Cairo is an overcrowded, densely populated city of almost 20 million residents. It’s nearly impossible to find a quiet, empty street in the middle of the day. But there’s at least one area where quiet streets are common; a place known as the “City of the Dead.” This four-mile stretch of land is a network of old Islamic tombs and mausoleums on narrow, often unpaved streets. The necropolis is not deserted, though: many families live here. Some inhabit houses they have built next to a tomb, or live in the tombs themselves.
This practice of “living among the dead” started when the owners of the tombs hired guards to protect their family mausoleums after repeated incidents of burglary. A guard was traditionally a young male from a rural area looking for work and accompanied by his wife. Years would pass, and the guards would die and be buried within the same tombs they had protected. The tombs, therefore, witnessed the birth and blossoming of new generations that considered this strange place home. In addition to guards and their families, others have been forced into the necropolis because of the pressures of overcrowding and the high cost of Cairo living.
“I feel at peace here. There are no cars, no street vendors and absolutely no noise,” says El Hajj Mohammed Abd-Alnaiem, a resident. “My daughters insist that I move closer to them so that they can take better care of me, but I will never do it.”
Abd-Alnaiem is a retired gardener in his 80s who worked with the Ministry of Archaeology for more than 40 years. Though he managed to build a six-story flat in Giza, where his two sons and three daughters live, he refuses to leave the tomb where he has spent most of his life. His opinion isn’t shared by most of the tomb dwellers, however, who consider their place of residency shameful evidence of their poverty.
Um Youssef, a housekeeper, sits in front of the tomb where she lives with her family and washes their clothes before drying them in the sun. She lives among the graves with her son, daughter and her husband who works in construction. He works all day and makes barely enough to support the family, she says.
Haj Muhammad, another resident, is in his 70s. He has no work, no family and no home, he says. He has only one small room among the tombs, which contains a sofa and a blanket to provide a little protection from the cold of winter. “My children abandoned me after I got sick and I couldn’t find any place to live except here,” he says. “I live on the food and money that the families of the dead leave for their relatives and the kindness of do-gooders.”
Young people live in the City of the Dead as well. Um Faris’ grandchildren (pictured above) amuse themselves by playing a game on the streets. Um Faris (not pictured) is in her early 50s.
“I used to dream of moving away from this life here in the tombs to any other place, and I tried to save money so that I could do that, until my son was arrested and charged with carrying weapons,” she says. “He was imprisoned for three years even though he was innocent. I lost all of my money that I had saved for the sake of getting a lawyer to defend my son in court. He promised me that he would win the case and help my son…” Um Faris starts to cry. “I’m now sentenced to remain forever in the middle of these tombs and mausoleums without my son.”
Sayyid al Arabi, another resident, is 62 and unemployed. He lives with his wife, son and daughter in a small room in one of the tombs of Sayyida Nafisa, a famous female Islamic scholar. He used to work as a shoemaker, earning a little money in one of the small workshops in Gamaliyya, but he left years ago after his eyes became too weak to continue. After this, he was able to get a small pension from the state, 460 Egyptian pounds (about $60) each month, but this decreased to 110 pounds (about $14) after he took out a loan to pay for his other daughter’s wedding.
“For more than 20 years, I’ve been trying hard to get a government-issued apartment, room or any small place far from the tombs because we couldn’t endure life here,” al Arabi says. “We couldn’t endure waking up, shocked, to the screams and the weeping of the families of the dead every time they visit the graves.”
Marwan, 11, also lives with his family in the tomb of Sayyida Nafisa. He’s building a toy plane made of wood and plastic. The poverty-stricken children who live here must rely upon simple, inexpensive things to entertain themselves.
In the picture above, Omar, 7, does his homework on top of one of the graves. He lives nearby with his father. “I’m used to this. I sleep, study and play next to the graves. This is my life,” Omar tells me. Meanwhile, Omar’s father dreams of a better life for his son. He wants him to get a good education, and hopes that Omar will save them from this life among the dead.
I’m Mostafa Bassim, a Cairo-based photojournalist. To see more of my photos you can find me on IG: @mostafa_bassim
