good riddance

naveed, cow and i went to khan al-khalili to do some shopping. we prayed asr at masjid al-hussain (12th century). that’s the masjid that supposedly has the head of hadrat hussain (grandson of the holy prophet (s)). the masjid is huge and old but not very well kept, unfortunately. it has an amazing presence from the outside but people loiter around it demanding you to buy stuff you don’t need. this old lady was chasing us trying to force us to buy mini qurans. she would literally try to grab your arm and place the quran in it. and then she would scream something...as if she was cursing at us when we refused. inside didn’t feel like a masjid...a place of peace and contemplation. there was too much noise and movement. women in black were sitting along the walls, chatting about loudly. some were sleeping and others were eating. little kids were running around. there were a couple stray cats in there as well. it was dimly lit and the carpet had a dull color that was old and filthy. people don’t clean up after themselves after eating. it’s a shame. my forehead was covered with crumbs after i got up from sajjud.

before we entered this masjid, naveed and i gave our shoes to the man at the front and he gave us our tickets but he kinda slammed them on the counter as if he was mad. cow was smart and kept her shoes with her. after we prayed, naveed and i gave him our tickets and some money and then he returned our shoes but he slammed them on the counter as well as if we did something terrible. then he asked us where we were from and naveed said pakistan. so he took back our shoes! wrong answer, i guess. anyway, we had no idea what was going on. the man began to recite surah fatiha and then took out a box and demanded us to pay sadaqa (charity) for the masjid. now naveed and i don’t have a problem giving sadaqa but it’s not nice to single us out from everyone who's entering and leaving and demand us to pay sadaqa. why didn’t he ask cow for sadaqa...why not the other egyptians?! why us?! charity is something you give out of your own freewill not by someone else’s will.

anyway, we were supposed to meet nadiya, asmah and naba at maghrib time at masjid al-azhar (10th century) which is right across the street from masjid hussain. masjid al-azhar is drastically different from masjid hussain. it has a tremendous presence as well but the inside is extremely beautiful. there is an open courtyard in the middle with marble flooring and 5 unique minarets. after maghrib, we started taking pictures of ourselves in the courtyard. then we looked at the pictures, made comments on how bad we looked and did retakes. this happened several times and the whole time we were laughing and giggling without realizing how loud our voices became. all of a sudden, we heard deep angry voices of men shouting at us. 5 older men in long thoubs approached us and scolded us for being too loud and kicked us out! we were so embarrassed and walked out with our heads lowered in shame as people sitting in the courtyard glared at us.