Mosques, some Churches, and a Synagogue

For me, one of the most significant parts of this trip has been observing the religious culture of Cairo.

Muslims are by far the majority; Cairo is known as the city of a thousand minarets because there are so many mosques. Christians compose a small but potent minority (I’ve heard 7-10% of the population). Jews are few and far between. Egypt has a rich history of varying religious movements, and Cairo presents a physical record of this religious transition. There are hundreds of beautiful mosques and churches, each with a story.

Many of the stories I’ve heard as we’ve visited these sites are charged with polemic. At the first church we visited, our Christian guide explained all the subterfuge that the church’s founder had to overcome from a conniving Rabbi turned Muslim. Another day, at a Shiite mosque with a Sunni guide, we heard stories of the Shiite founder’s mental illness and the Shiites current delusional practices of reverence. The histories of these places of worship have been rewritten to forward the religious beliefs of those telling the stories. I don’t doubt that there is some truth in the stories we heard, but almost always the presentation concluded in a way that rendered the beliefs of “the other” as virtually unpalatable.

In America, social pressure often pushes people (and conversation) towards secularism rather than religion. In Cairo, exactly the opposite is true. It seems like people are programmed to wax religious in every aspect of life. It’s jarring to go from a country where it feels like a social risk to share your beliefs, to a country where people reference God in virtually every conversation. People even brand themselves. Many Muslims have a large bruise on their forehead from frequent prayer. To some it is a badge of piety. And most Christians here tattoo small crosses on their wrists.

I’ve been asking about Egyptians’ views on recent tensions between Muslims and Christians a lot. I’m still processing through all the responses I’ve been receiving, but hopefully that will be a blog post of it’s own soon.