THE MOSQUE OF MURISTÂN KALAÛN, MY EXPERIENCE WITH THE FAKÍR, AND A
DIGRESSION ON THE SUBJECT OF DERVISHES
Passing once more the mosque of Kalaûn, I was attracted to one of
its windows; not on account of its particular interest as such, but
of its possibilities as a point of vantage from which I might paint
the opposite side of the road, and, unmolested, make studies of the
interesting incidents which take place in it.
There was still time to go to the Wakfs ministry before it closed for
the midday ‘siesta.’ ‘El Wakfs’ is the name of what we might term the
Board of Religious Endowments. It is here where artists must apply for
a pass to allow them to paint inside the mosques.
I fortunately found Herz Bey, the architect of the Wakfs, and he very
kindly gave me what I required.
Apart from the window of Kalaûn’s mosque which would be of great use to
me, its interior is one of the finest and most ornate in the whole of
Cairo. I had found several subjects there in former years, and I looked
forward to finding a pleasant asylum in which I could restfully do some
work after the fatigue of some days of street painting.
The mosque was falling into a ruinous state when I had last entered it.
Originally most gorgeous, its colouring had then been softened down by
more than six centuries since en-Nasir completed the dome which covers
the tomb of his father.
I also looked forward to a cooler spot than my café, for Cairo has
far from cooled down during the first days of November. Though the
thermometer may not register so high as in June, the damp heat during
the high Nile is more felt than the greater, but dryer, temperature of
early summer.
I was prepared not to find the mosque as paintable as in the earlier
days,
‘Before Decay’s effacing fingers
Have swept the lines where beauty lingers’;
yet I was hardly prepared to find it to all appearance a brand
new building. It had been admirably restored, and restoration was
necessary, I have no doubt, to prevent its falling into complete ruin,
as so many other monuments have done. But, alas, its poetry was gone.
Nor is this likely to return so long as it is kept as a show-place
merely, and only visited by the tourist or student of Saracenic
architecture. The hundred and one signs which suggested the worshippers
who had gathered here during the six bygone centuries were all swept
away; the worn praying mats were gone, and any of the movable furniture
which is not now shelved and labelled in a museum may have found its
way to some dealer’s shop,--the place for which these things were
designed knows them no more.
I started a large drawing, for in spite of all it is a beautiful
building, and looks now in all probability very much as it looked when
Nasir’s work-people left it. I worked hard at this drawing; spent whole
mornings getting the intricate arabesque patterns into perspective
and their relative tones; but the longer I worked the more my drawing
became the lifeless perspective elevation plate of some book on
architecture.
Some day, when my last impressions of the place may fade and I may
remember more clearly the shrine retaining its human associations, I
may possibly be able to take up this drawing again and infuse some life
into it.
I did better from the window overlooking the Nahasseen.
The ruinous domed mosque--built before the one of Kalaûn--to shelter
the remains of Ayyub es-Salih, has been heavily dealt with by ‘decay’s
effacing fingers.’ Copper-smiths have rigged up their stalls against
its crumbling walls, and the mosque school still hangs together
sufficiently to be used by the youths repeating their Koran. This and
an ever-moving crowd of people had at all events a soul left in it.
My regrets at having lost so much time in producing an artistic failure
decreased in proportion as the use I was able to make of this window
increased.
Facing immediately the street leading to the Beit-el-Kadi, I was able
to take notes, on a market day, of all the incidents mentioned in
the last chapter, and at ordinary times there would always be more
than enough subject-matter to furnish the foreground of the couple of
drawings I made from here.
[Illustration: A CHEAP RIDE]
The mosque being now a ‘sight’ more than a place of worship, a fee is
charged for admittance; and even this matter, which I was regretting
before now, proved an advantage to me, for the attentions of the
inquisitive are usually more marked while making figure studies than
while painting some inanimate subject.
Small boys would occasionally crawl on to the sill and hang on to the
grating to try and see what I was doing, till my man, whom I kept
outside, would send them away.
A ragged fakir chose the bit of pavement just below my window to do
a little basking in the sun. Mohammed whispered to me, through the
grating, that he was a great saint, and squatted next to him in the
full odour of his sanctity. A current of air would now and again bring
some of this odour my way; but I restrained Mohammed from disturbing
the fakir in his sleep. Others were not so considerate, for, in spite
of the old man’s saintly repute, a number of young hooligans soon
surrounded him, and comments on his appearance provoked such laughter
as to wake him up.
The fakir now seemed as one possessed of a devil; he laid about with
his staff and cursed his tormentors with a fluency which only a long
practice, during his unregenerate days, could have given him. A young
woman at a safe distance called out to him that the _ghawaga_, that is
I, was sketching him, whereupon he turned round and directed the flow
of bad language in my direction. The grating was a protection from the
old fellow’s staff, and an unused-up lot of curses soon fell on the
head of Mohammed, who moved him off.
Too much attention having been drawn to my window, I retired with my
materials within the shades of the mosque interior.
I made inquiries about the old man. The term, fakir, is used in Egypt
to denote a wandering dervish, and is also applied to any poor beggar.
His rags were not simply the torn garments of a poor man, but a
carefully made coat of many patches and of variously coloured stuffs,
known as a ‘dilk.’ Shreds of coloured cloth were also fastened to the
end of his staff. He wore no turban, and had supplemented his own hair
with what I believe ladies call ‘a front’ made from a horse’s tail.
