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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
On the occasion of a recent visit to Cairo, I occupied myself in an endeavour to copy the Cufic inscriptions on the Bab en Naṣr. I only partially succeeded, but what I have been able to decipher is sufficient to show that the inscriptions are of somewhat more than ordinary interest. As far as I am able to discover, they have never been published, —a sufficient excuse, I hope, for offering the Society the imperfect results of my attempt to perform a task, which some other student will perhaps be induced to take up and complete.
page 230 note 1 Khiṭaṭ, Kitab el, Bulak, ed., vol. i. pp. 348, 361.Google Scholar
page 230 note 2 See Athīr, Ibn el, vol. viii. pp. 452 and 469.Google Scholar
page 231 note 1 The short notices of the foundation of Al Ḳāhirah given by Ibn Khallikan, in his biographies of Jauhar and of Al Mu'izz, are quite consistent with the statements to be found in Al Maḳrizi, though not clear enough to dispel the preconceived idea, with which modern writers generally approach the subject. Thus, M. de Slane in rendering the statement that Jauhar marked out the circumference (or plan) of Al Kāḥirah, translates of the new city. Further on he writes that Jauhar was displeased with certain irregularities in the outline of the future city, where in the original the pronoun is used, referring to the word Al Ḳiṣr, immediately preceding it, which M. de Slane himself has rendered the citadel.
The author of the Nujūm ez Zāhirah, Ibn Taghri Bardi, is somewhat obscure on the subject, but one among other passages deserves to be noticed in which, using the word Al Ḳaṣr, the palace, he adds, 
“that is to say, Al Kāhirah” (ed. Juynboll, , vol. ii. p. 423Google Scholar). Al Maḳrizi, I may further remark, designates Al Ḳāhirah in certain passages (vol ii. p. 107) by the term Al Ḳaṣabah.
page 232 note 1 Elsewhere (vol. i. p. 461) we learn from Al Maḳrizi that the ambassador was introduced into the audience hall, with an official of the court on either side of him, each grasping one of his hands. The custom was doubtless an imitation of the ceremonial observed on similar occasions at the Byzantine Court, and the practice, as is well known, has been continued by the Turkish Sultans almost down to the present day, though erroneously stated to have been first introduced at Constantinople, in consequence of an attempt made upon the life of one of the Sultans by a Servian prisoner.
page 233 note 1 Vol. i. p. 348.
page 233 note 2 See al Athir, Ibn, vol. viii. p. 327Google Scholar
page 234 note 1 See Khallikan, Ibn, De Slane's translation, vol. iii. p. 377.Google Scholar
page 234 note 2 Two gates at the Al Manṣurieh bore respectively, as at Al Ḳāhirah, the names of Bab Zawilah and Bab al Futuḥ.
page 234 note 3 Mr. Lane, in one of the notes to his translation of the Arabian Nights, remarks that he has not found the name of Misr applied to Cairo in any Arabic work earlier than the Turkish Conquest. It strikes me that the circumstance may be sufficiently accounted for by the punctilious accuracy of style which Arab writers always affect in their written, as distinguished from their spoken language. Nevertheless, Ibn Baṭuṭah, when describing the city of Cairo on the occasion of his first visit to Egypt in A.D. 1326, gives it repeatedly the name of Misr, though, singularly enough, in the much briefer account of his last visit, he invariably styles it Al Kahirah.
Quatremère, in his Memoires géographiques et historiques sur l'Egypte (vol. i. p. 48), whilst referring to the fact that the Copts transferred from Al Fustat to Cairo the name of Bablun or Babylon, adds that they gave Cairo the further designation of Ti Keschromi, “qui signifie mot à mot qui brise les homines” — “nom assez étrange,” he remarks, and indeed a name of ominous sound. “Je croix y reconnaitre,” he continues, “la traduction un peu altérée du mot Arabe Al Ḳahirah.”
page 235 note 1 Vol. ii. p. 416.
page 235 note 2 An Egyptian derivation has been attributed to the name Al Ḳāhirah, but I do not know whether its claims to attention rest upon better grounds than that of its ingenuity. It has been contended that the country in the neighbourhood of Heliopolis was from early times designated Kahi-ra, the District of the Sun. The denomination would be similar to that of Kahi-nub, the District of Gold, generally accepted as the origin of the name Canopus.
