In this building once dwelt
the High Priest of the mosque. This dwelling, the ancient wall, the
grey minaret with its motionless bird, the lamentable waste ground at my
feet, prepared me rightly to appreciate the bit of old Cairo I had come
to see.
People who are bored by Gothic churches would not love the mosque of
Ibn-Tulun. No longer is it used for worship. It contains no praying
life. Abandoned, bare, and devoid of all lovely ornament, it stands like
some hoary patriarch, naked and calm, waiting its destined end
without impatience and without fear. It is a fatalistic mosque, and is
impressive, like a fatalistic man. The great court of it, three hundred
feet square, with pointed arches supported by piers, double, and on
the side looking toward Mecca quintuple arcades, has a great dignity of
sombre simplicity. Not grace, not a light elegance of soaring beauty,
but massiveness and heavy strength are distinguishing features of this
mosque. Even the octagonal basin and its protecting cupola that stands
in the middle of the court lack the charm that belongs to so many of the
fountains of Cairo. There are two minarets, the minaret of the bird, and
a larger one, approached by a big stairway up which, so my dragoman
told me, a Sultan whose name I have forgotten loved to ride his favorite
horse. Upon the summit of this minaret I stood for a long time, looking
down over the city.
Grey it was that morning, almost as London is grey; but the sounds that
came up softly to my ears out of the mist were not the sounds of
London.
Pages:
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130