The Citadel and the Mamelukes

It was late in the afternoon when we slowly climbed the Mokattam to the citadel; we were weary, and so were the horses.

Cairo was done great justice pictorially when Saladin located the citadel and gave people a place of observation. From within the city can be seen only in piecemeal; but from this elevation, taken as a whole, it is unique, it is beautiful.

The citadel of Cairo is a vast fortress situated on a spur of the Mokattam, and is surrounded by a wall two hundred and fifty feet high and of vast solidity. The roadway leading up to it passes through a number of great stone gateways, and is so beautifully graded that carriages pass most of the distance along the winding ascent with comparative comfort, and industrious little donkeys discharge their freight at the very summit.

It was built in the twelfth century by the famous Saladin, and this especial site chosen from the fact that meat would keep sweet here for a much greater length of time than in any similar spot near Cairo. It certainly is important that meat keep well in a fortress, but it is quite as important that the fortress keep well also. While the citadel, with its domed alabaster mosque, may make a beautiful picture, and the battlements afford a beautiful view of the city and surrounding country, the weakness of its position is apparent to the most unmilitary visitor. The summit of the Mokattam rises above it; and while the citadel commands the city, the Mokattam commands the citadel. Mehemet Ali in 1805 was quick to take advantage of this, and placing a battery on the summit of the Mokattam, soon had possession of the citadel and the city.

The citadel has a remarkable well, twelve feet square by two hundred and sixty-seven feet deep. It was excavated by Sultan Joseph, and has been given his name. People love to look at wonders, and now one is told that this is the veritable pit into which Joseph was cast by his brethren. It is a pity that circumstantial evidence is not more accommodating.

It is restful at the citadel, after being in the narrow, crowded streets, swarming with the old and young of the unadulterated East, and away from battered, crumbling magnificence and bedimmed, tired-out Eastern splendor. From the battlements the view is charming. Below lies Cairo; the domes and the minarets of its four hundred mosques rise in grandeur to inspire us. We have not really seen their bulging domes and delicately curved minarets before. Around the city and the expanding country and through the latter runs the tortuous Nile. Outlined against the sky you count the gray pyramids, from Cheops at Gizeh to the Step pyramid at Sakkarah, and beyond them the vast desert. Villas and gardens dot the landscape. Prominent among them is Shubra, the earthly paradise of Mehemet Ali; here he lived in luxury, and here at evening he sailed on the gem-like lake, made beautiful with glittering lights. At Shubra Mehemet Ali departed this life and entered the Mohammedan heaven.

We remained at the citadel till sunset; everybody that can does. The evening is beautiful, and the sun in this land rarely fails you. The sunset colors harmonize a picture as no noonday sun can. At noon we see everything as it is, but sunset is art in nature. This may seem contradictory, yet it is true; for it scumbles and harmonizes and softens a landscape, and makes it to appear more beautiful.

When I was down in the dirty city I thought I would never say anything about it. It was intensely interesting from its human side, but in a way that is not pleasant to talk about. But up here at the evening hour, when you neither see the dirt nor smell it, the city is beautiful, and, for once, look at the mosques, with their bulging domes contrasted with their slim, dainty, curved minarets, and dare to say that they are not inspiring. I believe the best-regulated heart will beat a little faster because of such a sight. But no exquisite pleasure is of long endurance.

The sun, like a great golden ball, touches the horizon and rolls on. Another day is done, and enters the eternity of time. The blind muezzin feels his way high up the slender minaret, and from its top calls the people to prayer. A faint mist marks the course of the Nile. The evening shadows come gently down and dissolve the outline of the pyramids, and, not a little sad, we enter the mosque of Mehemet Ali.

