Sayedna al Hussein, khan el khalili & al Azhar mosque

On Sundays 2nd of july, was my trip to Sayedna al Hussein mosque and khan el khalili.
On my way,
I was thinking about the enormous mix of monuments you can visit only in Cairo from the pharonic civilisation to the Coptic and Islamic civilisation. But the shame is that the number of tourists that visit Dubai –that is smaller than some egyptian neighbourhoods- becomes larger than that who visit Egypt that houses one third of the world’s monuments and where pharonic sites date from 4000 BC!
I was watching weird phenomenas that are indeed special to Egyptian society. You can notice a whole business under bridges; newspapers, sunglasses, shoes and socks, underwears, toys, food.. are sold. Kollo ta7t el kobri,"Ta7t el kobri mall".You can consider that under the bridge is also a home for some people and a public toilet for all men in need!
On the sidewalks and in the middle of the streets you see sellers of different kinds of “made in China” goods. But the new thing I saw was a man standing on the sidewalk with a huge gather around him. What is he selling I wondered ?!
Akl el 3eish ..
El ragel dah 7attet mizan tebbi 3al rassif we koll wa7ed ye2is wazno beddor weydaf3.
w 3ashan el donya dalma, ma3ah kashaf soghayyar 7atto 3al mizan..we tab3an mo3zam elli bey2iso waznohom settat rashikat. Sme3t set bet2ool le gozha : Wek7yatak 3awza 2a2is wazni ya 7ag!."

Historical hint about khan el khalili

The Mamluks ruled Egypt from 1250 to 1517. During this time Al-Qahira was an important center for trading and commerce in Africa and the East. In the year 1382 prince Jartas Al-Khalili built a "khan" that is a center of commerce and trade which is two or three story buildings containing shops and store rooms, surrounding a courtyard used for caravan stables, and this was the official start of "Khan Al-Khalili". Today, khan al khalili is a touristic shopping center .You will be fascinated by the tiny backstreets and narrow twisting alleys with little shops full of goods, like shisha, copper abari2 and masabi7 , carpets, belly dancing suits and perfume shops that sell copies of virtually international perfumes (ta2lid)…etc. You will enjoy bargaining with merchants,you will start by 45 pounds and you can end up with 15 pounds after fesal!.You can also go to drink tea in al Feshawy or eat pigeon (7amam )in fara7at

From khan al khalili to Al Hussein mosque
Al-Hussein was the son of 'Ali, the Prophet Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law and the fourth and last of the caliphs. After his father was assassinated, Hussein was urged to claim the caliphate, but he was killed at the Battle of Karbala in Iraq in 680. A head believed to be Hussein's was brought to Cairo in 1153 and a shrine was built for it on the site of the mosque. It was entirely rebuilt under the khedive Ismail in 1873.
http://archnet.org/library/sites/one-site.tcl?site_id=7422
Mesh ghariba
I was looking for some info about Al Hussein mosque.In this site:http://www.wcities.com/en/record/,194704/113/record.html, I found that the first info about the mosque is that it is : “One of the holiest mosques in Egypt, this is where the president and other dignitaries pray on special occasions..!”

I went for Maghrib prayer in Al Hussein mosque, and I noticed that inside the women’s space (more than on the entrance) stands a man who takes the shoes. Why not a woman? I don’t know, and this man can see all the women, some of them lying on the floor with their legs open or sleeping or beyrada3o…or praying tab3an.
After praying, I entered to visit Sayedna al Hussein shrine and read the fat7a upon his soul …there u see men and women around the tomb, touching and kissing it and calling out convocations from Allah…you will see also an old woman responsible for the cleaning who is repeating and insisting on saying : “ kollo yekhalli balo men7agto...law 7aga ettakhdet malish da3wa."
After that, I did some shopping in khan al khalili. I bought three ear rings for 5 pounds, I was very proud of myself for having bargain until this cheap price, but when I got back home I discovered that one of the ear rings is totally broken! I also bought a re2 a small tabla for 1 pound and a copper thing where we put bukhur.
Al Azhar Mosque
Located in al Hussein square, Al Azhar mosque was built in 969 by Jawhar al Seqelli the army commander of Al Muez le din Allah al fatemi, during his building of Cairo. It is named Al Azhar to honor Fatema Al-Zahraa the daughter of the prophet Mohammad (pbuh). It is connected to Al-Azhar university, the oldest university in the world which was essentially built to be a study place for shiite students. By the passage of time, the Shiite sect was overshadowed and nowadays Al-Azhar is considered by most Sunni Muslims to be the most prestigious school of Islamic learning, and its scholars are seen as some of the most reputable scholars in the Muslim world. Al azhar independence from the power is essential to prevent any abuse or twisting of the religion.



Al azhar today ...!
























Last station…Al 3ataba
After my visits I went to take the bus from al Aataba.From el ma7atta (that doesn’t really exists but that consisits of about 3-4 meters where people gather to take the bus or to run after it) I was watching sou2 el 3ataba . Stores full of colorful clothes and fabric clustered, Carts overloaded with suff specially women clothes and veils are spread all over the sidewake.Merchants calling out disounts on their products with different phrases and different melodies and you can’t imagine that such low prices could exist…One of the merchants had an orange child’s suit in his hand in front of his wheeled vehicle and was shouting :”kollo be talata wenos .”

Just before the bus arrives, the sadist police came like sab3 el boromba and in a second and with very high professionalism all these carts disappeared and the merchants fled…the minibus arrived and we began el malahi.