Book Review: Creating Medieval Cairo

Egypt Daily Star News (Jamila Yosri)

Paula Sanders’ “Creating Medieval Cairo” is not a quick read for an average tourist, but a book for the more serious observers and students. It is a meticulously researched book with more than 50 pages of notes and bibliography at the back to prove it.

Paula Sanders is herself an academic; she is the dean of graduate and post doctoral studies and associate professor of history at Rice University.

Sanders has already published one book and several articles on the history of Cairo and allied subjects.

Hitherto it has been generally accepted that the conservation of Cairo began as the answer to the need for rescuing Cairo’s dilapidated Arab architecture in the middle of the 19th century. For this reason, the Comite de Conservation des Monuments de l’Arte Arabe, founded in1881 by Khedive Tawfiq, was commissioned and charged with the task of preserving Islamic monuments in Egypt.

Paula Sanders reframes this story of conservation and allows for a new understanding of Medieval Cairo as a creation of the 19th century.

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