The Old Road to the Pyramids

July 24, 2006

If you were living in medieval Cairo and wanted to visit the pyramids, how would you get there? It was naturally not a matter of waving at a taxi. The road would also not involve a freeway, a modern concrete cridge across the Nile, or a long trip through the urban expanse that is modern Cairo and Giza. So what would the trip be like? We have an exact description of the route passed down to us by al-Idrisi:

From the city of Cairo, possessor of radiant palaces, if one chose to depart from the Zuweila Gate—which is a gate marvelous of description, eloquent description falling short of describing the mastery of its construction and quitting in haste the attempt, it being the fatique of the vision of the viewer. One who was seen the gate cites as an example for one who has not seen it the following lines of the al-Nili, the skilled poet:

"Oh sober one, If you laid eyes on the Zuweila Gate

    Then you would know the measure of its site in construction.

It is a gate that surrounds itself with a galaxy,
    dresses its hair, and winds Saturn around its head.

If the Pharaoh could have seen it he would have

    built nothing imposing nor commissioned the two lofty heads."

One should follow along the street, which is the extensive Qasaba, until he leaves from the Suweiqa Gate and passes by Halalya and the Street of Aleppo. Then he leaves from the New Gate and walks through the Garden of 'Abbas, known today as the Garden of the sword of Islam, commanding a view of the Elephant Pond. Then comes the mosque of Ibn Tulun, which will be on his right. He turns on his left side so that he can visit the three shrines, which are the shrine of Muhammad the younger, Sukayna, and Ruqqaya. Then he arrives at the shrine of Sayyida Nafisa (daughter of Hasan, son of Zayd, son of Hasan) in a neighborhood known anciently in the books of Khitat as Darb al-Siba', where she had her house. The Imam Shafi'a... directed, when death attended him, that his funeral procession carry him to her house [and grave] so that prayer might give testimony for him and her blessing come to him. Prayer at her grave is an antidote tested through fulfillment. There appeared for her sake after her death miracles... Likewise the shrine of Sayyid ['Ali Zayn al-'Abdeen], who is quite close to the shrine of Sayyida Nafisa, to the right of one who visits her.

Al-Idrisi describes a number of sites which are still present.. A picture of Zuweila Gate heads this blog—the starting point for the road to the pyramids. The shrines for Sayyidas Nafisa and Ruqqaya, along with Sayyid 'Ali Zayn al-'Abdeen, continue to be major shrines that attract Muslims in Cairo. The mosque of Ibn Tulun still stands. But although some of these sites remain, the connectivity of the medieval city is gone. What gave these sites a pull on the imagination is that they lay on a specific well-traveled route. The city was bound together by sacred sites.. which had stories attached to them, and even a vast literature (note the reference to "books of Khitat").

Lost, of course, are well-known sites such as the "Ponds" around which wealthy palaces and homes were built. One would also look in vain for traces of medieval gardens or parks.. although these were clearly an important part of the city experience. To get a visual conception of this road, we can look at a schematic map of medieval Cairo:

Al-Idrisi is simply following that major road marked in black. You can see Elephant Pond to the right of the road, and then the mosque of Ibn Tulun again to the right. The cemetery falls a little to the left of the road. So what we have is a highly exact description of what a pious Muslim would encounter and value as he makes his way along the road.

If I continued with the translation, we would eventually make our way to the mosque of 'Amr ibn al-'Aas in Fustat, and then we would cross the Nile on a bridge made of boats tied together. What is encountered on the other side of the Nile I think I will leave for another blog.

There is one unanswered question from this description: why is al-Idrisi, in a book dedicated to the pyramids, spending a few pages describing a road that passes sites having nothing to do with the pyramids? I think it goes along with the general stragegy employed by al-Idrisi throughout this work. He is laboring at all costs to bring the pyramids inside the Islamic tradition, and he does this in a couple of ways: by pointing out every important Muslim or prophet who has had a connection to the pyramids.. and here he does it by associating the pyramids with the great thoroughfare of Cairo. By setting the pyramids as the end point of this road, he is tacitly asserting the place of the pyramids among the other sacred sites of Cairo.