Zainab Khatoon .. the girl who became a princess and leader of the guerrillas

Shaima Abdullah

Scarce information about the impact of Zainab Hatun, perhaps because she is a woman! Perhaps because it was different, she did not prefer to keep her biography through time pure information frequent, but she chose to immortalize her history in an ancient house, so that her name would remain so long as the effect remained.

Zainab Khatoon, the imprisoned female widow who became a princess, the mother who immortalized the walls of her house and the stories of the rooms, and the heroine who stood in the face of the French campaign, and transformed her home into a guerrilla center and a cemetery for the invaders.

Behind the Al-Azhar Mosque, the people of the neighborhood know that antique house, it is "Zainab Khatun House", but few know who Zainab is? What is the story of the house that witnessed a love story, which witnessed the rise of Zainab from a servant and a maid to a princess, who won the title and honored the lineage?

Before the house bore the name Zainab, it was the property of Princess Shaqra Hanim, the granddaughter of Sultan Al-Nasir bin Qalawun, one of the Mamluk sultans, and the Qalawun Hospital in the Jamaliah neighborhood in Cairo was attributed to him, as the Princess built the house in 1486, and it remained her property until the Ottomans entered Egypt and the rule of the Mamluks disappeared. A blonde left him, and many residents came to the house, then Zainab came and stayed.

The dowry of the princes' house
was underway in the palace of Muhammad Bey Al-Alfy, one of the most important men of the Mamluk era. It was not inferred on the date and place of its birth. It belonged to “Abdullah”, the name to which the slaves were attributed to people of unknown origin and descent. Knowledge and beauty, edited by Al-Alfy, before he escaped from Cairo, to marry after him Prince Sharif Hamza Al-Kharbutli, loved by Al-Kharbutli with honorable lineage, and he granted her the title of the emirate, and she became the honorable princess Zainab, and with him she held the Ottoman title "Khatoon", which is a Turkish title meaning the princess, as he decided Al-Kharboutli gives it one of the most beautiful Cairo homes, and its most artistic and skilled buildings. It was the house of Shaqra Hanim Qalawun, which has since 1517 been the home of Zainab Khatun.

Historical references did not mention the story of Zainab with documented information, but they were transmitted in the public tongues, as they were associated with them and linked to them, according to research presented by Professor of Islamic Architecture Dr. Mustafa Naguib, the story of Zainab did not end when it was the current that became a princess, but that link that gathered its history remains on The Egyptians, because she was a lover of Egypt and defended her guerrillas who stood in the way of the French during the French campaign against Egypt, and transformed the Hermelik, the place for women’s sessions at home, into a special shelter for Egyptian guerrilla men.

As for the second floor, it was devoted to women's revolutions, and was providing them with supplies and money, and also did not spare them in the basement of the house. After centuries after the death of Zainab, the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities took over the supervision of the place and started to restore it in the nineties of the last century, which allowed the discovery of a number of house catacombs. Zeinab devoted it to bury the wounded resistance fighters who were killed in their battles with the French, where 27 remains were found in a basement under the house, along with the treasure of Zainab.

Zainab's treasure and birth rooms
The pure coincidence led the archaeologists to discover two jars of pottery, which were below the threshold of the burial chamber, the room where the remains of the resistance men were found, the two whale whales 3611 gold pieces, dating back to the fifteenth century AD, and more than 2000 gold pieces were minted In Spain, Italy, Portugal and Hungary, and was used in the markets of ancient Cairo, the treasure that Khatun left for the Egyptians, was kept in the Islamic Museum in Cairo, which opened years ago after its development.

The wonders of Zainab's house were not over, so the Egyptian researcher mentioned in his research how Khatun was keen to have a room for burying the dead in her home. She was also keen to have a special room to receive the newborns, and she called the birth room, and with it what she called the "sandal room", where the rooms were prepared To take care of pregnant women from women, where the pregnant woman resides in the delivery room until she gives birth, then she moves to the sandalroom room and remains for 40 days until the postpartum period is complete, and she is in complete isolation from her and her newborn away from the diseases that spread at that time among the Egyptians, to protect young children with fragile immunity .

On the upper floor of the house, we find the summer seat, which is the place designated to receive men, then the stable "horse", which is the place designated for storing water, kitchen needs and food baskets.

As for the women, they had the mashrabiyyas, but Zainab was fond of reading, so the libraries set up to read and enjoy the air breezes that come from the mashrabiyya without fear that a nearby or distant neighbor would embarrass them, and connected to the women's corner a private bathroom, in which the means of caring for women were set by the standardization and softening, as well as The lady loved reading, she did not neglect beauty.

The house whose courtyard turned into a cafe and restaurant, visited by tourists and lovers of Fatimid Cairo, was taken over by the Egyptian Permanent Committee for Islamic and Coptic Antiquities in 2011, as part of its rehabilitation to be the headquarters of the Urban Revival Project of Historic Cairo in cooperation with UNESCO.