When the Muslim nation extended geographically from China to Andalusia and from the Caucasus and southern Russia to the depths of Africa, and Hajj was and still is one of the pillars of Islam, it was necessary for every able Muslim who is able to complete the imposition of God Almighty, and because that time was free from the complexities of borders, restrictions and visas;

The pilgrimage, trade, and knowledge trips were easy because of the difficult and difficult road, and the mixing of Muslims from different countries with each other was perhaps more intense than our days, in which, surprisingly, transportation was easy, restrictions increased, and visas were difficult.

We have seen that there is a color of geographic historical writing concerned with observing the scenes of these journeys between the parts of the Islamic world, the oddities of the railways, paths and sights, the wonders of creatures, and the customs of peoples and peoples, some of which took an objective style, and some took the style of diaries and notes, and the journey of an Andalusian man who lived Nine hundred years ago is a vivid example of this last type of diary within the framework of "travel literature".

That man is Abu al-Hasan Muhammad bin Ahmad bin Jubair al-Balansi al-Gharnati al-Kanani, of Arab origin (540-614 AH), and he was a young man as soon as he reached thirty-eight years of age unless he decided to travel for Hajj, and he did not know that he would stay in the East for three years, which were one of the greatest years of the Muslims. Under the just rule of the just Sultan, Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi, who labored and worked hard to liberate the sanctities of the nation, expel the Crusaders from Jerusalem and the Levantine coast, and worked tirelessly to lift injustice and taxes on the shoulders of his subjects in Egypt, the Levant, the Hijaz and Yemen.

During the three years of Ibn Jubayr's travels - between the years 578-581 AH / 1183-1186AD - Egypt was witnessing stability and a huge urban and scientific boom supported by Sultan Salah al-Din al-Ayyubid with all his might, so what are the most prominent scenes that the Andalusian traveler Ibn Jubair saw in Egypt, especially in Alexandria ?

How was his expression of the monuments and wonders of Egypt, especially its great lighthouse that was destroyed after his journey over a century?

And how did the imams of mosques get more than a thousand dollars a month in salary at that time ?!

That's what we'll see in our next story.

Ibn Jubayr begins writing the diaries of his voyage on Friday, the 30th of Shawwal, 587 AH, corresponding to February 25, 1183 AD, on board an Andalusian ship heading towards the Moroccan city of Ceuta in the south from which he will set off on board a ship owned by sailors from the people of Italian Genoa, accompanied by the Venetians and the Sicilians And others who were called the "Romans" Muslims who favored trade over wars. Therefore, Muslims dealt with them in their trade and travels between the East and the West.

The ship headed from Ceuta towards the Andalusian Balearic Islands (Mallorca, Menorca and Siwa), and from there to the Italian island of Sicily, in which the last remnants of the Muslims lived at that time before the Normans expelled them from the leaders of the emerging German Empire, whose owners ruled large parts of Germany and Italy at that time, and from there it set off The ship, after a great horror, described by Ibn Jubayr, saying: “God protected us from it by a wind that God Almighty sent at once from the land, so we were taken out of it, and praise be to God for that. May God be aware of us in the event of brutality and the closure of the sides by a bulge, so we do not distinguish east from west. ”[1]

And after a full month had passed at the sea and stopped in several islands, and after torment, fear and fear of the horrors of the sea, “On the morning of Saturday the twenty-ninth of Dhu al-Qi'dah in 578 AH, God showed us the good news with the emergence of the lighthouse of Alexandria at about twenty miles (approximately 35 km) Praise be to God for that, a praise that requires more of his bounty and generous creation. ”[2]

Ibn Jubair admired Alexandria very much, and noticed the breadth of its streets, the archaic buildings, and the abundance of its walls, and perhaps he intended the ancient Pharaonic obelisks that spread among them.

It is astonishing in his description that building it under the ground is like building it on top of it and is free and stronger, because the water from the Nile penetrates all its homes and underground alleys, so the wells connect to each other and extend to each other.

This means that Alexandria a thousand years ago included an advanced network of facilities and underground pipes to supply it with water coming from the Nile through some of the bays or canals that were designated for that.

However, what Ibn Jabir was most surprised about was the lighthouse of Alexandria, which to this day is considered one of the lost seven wonders of the world. It was one of the greatest Greek Ptolemaic installations in Egypt for nearly a thousand and five hundred years, as it was established in 270 BC, and was destroyed in a severe earthquake. The city in 1303 AD during the Mamluk era.

