It took getting lost in some of Cairo’s oldest neighborhoods, driving up a hill, watching in shock as gas tanks fell off a cart in front of us, and annoying a cafe owner by parking right in front of his shop (the only spot we could find) to get to the Mosque of Ibn Tulun last summer. Yet, as soon as we entered, the chaos outside the mosque’s walls seemed to fade away. Attached to Cairo, Egypt’s biggest and oldest mosque is the Gayer-Anderson Museum, the former house of a 20th-century British orientalist, and the beginning of our tour.

John Gayer-Anderson bought and restored two 16th-century houses, one of which was known as Beit El-Kritliyya (House of the Cretan Woman) in attribution to the woman who formerly lived in it. He took up residence in the houses, filling them with objects that he collected during his travels through Iran, Turkey, Egypt, and other countries in the region. Today, the museum allows visitors to see how it was historically adapted to fit the uses of its various residents prior to Gayer-Anderson, and what he later added to the houses. The museum displays most of his belongings, including the spectacular rooms that he lived in, rooms categorized by the origins of his collected artifacts (“The Damascus Room”, “The Ancient Egyptian Room”), an extravagant hall that historically held celebrations, and even secret doors that led to hidden indoor balconies from which women could watch celebrations without being seen.  

There was so much to see, and when looking at windows, we were busy admiring the intricate mashrabiyas–traditional carved, wooden pieces that allowed those inside to look out freely without onlookers being able to see in–that covered them, rather than the view outside. It was only when I noticed this slim and uncharacteristically simple opening in the wall that I realized what a magnificent view the houses had: the wall of the enormous Mosque of Ibn-Tulun and the minaret of an equally historic, nearby, Turkish-style mosque. The street, the buildings, the cars, and the shops that were just next to the mosque had somehow disappeared. The window seemed to purposefully omit everything else, helping me imagine what it would have been like to live in the house many years ago. The contrast between the symbolic spirituality of what I was seeing outside the window, and the overwhelming evidence of materialism in the room that I was standing in demanded a photo. Not imagining how it would turn out, I stayed behind to take a completely different picture than all the others I had taken that day.

When I tapped my phone’s screen to make the minaret outside the window clearer, the room and all of its material treasures faded away. When the mosque’s old wall leading to the simple, distant minaret came into view, one word came to mind- it was what I was physically doing as I tapped my phone, and what my heart was urging my brain to do: focus.

References:

“Bayt Al-Kritliyya.” Tour Egypt. Tour Egypt, n.d. Web. 3 Jan. 2016.

“Gayer-Anderson Musem.” Supreme Council of Antiquities – Museums. The Supreme Council of Antiquities, n.d. Web. 3 Jan. 2016.

Khulood Fahim is an Egyptian international student who lives in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates. She is a first-year, and is expecting to major in Government and Comparative Literature. In her free time, she enjoys talking to her family, attending events on campus, keeping up with current events, and enjoying the weather.

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