Usually when one goes inside a mosque, he has to remove his shoes from his feet and leave them in a certain area, but here instead of removing our shoes, there were a couple of men who tied bags around our shoes so that our dirty shoes would not directly be touching the floor of the mosque, nor would we have to take off our shoes. Also, all the girls had to cover their heads with a scarf.
The mosque had many portacles, but in the middle of the mosque was a dome-shaped structure. First, Dr. Tarek mentioned that the minaret that was closest in our field of vision had a unique spiraling staircase that was on the outside of the minaret, leading to the top. He also mentioned that this was not the original minaret of the mosque—the original one had been destroyed during a natural disaster. Then, we walked inside the dome-shaped structure. When I stood in the middle of it and looked up, I saw a verse from the Quran engraved around the inside rim of the dome. It was a bit difficult to read, so when Dr. Tarek mentioned that it was about water, it made sense that there was a fountain built in the middle of the structure.
When we walked around some more, I saw a dark silver plaque that had some Quranic verse engraved in it, but it was written in a style different than what I’m used to, which was why I was not able to read it. But I did think it was very beautiful. One thing that surprised me was that there was a smaller dome within the mosque that incorporated stained glass windows. I wasn’t aware that they were also included in mosques because when I think of stained glass windows, I automatically think of a church, so it was surprising to me that some mosques also contain stained glass windows. The only difference, of course, is that the stained glass windows in mosques do not contain any images, whereas the ones in churches do.
After that, we climbed the stairs of the spiraled minaret and walked around the roof and/or the top of the minaret. Now, I can go on and on about the Mosque of Ibn Tulun, but we visited so many mosques today, that I’m just going to fast forward through the next few to get to my favorite one, the Barquq Mosque. So the next mosque we visited was Sultan Hassan Mosque. First, we listened to the Muslims’ call to prayer, then we observed as they prayed, and then finally we went to the area where there was a mausoleum. There Imam Sayed very eloquently recited a verse from the Quran for us and helped us to follow the words by pointing at them, as they had been written along the inner top rim of the wall. We also thought it was very interesting how Imam Sayed had played a role in the movie Cairo Time and that this mosque was called “Obama’s mosque.”
After that we drove to al-Muizz street (the same street we walked through when we visited Bab Zuwayla). At first, I excused myself to perform the afternoon prayer. And the thing I LOVE about Egypt is that you can find a mosque just about anywhere you go. In the U.S., there are very few mosques so there’s no convenience of being able to pray comfortably. But here, especially on this street, there is a mosque after every couple of store fronts.
Then, we walked through the market called Khan el Khalil where we saw dozens of sheesha shops. This was where we saw my favorite mosque, the Barquq mosque. I loved the mosque as a whole, but what really made me a fan was a specific ornate ceiling decorated with my favorite combination of colors, blue and gold. I don’t recall if the gold coloring was real gold or not, but I just remember being in awe as I stared up that the intricate and detailed design for a ceiling that seemed to me to have taken a very long time to create.
So after the tour, we went shopping in the Khan. There were many many stores, several of them selling the same items. I visited a number of stores and bought a total of 11 hijabs. I also bought a pretty silver compact mirror that had purple gems and a flowery design on the outside. After shopping, we grabbed a taxi and headed back to the hotel in congested traffic. For dinner, I ate at Hardee’s at the request of my mom who’d eaten and loved Hardees’ jalapeno chicken burger in Pakistan. I must say, it was delicious. It was fresh and the chicken was crunchy. Mmmm. I’m definitely going back there.
No comments:
Post a Comment