The Lighthouse of Alexandria was built on the island of Pharos, on which the ruins of Qaitbay Citadel were built today, on a corridor surrounded by columns, and it was made up of 4 floors, the first floor contained rooms for 300 workers, and above the lighthouse a spiral building inside which an elevator ran with the power of water, in order to raise fuel, The spiral structure was topped by a sidewalk surrounded by Greek statues. The second floor was rectangular, and the third floor was above it, which was circular, and above that floor was the lighthouse. Historians and archaeologists confirm that no one yet knows how the lighting was managed at night, and no one knows the secret of the wonderful mirror that some echoed in the past, which used to track ships during the day, as that mirror made of fine or polished glass reflected pictures of ships while they were on display. The sea [3].

Ibn Jubayr's description of the lighthouse of Alexandria a century and a half before its demolition is considered one of the most accurate descriptions of this lighthouse, because it came from an eyewitness who entered it and saw its enormous area, majestic height, and advanced engineering construction. The hands of the one who was used as a verse for this is a verse for markers and a guide for travelers, otherwise they would not be guided in the sea to the land of Alexandria, it appears at more than seventy miles (130 km), and its building is very archaic and tight, in length and width, the atmosphere is crowded higher and higher, the description is short and the tip recedes below it, the news From it it narrows, and the view of it widens. The one who disposes of it and penetrates its paths may have lost his way ”[4].

There is no doubt that Ibn Jubayr's description and measurement of the area of ​​the ancient lighthouse of Alexandria is the closest to accuracy and correctness, and we understand from his description the extent of its breadth, the abundance of its rooms, roads and internal pathways, and the presence of officials by the Ayyubid authorities in Egypt for it, but because of the enormity and strength of this building it was allowed to build a mosque on the top. He says: “There is a mosque on top that is described as blessing, and people are blessed to pray in it.

The wonders of Alexandria did not stop at this description, Ibn Jubayr saw great progress in other civilizational and urban aspects that Sultan Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi and his administration officials in the city were keen on taking care of. Each one of them has a house to live in, a teacher who teaches him the art that he wants to learn, and a procedure that he takes in all his situations.

The Sultan’s care for these emergency strangers expanded until he ordered the appointment of bathrooms in which they would bathe whenever they needed it, and set up a hospital for them to treat those who fell ill, and he assigned them doctors to inspect their conditions, and he placed under their hands servants who instruct them to look into their interests that they refer to in terms of treatment and food. [6] The matter was not limited to this extent, as Alexandria knew a comprehensive health system, by building hospitals, providing treatment, doctors and nurses, as well as the possibility of doctors visiting patients' homes to check on them who could not go to these hospitals, which are the same scenes that we see in our time. This is after nearly nine centuries.

Ibn Jubayr was amazed at the bustle of Alexandria and the continuation of the pension movement there at night as well, at a time when people used to live on bowls, candles and lanterns, and this was something that was not known in Andalusia or Morocco at that time, as people before modernity in general used to remain silent at dusk The night, he says: “It is also strange in the conditions of this country that the people behave in it at night as they do during the day in all their conditions” [7]. We understand from this that Alexandria knew the meaning of universality at the time, as it was not just an important Egyptian port on the Mediterranean coast, but was in fact a meeting place for trade, scholars, pilgrims and visitors, and the home of Sadat and students of knowledge.

Perhaps this overcrowding and the movement of delegations that did not stop day and night from the land or the sea, in addition to the lives of the inhabitants, led to the expansion of the buildings in this city, and the expansion of its construction is understood by the large number of its mosques, so Ibn Jubair considers it “the most of the lands of God mosques, even if people appreciate it ... In his estimation it ends in twelve thousand mosques, and the lesser of them says eight thousand, and some of them say otherwise, and in the sentence it is very many, of which the four and five are on the subject (place), and all of them are imams appointed (appointed) by the Sultan (Salah al-Din), Some of them have five Egyptian dinars per month, and some of them have more than that.

This indicates the wealth of the Ayyubid state and the greatness of Alexandria at the time, and the prosperous economic conditions in it, as the average monthly salary of the imam of the mosque at that time was five Egyptian Ayyubid dinars, which is approximately $ 1,200 today, and some of them earned higher than this amount. If we look at the tens of thousands of mosques that spread throughout the city and the salaries of its imams only, as well as other educational, religious, health and other institutions, we will realize the extent of the economic greatness that Egypt and Alexandria were at that time.

These are the most prominent scenes of the Andalusian traveler Ibn Jubayr al-Gharnati al-Balansi nearly a thousand years ago, in which we saw the greatness and peculiarities of Alexandria, as we saw its golden age in the shadow of Sultan Saladin, who was described by Ibn Jubair, saying: Religion cannot be counted as a multitude, "and this is a bright age, without a doubt.

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Sources:

  • Ibn Jubair’s Journey, p. 9.

  • Previous p.12.

  • The “Lighthouse of Alexandria” is the pride of the Mediterranean bride who charmed the world and was attacked by earthquakes, the pyramids.

  • Ibn Jubair's Journey, p. 14.

  • the previous.

  • Previous p.15.

  • Previous p.16.