The custodian is lighting the myriads of little twinkling lamps that hang suspended from the ceiling; the floor is covered with expensive rug; singly or in small groups, men are busy with their devotions, some bowing, some squatting, and others prostrating themselves. It is a solemn and impressive sight if rightly considered; if not, it is absurd. I have a horror of the memory of men whose history is written in blood; and this mosque, with its gorgeous rugs and hanging lamps and prostrated worshipers, is a crawly place, after all. Mehemet Ali’s mosque smells of blood. In imagination I picture the Mamelukes in gay procession, and then in ghastly death. Whatever their faults, I have a liking for men who, as purchased slaves or captives of war, can, inch by inch, rise above their oppressors and at last seat themselves on their throne; and when I think of the base treachery and brutal murder to the last man by the builder of this so-called “house of God” I am horror-stricken. To meet a foe in open conflict is honorable; but to invite as guests the whole lineage of a dynasty, and close the gate upon them, and begin a merciless butchery of a peculiarly brave people, is not to be too readily pardoned.

Whoever speaks of Mehemet Ali and the citadel should speak of the massacre of the Mamelukes; an act so blackly base should never be let die, but kept before the world as a lesson of the deathlessness of the sin of treachery; and while here at the citadel, and all things seem real, I wish to say a word about this strange period in the history of Egypt – almost the Egypt of to-day.

The Mamelukes (the Arabic name for slaves) were Caucasians, taken captives in war or purchased as slaves for the sultan, and formed a part of the mounted soldiery of Egypt. They were noted for their bravery, agility, and generalship. They at length became complete masters of the country, and set up a throne and government, which they controlled for five hundred and sixty years. They had no birthright succession, but wisely chose their chief ruler from the brave of their number. They were dethroned by Selim I., and a Turkish pasha was placed by the Porte over Egypt.

After the Mamelukes were dethroned by Selim I. they still possessed the superiority, and an indomitable love of freedom that would not down, and indirectly ruled Egypt, and continued to rule it until Mehemet Ali conceived a plan to rid himself of this troublesome people.

The plan was so base as to be beyond the comprehension of any one, and they fell into his snare. It was this: In 1811 Mehemet Ali planned an expedition against the Wahhábees, who had taken possession of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina; and there was to be a ceremony, at the citadel, of investing Toosoon, Mehemet Ali’s favorite son, who had command of the expedition, with a pelisse. This was to be a ceremonial of great splendor, and all persons of high position were invited to lie royal palace, and especial care was taken to have all the Mamelukes in Cairo present.

At the appointed time, clad in rich attire and gaily mounted on horses of purest Arabian blood, they proceeded, four hundred in all, to the citadel. The ceremonies were all performed, and high spirits and good feeling prevailed. After partaking of coffee, the Mamelukes mounted their chargers, forming in procession, and marched into the narrow alley which used to be the main approach to the citadel. They were preceded and followed by the pasha’s troops. The advance troops passed out at the great entrance-gate, and instantly the gate closed on the Mamelukes, and without a moment’s warning they were hopelessly imprisoned in a narrow lane, either side being built up with high walls and towers and lofty buildings. Then the command passed along to slaughter every Mameluke within the inclosure, and from front and rear, from wall, tower, and housetop, the deadly rattle of musketry began. The Mamelukes threw off their outer robes, and fought hand to hand in a vain attempt to force their way back, with a hope of escaping by some other way; but the carnage went on till the roadway was blocked with dead men and dead horses. Then came the stillness of death. The Mamelukes had all perished, save one, in this carnival of death. From a break in the wall one leaped from the battlement to the moat. The horse was killed, but the rider escaped unhurt, and fled to the mosque of Sultan Hassan, but was overtaken by the soldiers and there despatched. A blood-stain marks the spot.

The firing at the citadel was the signal for the slaughter of every Mameluke throughout Egypt.

The wretched work went on until over twelve hundred, besides those at the citadel, perished. After the extermination, the government had acted its part in tragedy so well, it tried farce by confiscating wealth that there was none to claim; and when all was over Mehemet Ali had added another bloody page to Egyptian history.

The beautiful view of the surrounding country, and the yet more beautiful sunset, and Mehemet Ali’s mosque of alabaster, and the worshiping people – all cannot dismiss from our minds the revolting scene of horror once enacted within this stronghold, and my heart sickens at the ghastly pictures of the imagination that force themselves upon me.

It is growing late; we must go, and we are glad to go. We are not afraid of the dark or of ghosts; but we do not enjoy the pictures.

From Oriental Days
by Lucia A. Palmer, 1897