The name Al Ḳāhirah might perhaps with equal plausibility be connected with certain verses, addressed to Al Mu'izz by the poet Muḥammad ibn Hani, on the eve of the Khalifeh's departure for Egypt. Al Athir, Ibn (vol. viii. p. 457)Google Scholar remarks that the language used by the poet, in his panegyrics, was often carried to the highest point of extravagance, and that it was condemned by the 'Ulema as marked with rank infidelity. He quotes, among other instances, the following lines, in which the poet addresses the Khalifeh as Al Wahad and Al Ḳahhar, both of them epithets applied only to the Deity:—
“Thy decrees are nought but the irresistible will of Fate. Command then, for thou art the One Mighty Subduer.”
An account of the life of Ibn Hani is given by Ibn Khallikan.
page 236 note 1 Vol. x. p. 97.
page 236 note 2 Vol. ix. p. 282.
page 237 note 1 The Church of Edessa was regarded by Arab writers as one of the wonders of the world (see de al Laṭif, Sacy's 'Abd, p. 442).Google Scholar
page 237 note 2 One feels inclined to suspect that a certain degree of Chauvinism is at least partly responsible for the laudatory terms in which Al Maḳrizi so generally indulges in his work on Egypt and Cairo. Passages that exhibit some discrimination are, however, not wanting. Thus, he quotes, with but faint protest, certain descriptions of his native city by foreign writers, couched in no flattering terms. One, remarks upon the hard lot of the citizens, condemned to the use of unwholesome water from contaminated wells, and from canals, the receptacles of drainage from the houses on their banks. The atmosphere itself, says Ibn Sa'id, is unhealthy, especially during the prevalence of the hot mirīsy winds, and diseases of the eyes very prevalent. In a subsequent passage, it may be that feelings of professional ill-humour have the upper hand. Life at Cairo, he proceeds, is hard and poor, especially for the learned. The professors at the colleges are paid miserable salaries. The happiest lot, he continues, somewhat bitterly, is that of the Jews and Christians, occupied in the practice of medicine and in the collection of taxes. But it is an excellent place for paupers, who live untroubled by the fear of taxes and tithes, of summonses and torments. The pauper possesses no slave whose death may be a pretext for charging his master with having succeeded to an inheritance, followed in all probability by his being imprisoned, tortured, and plundered. With bread cheap and abundant, he leads a life of ease, free to enjoy the songs and public amusements of the town. Nor is there any one to interfere with him, even when his fancy leads him to strip himself of his clothing before dancing in the public streets, to stupefy himself with ḥashīsh, or to associate openly with women of abandoned character. He has not even to fear impressment for service in the state galleys. That fate is reserved to the Mogharba, noted for their qualities of seamanship. A Moor, on arriving in Egypt, finds himself between two alternatives: if rich, he is squeezed and plundered, and there is no happy release from his miseries but by flight; if poor, he is east into prison, and kept there until required for service in the fleet. Such is a glimpse into life at Cairo in the thirteenth century.
Ibn Sa'id, himself a Spanish Moor, is largely quoted by Al Maḳḳari in his Kitab Nafḥi ṭ Ṭib. His extracts comprise Al Maḳrizi's quotations, of which the above is a Bummary (Bul. ed. vol. i. p. 497 et sqq.)Google Scholar. Ibn Sa'id arrived in Egypt in A.H. 639. An account of his life and writings is included in the work of M. de Gayangos.
page 239 note 1 A native friend suggested the following reading of the words at the commencement of the inscription, but I feel more than doubtful of it: 
page 240 note 1 I have ventured to depart from the rendering of the word al Ḳayyūm, adopted by Sale and other English translators, namely, the self-subsisting. The Ḳamūs explains the word as meaning ‘He who has no equal.’ Both Az Zamakhshari and Al Bayḍāwi say that Al Ḳayyuūm is he who is continually engaged in regulating the order of the Creation and in its preservation, a sense I have endeavoured to render by the word watchful.
In the translation of the verb 
I have followed the sense indicated by Ibn 'Arab Shah, who borrows the phrase in his Fakihat al Khulafa, and writes 
(Bulak, ed. p. 141).Google Scholar
page 242 note 1 Vol. i. p. 382
page 244 note 1 Vol. i. p. 110.
page 245 note 1 Quatremère, in his Histoire des Mamlouks, Sultans (vol. ii. pt. i. p. 14)Google Scholar, has collected together a number of passages, in which the word rank, or its plural runuk, is employed by Al Maḳrizi and other Arab writers to designate the badges or armorial bearings and banners used by Muhammadan princes of the Middle Ages.