Jejak Mesir 2006: Day 1 - Cairo's Mosques and Tombs

30th January 2006

Since we had just arrived that night, it was decided that today's program would be a light one so that we would not feel too tired for the ensuing days where the planned activities were heavier. We only slept for three hours before it was time to start our Egypt tour, and yet neither of us felt too tired. Semangat, kan? Though light the first day's program was, we still had fun covering some of the famous tombs and mosques around Cairo. And for that day, our mushrif was Ustaz Md. Nor and his best friend Ustaz Muhammad who also was the one who drove us around town today (and the next day). Ustaz Halim was tour-guiding a couple whose son was getting married in two days time. But of course, our first stop for the day was breakfast, at kafe rumah negeri Perlis.

Our first destination for the day was Maqam & Masjid Imam Shafie. It was said that nearby the tomb there was a hardened remains of Rasulullah S.A.W.'s footprints. We wanted to see it but couldn't; there was this uncle who approached us to ask for baraqah (berkat, but actually he means money by that - give sedekah to him and get berkat. Sneaky.). We were advised by our mushrifs to just ignore him because apparently it was quite a common occurence for the people there taking advantage of poor tourists such as us. That didn't bode well with the uncle and he got so angry he told us off and didn't allow us to take pictures inside the maqam anymore. As if the tomb was his. Well we actually had snapped enough pictures, sans Rasulullah S.A.W.'s footprint unfortunately.


Outside Maqam Imam Shafie.


This is Imam Shafie's tomb. Very unique and beautiful with the wooden carvings.


The mosque. The boat perched on top of the dome signifies how Imam Shafie travels far and wide in pursuit of knowledge.

Then, we headed to the mosque as Zuhr was approaching. At the time, I did not know that even as a musafir who's privileged to perform the Jamak and Qasar prayers I still can join the regular jamaah prayers because it is after all more afdal than praying alone. Start with the regular prayer in jamaah, then continued my Jamak/Qasar prayer afterward. Thanks to Md.Nor for teaching me something that day!

After that we decided to head to Arma - or Dewam Malaysia Abbasiah for lunch because all five of us were getting hungry. However, we didn't have any Egyptian notes with us, so eventually Md.Nor ended up giving us three poor tourists a treat. Thanks! I had the chance to wander around the Malaysian Hall in search for a toilet, ending up as far away as the hallway with the students' rooms there. Found my way back with help from Muhammad. After finishing our lunch we headed outside to snap some pictures before heading to our next destination.





Our next stop was actually two massive mosques built side by side - Masjid Empat Mazhab (Masjid Sultan Hasan) and Masjid ar-Rifaii.







We explored Masjid Empat Mazhab first. Perhaps you're wondering of the reason this mosque earning the name empat mazhab? Well, as far as I know back in the olden days the studies of the four schools were all conducted here in this mosque, under one roof. Each school got its own corner inside this mosque.




One corner for each school.


No shoes allowed. Behind me and Ustaz Muhammad is the wuduk area.


Praying area.


We heard this ammu's (uncle) recital of the Quran and were deeply fascinated, for it had been quite a while since we heard such lovely recital. It touched our hearts - just see the girls' faces (don't look at me, I'm always snap-happy). This ammu was sporting enough to let us take some pictures with him, unlike the baraqah-seeking-ammu earlier.


Then we headed to Masjid ar-Rifaii. There were a lot of tombs inside this mosque but for the love of me I really can't recall any of them. It has been two years. And I really can't figure out why didn't we take any picture inside this mosque - it's just as grand as Masjid Empat Mazhab. No battery, probably. The only one with a digicam was Im, actually, both Anna and I didn't have one. A mistake we rectified the day after. :)


Masjid Amru al-As. Not our picture; I found it during image-searching but forgot the source...
Anyway, it was getting dark so we zoomed towards Masjid Amru al-As, the biggest mosque in Egypt! It is named after Amru al-As who is said to be the one who opened Egypt. Really wonderful designs. It is said that every year on 27th Ramadhan, an ulama known as Imam Jibril will visit this mosque and will lead the prayers. At that time, people will be pouring in the mosque to seize the chance to be led in prayers by him. They said that he had a wonderful voice and his recitals were extremely well done. Unfortunately we didn't have the chance to be there during fasting month, but at least we got the chance to be here.

Then we headed back to our villas for a quick rest, before heading back down town for dinner. This time around Muhammad didn't join us, but Halim got back from his tourguiding and joined us alongside Md.Nor. We went to town using the tremco - a taxi-van actually. There we were further exposed to the attitudes of Egyptians while on the road, something that had been nothing but surprising for us throughout the day. Our trip to Egypt coincided with the African Cup 2006 held in Egypt, so the people there were overzealous of the fact that their homeland became the host that year. They kept on honking like nobody's business, and there seemed to be a certain tempo for the honkings that everyone seemed to know about; one car can honk half of the tempo and the other car would continue with the second half of the tempo. Interesting but after a while it was rather headache-inducing.


Anyway, as if knowing of our cravings for Malaysian food Halim and Md.Nor brought us to Restoran Nil at the Sabiq area - a Siamese restaurant. Viva la Malaysian/Siamese food, I really enjoyed the dinner! There as we had our dinner we discussed our plans for the rest of the week we were going to spend in Egypt. After that we took a tremco back to our villas. On our walk back to the villas I saw a stall selling fruits - they had very deliciously tempting strawberries I couldn't resist buying some! As soon as I arrived back at the villa I called it a night, wanting to get up early the next day, for it was the day that we would visit the pyramids!