THE PROPHET’S BIRTHDAY
Stand with me on the Hill of the Citadel and take a look over Cairo.
We are away up over the river Nile, and far above the minarets of the
mosques that rise out of the vast plain of houses below. We are at a
height as great as the tops of the Pyramids, which stand out upon the
yellow desert off to the left. The sun is blazing and there is a smoky
haze over the Nile valley, but it is not dense enough to hide Cairo. The
city lying beneath us is the largest on the African continent and one of
the mightiest of the world. It now contains about eight hundred thousand
inhabitants; and in size is rapidly approximating Heliopolis and Memphis
in the height of their ancient glory.
Of all the Mohammedan cities of the globe, Cairo is growing the fastest.
It is more than three times as big as Damascus and twenty times the size
of Medina, where the Prophet Mohammed died. The town covers an area equal
to fifty quarter-section farms; and its buildings are so close together
that they form an almost continuous structure. The only trees to be seen
are those in the French quarter, which lies on the outskirts.
The larger part of the city is of Arabian architecture. It is made up of
flat-roofed, yellowish-white buildings so crowded along narrow streets
that they can hardly be seen at this distance. Here and there, out of
the field of white, rise tall, round stone towers with galleries about
them. They dominate the whole city, and under each is a mosque, or
Mohammedan church. There are hundreds of them in Cairo. Every one has
its worshippers, and from every tower, five times a day, a shrill-voiced
priest calls the people to prayers. There is a man now calling from the
Mosque of Sultan Hasan, just under us. The mosque itself covers more
than two acres, and the minaret is about half as high as the Washington
Monument. So delighted was Hasan with the loveliness of this structure
that when it was finished he cut off the right hand of the architect so
that it would be impossible for him to design another and perhaps more
beautiful building. Next it is another mosque, and all about us we can
see evidences that Mohammedanism is by no means dead, and that these
people worship God with their pockets as well as with their tongues.
In the Alabaster Mosque, which stands at my back, fifty men are now
praying, while in the courtyard a score of others are washing themselves
before they go in to make their vows of repentance to God and the
Prophet. Not far below me I can see the Mosque El-Azhar, which has been
a Moslem university for more than a thousand years, and where something
like ten thousand students are now learning the Koran and Koranic law.
Here at Cairo I have seen the people preparing to take their pilgrimage
to Mecca, rich and poor starting out on that long journey into the
Arabian desert. Many go part of the way by water. The ships leaving
Alexandria and Suez are crowded with pilgrims and there is a regular
exodus from Port Sudan and other places on this side of the Red Sea. They
go across to Jidda and there lay off their costly clothing before they
make their way inland, each clad only in an apron with a piece of cloth
over the left shoulder. Rich and poor dress alike. Many of the former
carry gifts and other offerings for the sacred city. Such presents cost
the Egyptian government alone a quarter of a million dollars a year;
for not only the Khedive but the Mohammedan rulers of the Sudan send
donations. The railroad running from far up the Nile to the Red Sea makes
special rates to pilgrimage parties.
Yet I wonder whether this Mohammedanism is not a religion of the lips
rather than of the heart. These people are so accustomed to uttering
prayers that they forget the sense. The word God is heard everywhere in
the bazaars. The water carrier, who goes about with a pigskin upon his
back, jingling his brass cups to announce his business, cries out: “May
God recompense me!” and his customer replies, as he drinks, by giving him
a copper in the name of the Lord. The lemonade peddler, who carries a
glass bottle as big as a four-gallon crock, does the same, and I venture
to say that the name of the Deity is uttered here more frequently than in
any other part of the world. It is through this custom of empty religious
formulas that I am able to free myself of the beggars of the city. I have
learned two Arab words: “Allah yatik,” which mean: “May God give thee
enough and to spare.” When a beggar pesters me I say these words gently.
He looks upon me in astonishment, then touches his forehead in a polite
Mohammedan salute and goes away.
