[p.100]We will now enter the Mosque Al-Azhar.  At the dwarf wooden railing we take off our slippers, hold them in the left hand, sole to sole, that no dirt may fall from them, and cross the threshold with the right foot, ejaculating Bismillah, &c.  Next we repair to the Mayza’ah, or large tank, for ablution, without which it is unlawful to appear in the House of Allah.  We then seek some proper place for devotion, place our slippers on some other object in front of us to warn the lounger, and perform a two-bow prayer in honour of the Mosque.[FN#16] This done, we may wander about, and inspect the several objects of curiosity.

The moon shines splendidly upon a vast open court, paved with stones which are polished like glass by the feet of the Faithful.  There is darkness in the body of the building, a large oblong hall, at least twice too lengthy for its height, supported by a forest of pillars, thin, poor-looking, crooked marble columns, planted avenue-like, upon torn and dirty matting.  A few oil lamps shed doubtful light over scanty groups, who are debating some point of grammar, or are listening to the words of wisdom that fall from the mouth of a Wa’iz.[FN#17] Presently they will leave the hypostyle, and throw themselves upon the flags of the quadrangle, where they may enjoy the open air and avoid some fleas.  It is now “long vacation”:  so the holy building has become a kind of Caravanserai for travellers;

[p.101]perhaps a score of nations meet in it; there is a confusion of tongues, and the din at times is deafening.  Around the court runs a tolerably well-built colonnade, whose entablature is garnished with crimson arabesques, and in the inner wall are pierced apartments, now closed with plank doors.  Of the Riwak, as the porches are called, the Azhar contains twenty-four, one for each recognised nation in Al-Islam, and of these fifteen are still open to students.[FN#18] Inside them we find nothing but matting and a pile of large dingy wooden boxes, which once contained the college library; they are now, generally speaking, empty.[FN#19]

There is nothing worth seeing in the cluster of little dark chambers that form the remainder of the Azhar.  Even the Zawiyat al-Umyan (or the Blind men’s Oratory), a place where so many “town and gown rows” have emanated, is rendered interesting only by the fanaticism of its inmates, and the certainty that, if recognised in this

[p.102]sanctum, we shall run the gauntlet under the staves of its proprietors, the angry blind.

The Azhar is the grand collegiate Mosque of this city,-the Christ Church, in fact, of Cairo,-once celebrated throughout the world of Al-Islam.  It was built, I was told, originally in poor style by one Jauhar al-Kaid,[FN#20] originally the slave of a Moorish merchant, in consequence of a dream that ordered him to “erect a place whence the light of science should shine upon Al-Islam.”

It gradually increased by “Wakf[FN#21]” (entailed bequests) of lands, money, and books; and pious rulers made a point of adding to its size and wealth.  Of late years it has considerably declined, the result of sequestrations, and of the diminished esteem in which the purely religious sciences are now held in the land of Egypt.[FN#22] Yet it is calculated that between 2000 and 3000 students of all nations and ages receive instruction here gratis.