I was told that he belonged to the Rifaiyeh order of dervishes, and
was famous in his day for being able to pass swords through his body
without leaving a wound; he would also charm serpents and scorpions
away from a house, eat live coals and chew glass.
As I have seen many appear to do these wonders without necessarily
being considered very holy men, there remained a more potent reason for
his reputed sanctity. I tapped my forehead once or twice, suggesting
that an excess of miracles must have made him mad. ‘His mind is in
heaven and only his body remains on earth,’ was the answer to my
suggested question.
A superstitious awe for persons whose intellect is affected obtains
all over the Mohammedan world--the Cairo hooligan being apparently the
exception.
The great majority of dervishes are men of some trade or another and
take part in a _zikr_ during the religious festivals; a few lead a
tramp’s life and beg their way from town to town where one of these
festivals may be taking place; while those who are mentally afflicted
without being actually dangerous can generally find the wherewithal to
live in the district to which they belong. The latter are now rarely
met with in the European parts of Cairo, and as they seem generally
bereft of all sense of decency, the police may have something to say in
the matter.
I attended a _zikr_ during my first visit to Egypt, when an evening
with the Howling or Dancing dervishes was still looked upon as one
of the ‘sights.’ These were often got up by the dragomans as an
entertainment for the tourists. H. H. the Khedive has since forbidden
these shows as liable to bring Islamism into disrepute. Some wit
remarked of the dragomans, that they believed in Mohammed and his
profits. The dervishes (or darweesh, as they are called in Egypt) were
genuine ones, and argued that their religious exercises might be just
as acceptable even if they resulted in some profit in the shape of a
‘baksheesh’ from the unbelievers.
The first part of the performance was the same as may be seen any
evening, in any village, during the month of Ramadan.
About a dozen men sat in a double row facing each other, and, taking
their time from a leader, began by slowly repeating the first words
of the Moslem’s confession of faith: ‘Lá iláha illa-lláh,’ which they
accompanied with a swaying of their bodies backwards and forwards.
Gradually they would increase the speed of the repetition and the
movements, always taking their time from the leader. This got faster
and faster till their chief shouted ‘Alláh!’ Then, repeating this one
word, the swaying of their bodies became so rapid that one or two fell
down exhausted. The remainder kept it up as long as their physical
endurance would allow; their mouths foaming, their faces livid, and
a mad look in their eyes. Presently more would fall down; some lying
still, and others to all appearance in their death agony. The cry of
‘Allah’ finally ceased when the leader fell forward, and, saving a gasp
or a gurgle, all was still.
Some of us were preparing to leave when a sign from the conductor of
our party kept us in our seats.
These bodies stretched on the floor--to all appearance dead or
dying--looked ghastly in the light of the flickering torches.
We sat on some time wondering what the next move would be. A heavy
breathing with alternate choking on the part of one of the performers
directed our attention his way. After making several attempts to rise,
he succeeded in getting into a sitting posture and stared vacantly at
us. When he seemed conscious of where he was and what he was doing, he
rose rapidly to his feet and spun round and round for several minutes;
he next seized hold of a torch, continued his gyrations, and without
stopping held the lighted torch under his one garment, allowing the
flames to pass all over his body. It reminded me horribly of the straw
fires with which peasants are wont to burn the bristles off a stuck pig.
A foreign princess who was of our party, and on whose behalf this
_zikr_ had been arranged, had now seen as much as she could stand, and
she and her immediate suite went away.
The performers seemed quite unconscious of this disturbance; the man
kept on spinning round, toasting his chest and then his back till he
let fall the torch and sank down on the matting.
Another had in the meanwhile come to life again and begun to spin like
a teetotum. He drew two knives from his girdle and, while continuing
his motion, rested the points on his lower eyelids; he next hacked his
face and forehead, and when the blood-letting had sufficiently cooled
his frenzy he joined his companions on the floor.
The low muttered ‘Alláh’ from the other dervishes showed that they were
awakening from the kind of cataleptic sleep they had fallen into.
A third one now arose and startled one of the spectators by rushing
forward and seizing a tumbler near him; he bit off pieces of glass
and crunched them in his teeth. He looked absolutely loathsome as he
appeared to swallow the glass, with the blood streaming from his mouth.
His craving for glass was not satisfied yet. The glass of an oil lamp
near me caught his eye, and catching hold of it, hot as it was, he
chewed it up as a half-starved dog would chew a bone.
I had now had more than enough, and slipped quietly off before a fourth
began his ‘turn.’
Mohammed followed me out. He was not very communicative about the
unnatural orgy we had assisted at, and as he is a good Moslem, I fancy
he seemed ashamed of the performance.
While walking down the Mousky on the following morning, a cabman seated
on the box of his _arabeyeh_ greeted Mohammed with an unusually cheery
‘Salaam Alêkum.’ The answer, ‘Alêkum es-Salaam, ya ibne Kelb,’ with an
accompanying shake of the finger, was surprising; that is, ‘The peace
be with you, O son of a dog.’ The cabby laughed and drove on. Mohammed
looked rather consciously at me, and seeing that I looked puzzled, he
asked me if I did not recall that cabman’s face. Yes, I had seen him
before, but when or where I could not say. ‘Why, he is the darweesh who
ate all that broken glass last night.’
True enough, it was the very man! But no _première danseuse_ seen with
her tinsel and spangles behind the footlights, and afterwards met in
everyday garb, could have shown as great a contrast as did this cabby
and the wild dervish of the previous night. He was dressed in European
clothes, except for the red tarbouch, and he seemed none the worse for
his last night’s glass supper.