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07-07-00
Okay enough for yesterday. Today we went to Islamic Cairo. We saw these awesome Mosques. Now, I haven't really seen that many Mosques in my lifetime but what we saw made me appreciate them. First of all, when you walk into a mosque you have to take your shoes off. They never make us do that in Christian churches. That gives you a greater respect for the mosque and Islam itself. We were in this one mosque that had like four different places to worship. Mike explained that there are different sects of Islam. Or four main Sunni sects, Shafite, Malikite, Manefte and Hanbalite. The mosque itself was a school and the architect built it so that there would be four separate schools, but one central place of worship. In this was he brought all of the sects together, which is something that has not yet happened in Christianity. We walked all through this mosque. When we got to the exit, Mike was telling us that the leader of some country was buried in one of the Mosques. The reason he's not in his country is because the people hated him. Mike explained that if they took him back to his country, the people would tear the body to shreds. |
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We had the opportunity to see his tomb and his wives. The man who was showing us the tombs stopped by the tomb of his wife. He serenaded us and his voice echoed through the room. I didn't understand a word he said, but it was beautiful. He had a wonderful tone and. He also showed us this room with this beautiful stained glass window. When he turned out the lights the light filtered through the window and showed a display of colors on the stone floor. It was so beautiful that we asked him to turn out the lights a second time. After we left the mosque we started walking to another one, that was around the corner. Well, it was around the corner, but the block was so long that it was more or less a hike. We had to walk past a highway and up a hill. We also passed this really dilapidated section of Cairo. We were walking "around the corner for about 25 minutes". Once we got to the Mohammed Ali mosque, I was appreciative and relieved. This mosque was bigger and more modern. When we walked in of course we had to take off our shoes, but the man at the door gave me a green robe to put on. I thought I was all special and everything, but come to find out, my shoulders weren't covered enough. When I walked in the mosque I saw other people with the same green robe on. I even saw men wearing them. The mosque itself wasn't that spectular, but it was nice. After the mosque we went to a palace. It had this really weird picture of Mohammed Ali. Whenever you stand it looks like the eyes are looking at you, and the Mohammed is facing you. The painting was ingenious in that way. We tied up the rest of the day by going to Arabic class again. We went over more vocabulary and other things. I'm realy interested in Arabic. It's totally different from anything I've ever studied.
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Memoir
in Diary form (Part
5)
One
thing or some things
I forgot to mention from yesterday are the papyrus shop rug place. After
the pyramids we stopped at a store called Papyrus. They sold cartouche's
in there and specially made papyrus sheets. I made a down payment of
their catouche's one for myself, one for my mother and one for Candice.
They were really expensive and they broke me in the pocket, to be frank.
I'm glad I bought them though. That's what I wanted. 
