They Are The Mosques Of Cairo,
Of Poor Cairo, That Is Invaded And Profaned.
The memory turns to those
of Morocco, so jealously guarded, to those of Persia, even to those of
Old Stamboul, where the shroud of Islam envelops you in silence and
gently bows your shoulders as soon as you cross their thresholds.
And yet what pains are being taken to-day to preserve these mosques,
which in olden times were such delightful retreats. Neglected for
whole centuries, never repaired, notwithstanding the veneration of
their heedless worshippers, the greater part of them were fallen into
ruin; the fine woodwork of their interiors had become worm-eaten,
their cupolas were cracked and their mosaics covered the floor as with
a hail of mother-of-pearl, of porphyry and marble. It seemed that to
repair all this was a task incapable of fulfilment; it was sheer
folly, people said, to conceive the idea of it.
Nevertheless, for nearly twenty years now an army of workers has been
at the task, sculptors, marble-cutters, mosaicists. Already certain of
the sanctuaries, the most venerable of them indeed, have been entirely
renovated. After having re-echoed for some years to the sounds of
hammers and chisels, during the course of these vast renovations, they
are restored now to peace and to prayer, and the birds have
recommenced to build their nests in them.
It will be the glory of the present reign that it has preserved,
before it was too late, all this magnificent legacy of Moslem art.
When the city of "The Arabian Nights," which was formerly there, shall
have entirely disappeared, to give place to a vulgar /entrepot/ of
commerce and of pleasure, to which the plutocracy of the whole world
comes every winter to disport itself, so much at least will remain to
bear testimony to the lofty and magnificent thought that inspired the
earlier Arab life.
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