An Artist in Egypt

by Walter Tyndale

Cairo is unpaintable during the few grey days of midwinter, and perhaps this is just as well, for when the Great Germicide does not shine, the place must be very unhealthy. An overcast sky often drove me into the mosques, where I could spend my time in drawing my subject, until the warm reflections from the sunlit court should make me feel instinctively for my pallet.

I flattered myself that few nooks and corners existed in the old city which I had not explored, till I turned up a narrow lane outside the Bab Zaweyla and found myself in the ruinous court of a delightful old mosque. It is extraordinary that I should have overlooked this during the many seasons I have spent in Cairo. The lane is called Haret es-Salih, and the mosque servant informed me that this was the mosque of Salih. Who this Salih might be was more than the servant could tell—he had not been there more than twenty years—should it be a mosque called after the founder of the mameluke dynasty, its date could not be earlier than the middle of the thirteenth century. There is much remaining which suggests an earlier period, both in the plan and in the construction of the arches; the foliated background, to the Kufic lettering which decorates these arches, seemed hardly in keeping with the work of the orthodox Moslems who succeeded the Fátimid dynasty.

I looked up all the Salihs who crop up in Stanley Lane-Poole’s Story of Cairo—a handy little volume, published by Messrs. Dent and Co., which no visitor to Egypt should fail to get—and I succeeded in placing him as Talái ibn-Russik, who on his accession to power styled himself el-Melik es-Sâlih. He was the last but one of the Fátimid khalifs, and he built this mosque in 1160, the sixth year of his reign.

There is little now remaining of all that was built in the enclosure which Gawhar pegged out as the site of el-Mo’izz’s ‘guarded city’; the small mosque, el-Akmar, happily still exists and enables students to study the less restricted forms of decoration which the Sheea heresy permits. The boundaries of el-Kahira were considerably extended during the two centuries of Fátimid rule; the three great gates and Hakim’s mosque remain as specimens of the work of that period, and they also mark the limits of the extended city.

It was outside the walls of the Cairo of those days where Talái ibn-Russik built his mosque, and it remained for Saladin, who succeeded the Fátimid khalifs, to yet further enclose and bring this mosque well within the walls of his enlarged capital.

The entrance is through a gateway supporting the minaret, which latter is probably of a later period than the rest of the building. The colonnade, which surrounded three sides of the square court, has almost disappeared, as well as parts of the enclosing wall. The liwán, which is the subject of the accompanying illustration, is still intact. Kept sufficiently in repair so as to prevent its falling down, it has never suffered the hand of the renovator to sweep out every trace of the mellowing influence of near eight centuries of use.

An ugly wooden fence enclosed it from the court, but I was able to see enough through the palings to paint it as if this disfigurement were not there. The court is on a higher level to the liwán owing to the accumulation of rubbish which has not been cleared away, and this accounts for the high horizon in the picture. It also enabled me to see less of the exasperating fence. Though still used as a place of worship on Fridays, it serves as a school during the rest of the week. The young students squatting on the matting and committing to memory verses of the Koran form picturesque groups, and the little crowd around the rostrum of the teacher centralises the subject.

The scenes are on a smaller scale than those which may be witnessed any day at the Azhar, or University Mosque. The latter has been so over-restored, and not always in a judicious manner, that I have never been tempted to paint there. The students here are mostly lads, and are either preparing for the university or are the children of parents who may not approve of the modernised form of instruction at the Khedivial schools. As in all purely Arab schools, the training is almost entirely confined to exercising the memory rather than the development of the reasoning faculties. It is often quite sufficient qualification for a teacher to know his Koran by heart, so that he can detect any mistakes in the verses which he hears his scholars repeat. As every lad repeats aloud what he tries to learn by heart, the noise is easily imagined. There seems little restraint; the lads nibble at their lunch or buy drinks from the lemonade-seller when it pleases them; those to whom the teacher’s back is turned may indulge their liking for mankalah or any other games easily secreted under their cloaks; and had it not been for the powerful lungs of Mansoor, most of the scholars would have taken up a position around my easel.

When the clouds dispersed and the further angle of the court formed a warm sun pocket, the greater number would leave the liwán and repeat their verses in the warmth. Mansoor’s work of keeping the lads away from me then became more arduous. He found an ally in the mosque servant, and when gentle persuasion failed more drastic measures were used. The noise in the court did not in the least seem to disturb the good-natured teacher, and when he left his rostrum he would come and have a look at the work I was doing.

I came here many times, for not only did the drawing and detail of this subject take up several long mornings, but I had a second one on hand of which these lads in the sun made the foreground. That they should be curious to see what I had made of them was natural enough, so I gave them an opportunity of satisfying their curiosity before I packed up to go. In sketching a group of figures which is constantly on the move, the head of one may be suggested on the body of another who may have moved away. This seemed to perplex my spectators considerably. When Ahmed had identified his kuftan or galabieh, Seleem would point out the head as belonging to himself. A good stare at me to see if any signs of the evil one were visible would follow: if some afri’t had not assisted me in this uncanny work, how else was it to be explained.