Final Cairo Tour

Our final day in Cairo we scheduled one more day tour which focused on some of the different religious places of worship and neighborhoods.  This tour included a massive amount of information so we will give it our best shot of summing it up in this post.  One thing that we found a little odd was that we were going to support a friend of our LD friend's to do this tour, but once he found out that we had previously toured with a different company (in Luxor and the Pyramids), he was unwilling to schedule us because he said that it would look odd to the tourism police.  We learned that every tour booked has to be registered through the police and if we switched companies it would look very odd for him and us.  Seems strange but this forced us to use the company which we had used before, which we had a good experience with, so it was not a big deal from our end.  But interesting to see some of the "behind-the-scenes" requirements of the struggling tourism situation here in Egypt.

We were late to meet our tour guide as our hotel key cards don't continuously work and so by the time we get back to our room, we find out we can't unlock the door.  Unfortunately this morning it happened over and over (and the lobby is a hike from our room), so it took us about 20 minutes after breakfast to try to get in our room to grab our bags and brush our teeth so we could head out for the day.  We probably went through 30 new key cards in the few days that we stayed at this hotel and it soon became a joke amongst us!

Religion in Ancient Egypt initially consisted of paganism through the Egyptian and Greek practices.  Through Joseph's being sold by his brothers and landing as a slave in the house of Pharaoh, overseeing rations during the famine, and bringing his father Jacob and his 11 brothers' families, the Israelites presence introduced Judiasm.  Moses later rescued the Israelites out of Egypt.  When Jesus was born, the holy family escaped from Roman persecution and lived in Cairo for roughly 3 1/2 years.  After Jesus commissioned his followers to "Go and make disciples of the nations" (Matthew 28:19), Mark, the Gospel writer, arrived in Egypt. There was a local cobbler in Alexandria who hurt his hand while fixing Mark's sandal and Mark healed his hand in Jesus' name. He, and later his whole family, became the first Christians in Egypt and faith in Jesus spread quickly from there - this was around 45AD.  But as faith spread some of the pagan men sought to kill Mark and he ultimately fled to North Africa where as many were converted there also.  The Christians refused to burn incense and the Roman emperor didn't like this, viewing it as an act of defiance, so he started killing them.  Mark was ultimately tied by his legs & dragged behind a horse carriage til dead.  Many others died also until the time of Constantine, roughly 300 years later.  In 641 Islam was introduced to Egypt from Saudi, and over time Arabic (the language of the Quran) would become the spoken language of Egyptians.  St. Mark brought Christianity to Egypt and it was easy for the Egyptians to grasp the concept of the Trinity because of their history with deities (Roman, Greek, and Egyptian gods).


Overtime, we learned, Islam spread through marriages over a period of a few hundred years.  At one point (around 970AD) there was a real showdown between the Coptic Pope Abraham and al Mais, head of Islam church (and the country at that time).  The al Mais invited several religious leaders to philosophize about the origins of the corruption in Egypt.  The topic discussed was, if it was corrupt before Islam came to Cairo, did it originate in the Bible?  As the Christians seemed to be "winning" this discussion, al Mais sought desperate measures. The Islamist challenged Matthew 17:20, the Bible verse which says that faith can move mountains, and told the Pope all the Christians would be killed unless he performed this mountain moving miracle.  So Pope Abraham and all of the Christians fasted for 3 days and prayed for God to deliver them.  While praying in the hanging church the Pope supposedly saw Mary who instructed him not to be afraid but to leave the church and find a one-eyed man carrying two water jugs. This man was Simon the Tanner who was known for delivering water to the poor.  Simon had plucked out his own eye because of Matthew 5:29-30 and was a devout man of faith.  Simon instructed Abraham to pray "Oh Lord have mercy" 3 times each direction (north, east, south, west) for God to have mercy.  When Simon finished this, a mighty earthquake erupted and literally lifted the mountain to the point where light could be seen underneath.  The Caliph was so impressed he recognized their faith and spared their lives.  This was recorded as geological fact in textbooks until just 2011 when the new Minister of Education, who was a devote member of the Muslim Brotherhood, removed it. Simon was buried under the alter at the hanging church.

Our first stop was the Hanging Church which is named because the foundation is built on top of Roman ruins and literally "hangs" in the air.  We learned about the meaning behind many common 
symbols such as the 3 1/2 circles referring to the 12 disciples being sent out and the vine cross cross which symbolizes the 70 apostles. 

Vine Cross: 5 crosses intersecting = 14 times 5 for the 70 apostles

Steps of the Hanging Church

Inside the Hanging Church -intricate Coptic designed walls in ivory & ebony

We walked down the road to the Cave church, which was built in the 3rd century and is above where the holy family hid from Herod for almost 4 years before returning to Jerusalem (Matthew 2:13).  A basilica has been built on top of where they stayed as is very common for many of the revered places. The church has 12 columns for the 12 disciples and the roof is constructed to resemble Noah's arc.  This is considered to be oldest church in Cairo and was under heavy restoration when we visited.  

Roof designed to look like Noah's arc - built in 3rd century

View down into where the Holy Family stayed while in Egypt until Herod died.

