The Peculiar Charm Of The Gardens Of The Mosques, Which Are Often Very
Extensive, Is That They Are So Jealously Enclosed Within Their High
Walls - Crowned Always With Stone Trefoils - Which Completely Shut Out
The Hubbub Of The Outer World.
Palm-trees, which have grown there for
some hundred years perhaps, rise from the ground, either separately or
in superb clusters, and temper the light of the always hot sun on the
rose-trees and the flowering hibiscus.
There is no noise in the
gardens, any more than in the cloisters, for people walk there in
sandals and with measured tread. And there are Edens, too, for the
birds, who live and sing therein in complete security, even during the
services, attracted by the little troughs which the imams fill for
their benefit each morning with water from the Nile.
As for the mosque itself it is rarely closed on all sides as are those
in the countries of the more sombre Islam of the north. Here in Egypt
- since there is no real winter and scarcely ever any rain - one of the
sides of the mosque is left completely open to the garden; and the
sanctuary is separated from the verdure and the roses only by a simple
colonnade. Thus the faithful grouped beneath the palm-trees can pray
there equally as well as in the interior of the mosque, since they can
see, between the arches, the holy Mihrab.[*]
[*] The Mihrab is a kind of portico indicating the direction of Mecca.
It is placed at the end of each mosque, as the altar is in our
churches, and the faithful are supposed to face it when they pray.
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