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  • Guernica Magazine

    Al-Qahira

    Growing up, your teachers always told you: “Al-Qahira taqharu’l I’ida.” Cairo vanquishes her enemies.
    by Abdelrahman ElGendy Feb 05, 2024 5 minutes
    A crowd gathers in Tahrir Square in Cairo during the revolution in 2011; people raise hands and light flares. Tahrir Square during the revolution in 2011. Photo by Hossam el-Hamalawy via Flickr/Creative Commons.

    Once, she was not your city. Once, she was a tent, and in 641 AD, a dove laid an egg in her belly.

    Before the Muslim army leader who had conquered Egypt rode to another war, he found the egg on his tent’s bed. The egg was a sign from Allah, he decided. When the army returned, victorious, the leader declared the tent Al-Fustat: The Tent. Around it, he built his capital.

    The legend says that over three centuries later, when the Fatimid dynasty restored the same land as Egypt’s capital, their leader gathered scholars to bestow upon it a worthy name. On the chosen night, the scholars brushed shoulders as they stood to pray

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