Making Cairo Medieval

Nezar AlSayyad · Irene A. Bierman · Nasser Rabbat

Mar 2005 · Lexington Books

About this ebook

During the nineteenth century, Cairo witnessed once of its most dramatic periods of transformation. Well on its way to becoming a modern and cosmopolitan city, by the end of the century, a 'medieval' Cairo had somehow come into being. While many Europeans in the nineteenth century viewed Cairo as a fundamentally dual city—physically and psychically split between East/West and modern/medieval—the contributors to the provocative collection demonstrate that, in fact, this process of inscription was the result of restoration practices, museology, and tourism initiated by colonial occupiers. The first edited volume to address nineteenth-century Cairo both in terms of its history and the perception of its achievements, this book will be an essential text for courses in architectural and art history dealing with the Islamic world.

About the author

Nezar AlSayyad is chair of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and professor of architecture and planning at the University of California, Berkeley. Irene A. Bierman is professor of art history at the University of California, Los Angeles. Nasser Rabbat is associate professor of architectural history at MIT.