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~CAIRO~
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Our official tour of Cairo began with a visit to an ancient mosque. Mosques are ubiquitous in Cairo, and their architecture is often striking as it reflects the historical period in which it was built. Frequently Islamic schools are within the mosque complex, and occasionally even hospitals and mausoleums are also located within the mosque's confines.
Five times a day, a muezzin calls the faithful to their required prayers. From each mosque’s minaret pours the amplified call in Arabic, layered upon the sound of every other call from every other mosque in the area. The calls to prayer are from the exclusively male voices. Women, in fact, may not lead prayers and are segregated in most mosques within areas that are frequently substandard as opposed to the main areas which are exclusively reserved for men. Separate doors are often the norm. It is preferred that the faithful pray with the congregation in the mosque each day, although personal prayers may be done anywhere.
We visited Cairo's most famous Coptic Christian Church, El Muallaqa, known as the Hanging Church. The Egyptian Coptic Church is categorized as one of the Eastern Orthodox religions. St. Mark introduced Christianity to Egypt around 50 A.D, and it still flourishes as approximately 15% of the population of Egypt is Coptic. Many Coptic churches have been built upon the very sites where the Holy Family purportedly stayed during their time within Egypt.
The Coptic crosses that adorned the walls of the Cairo church were repeated again and again; hastily scratched upon the ancient carvings adorning the many temples throughout Egypt. The early Coptics used the temples as sites of Christian worship, and uniformly defaced the ancient temple art that was often hundreds if not thousands of years old. Succeeding pharaohs as well destroyed their predecessor’s renderings within the temples, and with the Coptic Christians chose to finely chisel away some of the most glorious and fantastic depictions of the ancient gods and goddesses of Egypt that were ever created by human hand.
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