Those many minarets, almost like columns of fog rising above the
cupolas, spoke to me of the East even upon this sad and sunless morning.
Once from where I was standing at the time appointed went forth the
call to prayer, and in the barren court beneath me there were crowds
of ardent worshippers. Stern men paced upon the huge terrace just at my
feet fingering their heads, and under that heavy cupola were made the
long ablutions of the faithful. But now no man comes to this old place,
no murmur to God disturbs the heavy silence. And the silence, and the
emptiness, and the greyness under the long arcades, all seem to make
a tremulous proclamation; all seem to whisper, "I am very old, I am
useless, I cumber the earth." Even the mosque of Amru, which stands also
on ground that looks gone to waste, near dingy and squat houses built
with grey bricks, seems less old than this mosque of Ibn-Tulun. For
its long facade is striped with white and apricot, and there are
lebbek-trees growing in its court near the two columns between which
if you can pass you are assured of heaven. But the mosque of Ibn-Tulun,
seen upon a sad day, makes a powerful impression, and from the summit of
its minaret you are summoned by the many minarets of Cairo to make the
pilgrimage of the mosques, to pass from the "broken arches" of these
Saracenic cloisters to the "Blue Mosque," the "Red Mosque," the mosques
of Mohammed Ali, of Sultan Hassan, of Kait Bey, of El-Azhar, and so on
to the Coptic church that is the silent centre of "old Cairo.
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