years ago. Seriously. The Pyramids aside, however, Cairo is littered with ancient buildings that are still being used today. We visited the Hanging Church in Coptic Cairo, built sometime around the 4th Century (!) AD, and early in the day we walked around inside the Ibn Tulun mosque, the oldest in Cairo, that was built in 876 AD. Less than 300 years after the death of Mohammed!

After becoming used to seeing those ancient sites all over the place, buildings built in the Middle Ages, the Byzantine Period, or the Ottoman Period just don't seem that old. Don't get me wrong, I still love to visit them, but I enjoy them more for their architectural intricacies or stories about past events that happened there. Whereas a building built the 14th century in the US would probably be known primarily for its age, the 700 year old Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo is famous because of its role as the focal point of Islamic study in Egypt. People know that the mosque has been around for ages, but that fact is simply mentioned in passing rather than emphasized.

I have heard many people here in Egypt (and in Syria and Lebanon) refer to the country as "Um al-Dunia" (mother of the world), and I can say with certainty that Egypt definitely deserves that title. Everything here is extremely old, but the grandeur and architectural genius of those old structures have preserved them very well. Therefore, when you walk around the Pyramids or climb the minaret of Ibn Tulun Mosque to get a panoramic view of the city, you might try to get your head around how long of a period 1,300 years(in the case of Ibn Tulun) really is, but ultimately you will find yourself simply unable to comprehend it.

For anyone wanting a funny description of what happened on our trip to the Camel Market outside of Cairo, take a look at this post on my friend Emily's blog (we shared the unique experience.)http://emilyisinegypt.blogspot.com/2010/05/hit-and-run.html