Attarine Mosque : Its Significance

The Attarine district is considered to be one of the most interesting areas in Alexandria. It is a sprawling antiques district. There are antique shops piled high with European furniture and trinkets that date back to Napoleonic times. Here, also, the intriguing belongings of many Europeans who fled the 1952 revolution are up for sale. Yus, the wife of my friend Zahrul, bought few items from one of the shops here.The Attarine Mosque is located in the middle of this unique area, on Attarine Mosque Street. This mosque was originally a church dedicated to Saint Athanasius in 370 AD. When Islam came to Egypt, the church was converted into a small mosque, which was built up and eventually became known as the Mosque of a Thousand Columns. As time passed, this mosque started to get old and some of its ceilings were damaged at the beginning of the Fatimid period.
Badr El Gamaly, the general of the army, came to Alexandria to put down the revolution started by his older son, Muzafar El Dawla, who was trying to create an independent state apart from the Fatimid rule in Alexandria in 1055 AD (447 H). Badr placed the city under siege for an entire month before he was able to enter Alexandria, after which he took his son Muzafar prisoner. Badr punished the people of Alexandria, because they helped his son in his revolution, by ordering high taxes to be collected from everyone, Christians and Muslims alike.
Badr took some of this money and restored the mosque of Al Attarine in 1057 AD (449 H), after which it became a congregational mosque for Friday prayers. At the time that the Attarine Mosque was rebuilt, Alexandria had two mosques. One was the western mosque, or old mosque, built by Amr Ibn El Aas when he conquered Egypt. He named it the "Mosque of the Thousand Columns. The second was the eastern or new mosque of Attarine, so named because of its location in the Attarine area in ALexandria. The word Attarine means 'the spice dealers'. It had, at the time, not been a congregational mosque for some time. It was only practiced in the western mosque of Amr Ibn El Aas before the period of Al Nassir Ibn Qalawun, who ordered the practice of Friday prayer in the Attarine mosque continued once again.

The mosque has suffered much damage and renovation throughout its history. In 1370 AD (772 H), one of the columns of the mosque was broken, although this didn’t cause any major damage. In 773 H, the mosque was renovated and there was a small garden placed beside it, which was a custom in mosques in North African countries and Spain. However, in the Mamluk and Ottoman periods the mosque was neglected. Therefore, the ceiling and the walls of the mosque were damaged. When Abbas II became the ruler of Egypt in 1901, he ordered his men to plan a whole renovation process for the mosque. What we see today is the result of that renovation.
The mosque was designed in a rectangular shape that appears triangular from outside, with the minaret in the corner of the triangle in the southeastern part of the mosque. The mosque actually has two facades. The first one is in the northeast portion of the mosque where the main entrance door is located. The other entrance door of the mosque is located on the eastern side of the mosque, and it leads to the mausoleum of the mosque. The southern part of the mosque consists of eight commercial stores. The profit from these stores is used to pay for the expenses of the mosque.
However, perhaps the most alluring element of this mosque is its minarets, which many believe to be one of the most beautiful in Egypt. It consists of four levels. The first level or base of the minaret is square in shape. The second level is an octagon shape. The third level, where the Imam stands and call for prayer, is circular shaped and has accurate, marvelous decorations all around it. The fourth level is a wonderful small circular dome with astonishing decorations.The interior of the mosque consists of two floors. The first floor hosts the prayers of men while the second floor is only for women. The first floor of the mosque is a rectangular shaped area with four huge stone double columns that in tern support arches that support the ceiling.

A visit to the Attarine Mosque is very interesting for various reasons, one being to see how this historic mosque has transformed through time. The only remaining original item is the stone stating that the mosque was built by Badr El Gamaly. Another reason for visiting the mosque is to see the wonderful architecture, including one of the most beautiful minarets in Egypt. Enjoying the variety of shops while walking through the Attarine district is also always appealing.

Lessons Learnt : A Test for Us All

It was about 23:45hrs (+/- 2 minutes), cool summer night, I was browsing my email in the living, my elder son was doing his art thing in his room, my wife and the two youngest kids were watching movie – Children of Heaven, my 3rd kid was easing his nature’s call upstairs and my second son was helping himself with his chai in the kitchen, he observed smoke came out from the Main Circuit Breaker (MCB) panel. He rushed out from the kitchen and alerted me about the situation. I went immediately to the kitchen, yes, there was heavy smoke. Minutes after that, the MCB busted into fire and gradually became bigger with sparks, snapped out the main line. Black smoke from the burning MCB and cables clouded our humble kitchen. And, this entire thing is one inch near to the kitchen wooden cabinet.

Subsequently, I asked my son to alert everyone, instructed them to grab the nearest standby torch light, our emergency 'go ahead' luggage (where we keep our passports, important documents and some other important things) and to standby for the worst. As the situation worsened, while watching the fire, I directed them to grab all our laptops & its accessories and few clothing (expecting the worst).
One of my sons went down asking for our Security’s help while I negotiated with my neighbors looking for extinguisher and helps. None of them kept one and I went back to my house searching for one in case any. Unfortunately, I did not find one especially during the emergency situation like that…..
There were black smoke everywhere in the kitchen and we purposely did not open the windows and doors as this will allow oxygen boosting the fire and escalating the situation. Well, just imagine the aftermath?!
All of them responded and rendered their hands. One of them with some alcoholic smell from his mouth was very brave putting-off the fire by himself 'nakedly'. We shouted and reminded him this is electrical fire (luckily he didn’t bring us a pale of water to extinguish the fire). At this point of the time, the power was cut-off, the house was in the dark but the main cable was still dangling ‘naked’ with bluish fire of the breaker switch. About 10 minutes after that, our Security used a plastic broom to kill the fire and alhamdullillah, the fire extinguished.
Ahmed Sharifuddin came with his family at about 00:30 hrs to give us moral support. Electrical contractor came about 50 minutes after that. He assessed the condition and isolated the whole connection.
We slept at about 3:00 am in the morning conditioned by the soft breezily Alex Summer wind. It was not really a good sleep though.

Fortunately I was a trained On Scene Commander & Fire Fighters and had experienced few real life incidents that have made me calm throughout the commotion. The knowledge and experiences somehow or rather had automatet my reaction to do the following:
- Did not Panic – this is essential
- Assessed the situation and know the source of fire
- Prioritized what to do first.
We must be sensitive and alert at all time and some Proactive steps are essentials:
- Keep important and items in a place which is at lease heat proof and easily assessable during emergency
- Keep at least one fire extinguisher especially for electrical fire at home – which I didn’t. And, make sure the family member know how to apply it.

Next day, I called a discussion session with all my family members, briefed them on categories of fires and how to deal with them, what lessons need to be learnt out of the incidents and really, we had a short drill in the evening. It was fun for them. Well, on the good side of it, it was easier for me to explain to them why we should not take SAFETY for granted! For that matter health and environment.

We suspected the smoke (eventually fire) came from old wiring cable in the conduit which might have been caused by high load. Honestly, even the electrical specialist was not able to identify the culprit.

Thanks to all of you especially Ahmad Sharifuddin, Eng. Saber, Abd Moneim Shehab and Eng. Mohamed Fikry for the moral support.
Thanks to our Bawab and our landlord for their prompt support and actions.
Thanks to the electrical team for resolving and repairing the damaged MCB, etc. in a very dedicated manner.
Thanks to my family for being very cooperative and responsive
Last but not least and above all, zillion of thanks to the Almighty Allah azza wa jala for still keeping us all in good health and fate.