Environmental Change in Cairo:
al-Maqrizi, pt. 1

May 23, 2006

In American life and letters the environment is largely static. There are disasters, of course.. earthquakes and hurricanes come and do their damage. But the narrative goes on and things get rebuilt. Rivers flow in the same places and forests remain forests. An attempt to buck this pattern of representation will likely result in a writer getting labeled as "environmental".. one of those categories that severely limits the potential audience for a writer.

An important aspect of medieval Arabic historians is their seeming comfort with the idea that natural things change. I find this especially evident in the work of the Egyptian historian al-Maqrizi, whose book on the "districts" (Khitat) of Egypt in general and Cairo in particular could be called the "Old Roads" of medieval Egypt. Al-Maqrizi specifically sets aside the idea of telling the story of a nation through its generations of elites or scholars and takes up the task through a description of specific places and their history. My work here in Egypt centers on a chapter from this book, but throughout the summer I will be doing my best to see the physical remains of Cairo through the eyes of this 15th century historian.

The following is a brief passage in which environmental change figures as an important historical factor.

When 'Amar ibn al-'Âs conquered Alexandria, for his first conquest he settled down beside this fort (Babylon in old Cairo) and laid out a mosque known both as the "Ancient Mosque" and as the "Mosque of Amar ibn al-Âs." The tribes of the Arabs were arranged around this mosque. The city became known as al-Fustat and people settled there. Then in the year after the conquest the water of the Nile receded from the ground opposite the fort and the Ancient Mosque. The Muslims would let their pack animals stop there. Then they laid out in it homes little by little. The shore of the land became the place which is known today in Egypt as the Stairs and it ran to al-Kawm which is on the left of the person who enters at the Egypt Gate. In the area of al-Kawm were residences overlooking the Nile! The shore passed from the Egypt Gate to the place where the Garden of Ibn Kaysan was, known today as the Eunuch's Garden at the start of Maraghah and all the areas known today as Maraghah. The area in width from al-Jarf to al-Khalij and in length from the Aqueduct to the market of the Stairs was inundated with the water of the Nile until the water receded from it after the year 600 AH. This area became sandy and then princes laid out [estates] near where al-Malak al-Salih Najam al-Din Ayyub built the stronghold of Rawdah, and one also laid out a storehouse until Nasir Muhammad ibn Qalawun erected his mosque, known as the New Mosque of Nasir, outside Cairo. Then what is around it was built up. But at the conquest of Egypt all [these areas] were water. [my translation, vol 1, pgs. 286-7, Dar al-Sadr publisher]

Al-Maqrizi is engaged in using place names from the 15th century to explain the places where the water of the Nile once reached. To get this translation really right I would need to know more than I do about the medieval districts of Cairo. But the basic sweep of the narrative is clear: the water moves—quite suddenly, it seems—ever further to the west, and the new land that is thus opened up is quickly developed and made into residences.

In this telling the history of the city of Cairo is intimately connected to environmental change. And at times the reader can even feel the amazement of al-Maqrizi as he explains that residences in a certain neighborhood used to look out over the Nile. I think Americans would be loathe to allow the environment so much influence over our history.. and to be fair, the Nile will not be going anywhere in the near future, controlled as it is by the High Dam in Aswan and the concrete banks constructed for it as it passes through Cairo. The Nile has in many ways ceased to be the instigator of change. And that tends to be our modern goal, doesn't it?