Even When I Passed Through Its Door, And Stood In The Court
Beyond, At First I Felt Not Its Charm.
All looked old and rough,
unkempt and in confusion.
The red and white stripes of the walls and
the arches of the arcade, the mean little place for ablution - a pipe
and a row of brass taps - led the mind from a Neapolitan ice to a
second-rate school, and for a moment I thought of abruptly retiring
and seeking more splendid precincts. And then I looked across the
court to the arcade that lay beyond, and I saw the exquisite "love-
color" of the marvellous tiles that gives this mosque its name.
The huge pillars of this arcade are striped and ugly, but between them
shone, with an ineffable lustre, a wall of purple and blue, of purple
and blue so strong and yet so delicate that it held the eyes and drew
the body forward. If ever color calls, it calls in the blue mosque of
Ibrahim Aga. And when I had crossed the court, when I stood beside the
pulpit, with its delicious, wooden folding-doors, and studied the
tiles of which this wonderful wall is composed, I found them as lovely
near as they are lovely far off. From a distance they resemble a
Nature effect, are almost like a bit of Southern sea or of sky, a
fragment of gleaming Mediterranean seen through the pillars of a
loggia, or of Sicilian blue watching over Etna in the long summer
days. When one is close to them, they are a miracle of art. The
background of them is a milky white upon which is an elaborate pattern
of purple and blue, generally conventional and representative of no
known object, but occasionally showing tall trees somewhat resembling
cypresses. But it is impossible in words adequately to describe the
effect of these tiles, and of the tiles that line to the very roof the
tomb-house on the right of the court. They are like a cry of ecstasy
going up in this otherwise not very beautiful mosque; they make it
unforgettable, they draw you back to it again and yet again. On the
darkest day of winter they set something of summer there. In the
saddest moment they proclaim the fact that there is joy in the world,
that there was joy in the hearts of creative artists years upon years
ago. If you are ever in Cairo, and sink into depression, go to the
"Blue Mosque" and see if it does not have upon you an uplifting moral
effect. And then, if you like go on from it to the Gamia El Movayad,
sometimes called El Ahmar, "The Red," where you will find greater
glories, though no greater fascination; for the tiles hold their own
among all the wonders of Cairo.
Outside the "Red Mosque," by its imposing and lofty wall, there is
always an assemblage of people, for prayers go up in this mosque,
ablutions are made there, and the floor of the arcade is often covered
with men studying the Koran, calmly meditating, or prostrating
themselves in prayer.
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