Egypt's quaint Post Office Museum might not seem the most exciting material for a newspaper story or rank alongside the Pyramids or the Sphinx as the subject for an article in a book about Egypt's wonders, but there is actually so much life to be found in getting to it, that there really is enough for it to fill a whole newspaper just on its own. Situated on the second floor of the Central Post Office in Ataba Square, this unusual museum is home to a lot more than just postage stamps. Telling the history of Egypt's postal delivery system from Pharaonic times to the present day, there are displays about the Pharaoh Akhenaton and his method of delivering messages of state to rulers in far flung empires. There are mail bags and post boxes from different eras, models of ships, camels and feluccas used in times gone by to deliver messages, and there is a stamp printing machine. There are small models, too, of postal workers, as well as postal uniforms from different countries. The centre piece of the collection, though, is the stamps themselves. Thousands of them, from Egypt and abroad, and from different periods of Egypt's history. The first ever postage stamp was printed in Britain in 1840. Khedive Ismail introduced the novelty to Egypt in 1866, with the printing of the first Egyptian postage stamp. Egypt's first ever post master, the Italian Jacob Muzzi, is remembered in the museum by his desk and chair, but Egypt's postage stamps continued to be printed in his native Italy up until as late as 1961. It is the stamps that impress, bearing on them every kind of image, such as the coronation of King Farouk, the July Revolution which toppled him, and the crossing of the Suez Canal which restored glory to Egypt and the Arab cause. At the far end of the museum hall, there is a sort of tapestry, made all the more interesting since it is made up of fifteen thousand stamps. Just think of all the letters these stamps were used to deliver. Letters of love and of finance, letters of peace and tales from the battlefield. If only the stamps could speak, they could give us the whole of human life, and the whole of Egypt's modern history. Outside in the square, once you have passed through the ornate courtyard of the Central Post Office, Ataba Square is teaming with that same life. Now crushed in by an enormous, ugly flyover linking what was Mohamed Ali's new city of Cairo to the Medieval city now known as Islamic Cairo, the Midan is alive both day and night. Every corner is crammed with people, with their wares and their concerns. The roads leading off it are like veins running out from the city's heart to provide life to the body. Sharia Abdel Aziz, for example, has on sale every mobile phone or electronic device the human mind can imagine. Muski Street is an endlessly narrow crush of shops and market stalls, its pedestrians carried on by the endless stream of people behind them, all wanting to get past and to move on. Any day you will find matronly housewives stocking up with towels, glasses, pots and pans. Every day you will see street hawkers, wide eyed youths with glasses of lemon juice for sale, and small children, crying out, calling to friends or family that they are lost. Everyone looking for a bargain. Anything you want for just one Egyptian pound! In the roads around the Midan, you will find stationery stalls and shops selling all kinds of artificial plants and flowers. If it is kitchen equipment you want, or a new pair of shoes, you will find it in Ataba Square. Crushed into the square, along with the central Post Office, is the central Fire Station, a Meat Market, the once elegant but still fascinating Sednaoui Department Store, with its central glass atrium three storeys high, and Egypt's National Theatre, destroyed by fire but once more destined for glory. What a piece of theatre the Midan itself is. Stranger than fiction, its stories could enthrall more than any play. And, back in the Postal Museum, what of the letters those postage stamps were witness to? Letters and messages from the hearts of ordinary people, like the pedestrians pushing and jostling in the square outside, clamouring to fill their lives with more and more things, which will never satisfy, rather than seeking to make their lives better. Muslims read in the Holy Qur'an in Surat An-Nahl: He doth send down His angels With inspiration of His Command, To such of His servants As He pleaseth (saying): 'Warn (Man) that there is No god but I: so do Your duty unto Me.' Holy Qur'an 16:2 We receive many letters and many messages in our lives. Some of them of no consequence, others of great importance. Amidst the crush and the noise of places like Ataba Square, though, let us never forget the real message of life, nor of its Messenger, and in doing so, let us do our duty as we know we should. British Muslim writer, Idris Tawfiq, is a lecturer at Al-Azhar University. The author of eight books about Islam, he divides his time between Egypt and the UK as a speaker, writer and broadcaster. You can visit his website at www.idristawfiq.com.