On my second visit to Egypt I was fortunate in being in Cairo on the
birthday of the Prophet. It was a feast day among the Mohammedans, and
at night there was a grand religious celebration at the Alabaster Mosque
which Mehemet Ali, that Napoleon of Egypt, built on the Citadel above
Cairo. Its minarets, overlooking the Nile valley, the great deserts and
the vast city of Cairo, blazed with light, and from them the cry of the
muezzins sounded shrill on the dusky air: “Allah is great! There is no
God but Allah, and Mohammed is the Prophet of Allah! Come to worship!
Allah is great! There is no God but Allah!”
As this call reverberated through the city, Mohammedans of all classes
started for the Citadel. Some came in magnificent turnouts, bare-legged,
gaudily dressed _syces_ with wands in their hands running in front of
them to clear the way. Some came upon donkeys. Some moved along in groups
of three or four on foot. The Khedive came with the rest, soldiers with
drawn swords going in front of his carriage and a retinue of cavalry
following behind.
The Alabaster Mosque covers many acres. It has a paved marble court, as
big as a good-sized field, around which are cloisters. This is roofed
with the sky, and in the midst of it is a great marble fountain where the
worshippers bathe their feet and hands before they go in to pray. The
mosque is at the back of this court, facing Mecca. Its many domes rise to
a great height and its minarets seem to pierce the sky. It is built of
alabaster, but its exterior has become worn and pitted by the sands of
the desert, which have been blown against its walls until it has nothing
of the grandeur which it must have shown when its founder worshipped
within it.
The interior, however, was wonderfully beautiful that night, when its
gorgeous decorations were shown off by the thousands of lights of this
great service. Under the gaslight and lamplight the tinsel which during
the day shocks the taste was softened and beautified. The alabaster of
the walls became as pure as Mexican onyx, and the rare Persian rugs that
lay upon the floor took on a more velvety tint.
See it all again with me. In the eye of your mind cover an acre field
with the richest of oriental rugs; erect about it walls of pure white
alabaster with veins as delicate as those of the moss agate; let these
walls run up for hundreds of feet; build galleries around them and
roof the whole with great domes in which are windows of stained glass;
hang lamps by the thousands from the ceiling, place here and there an
alabaster column. Now you have some idea of this mosque as it looked on
the night of Mohammed’s birthday.
You must, however, add the worshippers to the picture. Thousands of
oriental costumes; turbans of white, black, and green; rich gowns and
sober, long-bearded, dark faces, shine out under the lights in every
part of the building. Add likewise the mass of Egyptian soldiers in
gold lace and modern uniforms, with red fezzes on their heads, and the
hundreds of noble Egyptians in European clothes. There are no shoes in
the assemblage, and the crowd moves about on the rugs in bare feet or
stockings.
What a babel of sounds goes up from the different parts of the building,
and how strange are the sights! Here a dozen old men squat on their
haunches, facing each other, and rock back and forth as they recite
passages of the Koran. Here is a man worshipping all alone; there is a
crowd of long-haired, wild-eyed ascetics with faces of all shades of
black, yellow, and white. They are so dirty and emaciated they make one
think of the hermits of fiction. They stand in a ring and go through
the queerest of antics to the weird music of three great tambourines and
two drums played by worshippers quite as wild looking as themselves. It
is a religious gymnastic show, the horrible nature of which cannot be
described upon paper.
When I first entered the mosque, these Howling Dervishes were squatted
on the floor, moving their bodies up and down in unison, and grunting
and gasping as though the whole band had been attacked with the colic.
