You Can't Make Mistakes.

The other day Jeff and I took a walk down al-Darb al-Aḥmar, one of the city’s most famous streets, and one that I had never walked before. I had gone to a talk about the street and the orientation and placement of its mosques and mausoleums given by Dr. Nasser Rabbat, Agha Khan professor of Islamic Architecture at MIT, and wanted to take a closer look at some of the the monuments themselves. This was also the last part of the medieval city that I had not previously walked along the path from the northern gate to the Citadel.

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So, Jeff and I went. He took care of the photography and I took care of the pointing and saying words that probably meant a hill of beans to him, but it was kind of him to humor me. Along the way we meant a guy named Gamal and started talking to him. He worked at the reconstruction of the Mosque of Amir Aqṣunqur (1347, a.k.a. – Blue Mosque) and I told him what we were doing. He knew many of the faculty members in my department at the university and was thrilled about that so he grabbed us by the arms and took us inside the reconstruction projects and showed us around.

Aqṣunqur is in a terrible state of disrepair, but still stunning. It is called the “Blue Mosque” because it was restored and rebuilt in 1652 by Amir Ibrāhīm Aghā Mastaḥifẓān and the qibla wall was redecorated with blue Ismet tiles. these tiles show up all over Cairo during the Ottoman period and can be seen adorning doorways and windows, though not to the extent that they are present in Aqṣunqur. We didn’t take any pictures of the interior since we weren’t really supposed to be there anyway and sometimes folks here get touchy about things being photographed if they are in any sort of state of disrepair.

Next he took us into the mosque and mausoleum of Amir Khāyrbak (1502-1520). The interior is completely restored. It is stunning. You can see it pictured below. We went from there to the House of al-Razzāz (1494-1778) and wandered around the palace where a number of Mamluk sultans and Ottoman rulers spent their days. There is a passage that runs from there to the citadel. Scary and unstable looking.

After this we continued back up the street and climbed into the minaret at the mosque of Amir Altunbūgha al-Maridānī (1340) so that we could have a view of al-Darb al-Ahmar from above. What we saw is a little disconcerting. This is a part of the city that was hit hard by a 1992 earthquake. Many of the buildings which collapsed then are still in terrible disrepair if not completely demolished. In 18 years, very little has been done to rectify this. You can see some of this in the pictures below.

We then continued back down the street toward the Citadel and exited in front of Bab al-‘Azab and caught a cab to Bab al-Lūq. The last photo is from the front of a restaurant in Bab al-Lūq. I have seen the restaurant a million times but have never noticed the hilarious advertisement for brains.

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