Next we headed to Cairo’s Citadel, which sits atop the highest point of the city. The fortress was built a few hundred years ago, which by Egyptian standards is practically new. The most impressive things about the grounds is #1 the view of Cairo and #2 the Mosque of Mohammad Ali. From the vantage point beside the mosque, as far as the eye can see are the dusty buildings of Cairo. It really gives you a feel for how large the city is. The Mosque is beautifully constructed and is designed to look like the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, which I saw when I was in Turkey this past fall. The architecture definitely resembles that of the Blue Mosque, but the two different settings make them unique. I hadn’t crossed my mind while there, but I wonder why they built a mosque inside a citadel, which is usually a military area? I guess I’ll have to google it.
Once inside the mosque we had to remove our shoes and Megan and I had to put on green robes to cover our legs and arms. The robes were strangely designed with the arm holes in the front of the robe rather than the sides, and I had a hard time keeping mine velcroed together so I probably showed a little more skin than the Muslims would have liked. Every time I rearranged my purse (it kept falling off my arm) the Velcro rip open. Oops. The inside also reminded me of the Blue Mosque, but smaller in scale. It still had the original carpets from when it was built (how have they survived hundreds of years and probably millions of people walking/kneeling on them?!?? I don’t know if I believe our tour guide) and hundreds of lights hanging from the domed ceilings to illuminate the wide expanse. It’s still weird for me to be in a mosque rather than a church, because Muslims pray on the ground and thus there’s no furniture in mosques. Just wide open space with a small pulpit in a corner or to the side.
Our guide sat us down and decided this would be a good time to have a little lesson on what’s it’s like to be Muslim in Egypt. She told us whether or not you wear a scarf is up to the family, and that she wouldn’t make her daughter wear one. She said prearranged marriages are mostly a thing of the past, but she’s not allowed to date (she’s 25). She still sneaks around though, and dates guys without her parents knowing. She told us it is very common for first cousins to marry, and when we all had looks of surprise on our faces, she was taken aback as to why people would think that was strange. The most interesting thing she told us was that in Arabic countries a husband can still legally have up to four wives. Women do not have the right to divorce their husbands (only the man can bring forth a divorce) UNLESS the husband tells the wife he is going to take on another wife -- then the woman can divorce him. But because divorcees are frowned upon, the woman is stuck in a pretty bad situation. She can either stay in the marriage with up to three more wives, or can be a divorcee and be shunned by the community. I’m glad I was born in the US.
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