A moment later they arose and began to bob their heads from one side to
the other until I thought their necks would be dislocated by the jerks
they gave them. They swung their ears nearly down to their shoulders. The
leader stood in the centre, setting the time to the music. Now he bent
over so that his head was almost level with his knees, then snapped his
body back to an erect position. The whole band did likewise, keeping up
this back-breaking motion for fifteen minutes. All the time they howled
out “Allah, Allah!” Their motions increased in wildness. With every stoop
the music grew louder and faster. They threw off their turbans, and their
long hair, half matted, now brushed the floor as they bent down in front,
now cut the air like whips as they threw themselves back. Their eyes
began to protrude, one man frothed at the mouth. At last they reached
such a state of fanatical ecstasy that not for several minutes after
the leader ordered them to stop, were they able to do so. The Howling
Dervishes used to cut themselves in their rites and often they fall down
in fits in their frenzy. They believe that such actions are passports to
heaven.
[Illustration: A great occasion in Cairo is the sending of a new
gold-embroidered carpet to the sanctuary in Mecca, there to absorb
holiness at the shrine of the Prophet. The old carpet is brought back
each year, and its shreds are distributed among the Faithful.]
[Illustration: The mosque of the Citadel in Cairo was built of alabaster
by Mehemet Ali, the “Napoleon of Egypt.” When Mohammed’s birthday is
celebrated, its halls and courts are choked with thousands of Moslem
worshippers and are the scene of fanatical religious exercises.]
In another part of the room was a band of Whirling Dervishes, who,
dressed in high sugar-loaf hats and long white gowns, whirled about in
a ring, with their arms outstretched, going faster and faster, until
their skirts stood out from their waists like those of a circus performer
mounted on a bareback steed, as she dances over the banners and through
the hoops.
There were Mohammedans of all sects in the mosque, each going through
his own pious performances without paying any attention to the crowds
that surrounded him. In his religious life the Mussulman is a much braver
man than the Christian. At the hours for prayer he will flop down on his
knees and touch his head on the ground in the direction of Mecca, no
matter who are his companions or what his surroundings. He must take off
his shoes before praying, and I saw yesterday in the bazaars of Cairo a
man clad in European clothes who was praying in his little box-like shop
with his stocking feet turned out toward the street, which was just then
full of people. In the heel of each stocking there was a hole as big as a
dollar, and the bare skin looked out at the crowds.
The Moslems of Egypt, like those elsewhere, have their fast days, during
which, from sunrise to sunset, they do not allow a bit of food nor a
drop of water to touch their lips. Some of them carry the fast to such
an extent that they will not even swallow their saliva, and in this dry
climate their thirst must be terrible. The moment the cannon booms out
the hour of sunset, however, they dash for water and food, and often
gorge themselves half the night. You may see a man with a cigarette in
his hand waiting until the sun goes down in order that he may light it,
or another holding a cup of water ready while he listens for the sound of
the cannon. This fasting is very severe upon the poor people of Egypt,
who have to work all day without eating. The rich often stay up for the
whole night preceding a fast day, and by going to bed toward morning they
are able to sleep the day through and get up in time for a big meal after
sunset.
The poor are the best Mohammedans, and many of the more faithful are much
alarmed at the laxity in religious duty that comes through contact with
Europeans. A missionary friend told me of a Moslem sheik who was offered
a glass of cognac by a brother believer on a fast day. Shortly after this
he met my friend and spoke of the incident, saying: “I don’t know what we
are coming to. Good Mohammedans think they can drink without sinning, and
this man laughed when I told him it was fast day and said that fasts were
for common people, and that religion was not of much account, anyhow. We
have many infidels among us, and it seems to me that the world is in a
very bad way.”
The Moslems have many doctrines worthy of admiration and the morals of
the towns of Egypt which have not been affected by European civilization
are, I am told, far better than those of Cairo or Alexandria. A traveller
to a town on the Red Sea, which is purely Mohammedan, says that the place
has had no litigation for years, and there is no drunkenness or disorder.
The people move on in a quiet, simple way, with their sheik settling all
their troubles. Mohammedan Cairo is quite as orderly as the part in which
the nobility and the Europeans live. It contains the bazaars and the old
buildings of the Arabian part of the city, and is by all odds the most
interesting section.