Our next place of worship that we visited was the Ben Ezra Synagogue.  Some believe that Moses could have been received by Pharaoh's daughter at this spot (Exodus 2:1-10). There is a marble structure resembling a basket similar to what Moses might have been placed in as an infant. This structure dates back to Pharaoh Merenptha (13th son of Ramses II), and mentions Israel not having any seeds, which some take to mean that Israel didn't exist or had dispersed, which could be chronicling Moses exodus which might mean that this event took place during the reign of Ramses II.   In the 9th Century the Muslims ruled Egypt and so Ben Ezra came from Jerusalem and bought this synagogue and maintained it so that the Jewish population would have a place to worship.  There were once over 1 million Jewish people living in Egypt, but after the peace treaty with Israel, many left for Israel and the US. Now only 12-20 Jewish people permanently live in all of Egypt and there are 29 synagogues!

Resembles the shape of the basket Moses was found in as a baby, and the stones
with the Ten Commandments are at the top/handle section

Our guide then took us to the Ibn Tulun Mosque, which is arguably the oldest Mosque in Cairo.  Our guide was a practicing Muslim so he was able to explain the 5 required prayer times (roughly 5:00, 12:00, 3:00, 6:00 and 7:15) and the history and practices of the Mosque. Friday is noon prayer with a sermon and Friday is also the Muslim day off so that they can go to the mosque and pray.  During large gatherings the Iman will stand on a pulpit-like staircase so that others can hear while another person will be out in the courtyard repeating what he says for those too far away to hear the Iman. The Mosque was pretty empty when we there and they required us to put paper booties on our shoes as we walked around. We then were able to climb the stairs to the top of the Minaret which provided some amazing views of Cairo.

Inside a mosque during their noon call to prayer

Classroom: learning history of Islam and Mosque

Mosque view from Minaret

View from Mosque Minaret across Cairo, many many satellite disks on top of the buildings!

For lunch our guide picked us up some Kosheri to eat on the way to our next stop.  Kosheri is a Egyptian dish of noodles, rice, fried onions, and lentils with optional chili sauce to add.  We ate this quickly in the care while we drove to the gate of the once-walled city and walked the streets learning more about the Muslim and Egyptian ways of life here.

Gate to enter the ancient walls of the city

Height of aqueduct wall for city at one location

Aqueduct wall for the city getting shorter

Some friends had said we have to see the work that the Coptics do with garbage and the cave church. Not really sure what to expect, we asked our tour provider to add this to our itinerary.  The neighborhood is known at Mokattam and the people were originally moved here by the government as they were illiterate garbage collectors who worked with pigs while living next to Muslims, which was a source of contention because Muslims do not interact with pigs. The Zabbaleen, which literally means "garbage people," have served as Cairo's garbage collectors since the 1940s.  The first few generations collected garbage for free going door to door in Cairo. They figured out how to recycle 80-90% of it (western companies typically recycle about 20%) and feed all the organic waste to the pigs.  Today "garbage city" is the home to about 30,000 residents of which over 90% are Coptic Christians.  The city of Cairo has long been ok with this because no one else wanted to do it, but the whole situation is now in jeopardy as more commercial waste collectors are getting hired by the city, but the city has never paid the Zabbaleen for their work.  This places the entire community at risk with an unknown future as they may not only lose their livelihood but also may be forced to move.  As we drove through the area we saw building after building where the garbage was being sorted, piled and bound, all in the center of the city so to speak.  There were children pushing large carts and pigs running around loose.  The stench was awful and we kept our windows closed to avoid it, but we were told that the locals have just gotten used it.  This whole experience was something different than we had seen anywhere else primarily because it's right in the middle of the city. 

Kids playing in garbage on the street

Truck transporting city garbage

Garbage being sorted inside a warehouse

Further along the drive in the garbage city, there is an amazing cave church which was as surreal as everything else here. Its beauty and magnificence are something only eyes can believe. The amphitheater is carved right into the rock and can seat over 7000 people!  Here we learned about the history of St. Mark and how Christianity first came to Egypt. 

Cave church near Mokattam

This is carved into wall. Can see in picture above as well.

We wrapped up our tour day with a stop at a market street for what our tour guide called "Emergency gifts from China."  We thought this was funny as each shop seemed to have mass produced "Egyptian" souvenirs.

A mode of transportation similar to a taxi - these mini-bus-vans drive around
 with the door open for people to hop in and out of

As we prepare to leave Egypt we are awestruck at what we have seen and learned here in just a short amount of time.  It literally feels like a semester course in just 8 days.  We were more tourists here than we have been in some time and that has both advantages and disadvantages.  It was great to stay in a nice hotel, have unlimited hot water, fresh towels and a pool to play in - all things that we no longer take for granted - but we also did not get the same sense of people and lifestyles like we have in other locations.  We ponder though if this might have been a blessing as so many of our interactions with locals were tense and not very encouraging. The people here are hurting as tourism is 10% of what it used to be and those in desperation will often act as such.  You can see and feel that everywhere.  Unfortunately many interactions turned into a headache and almost all of the kindness we thought we were experiencing had some sort of string attached to it.  Of course we stick out like a sore thumb and have targets on our backs for such folks.  This made our time out and about fairly exhausting, which made a hotel all the more nice to have. As we leave Cairo, a few of us were getting nasty head colds (likely from all the dust and dirt constantly blowing both here and in Luxor), so unfortunately the guys weren't able to join the LD soccer night as they'd hoped... flying will be interesting and potentially painful for some of us.

Our next stop is Jordan to see some old friends and then off to Israel for Easter.