Amina Elbendary reviews the metamorphosis of Shubra Not since the national curiosity surrounding Imbaba in the 1990s, has a Cairo neighborhood been brought to the national limelight as Shubra Al-Khayma has this week, following the tragic events. Shubra Al-Khayma is literally on the margins of Cairo -- an extension of the north Cairo residential quarter of Shubra. Even though Shubra Al-Khayma has only grown to a full fledged neighborhood in the past fifty years, a settlement with the name of Shubra Al-Khyam (Shubra of the tents) was in existence on the outskirts of the capital, at least by the 15th century. Lying on the borderland between countryside and city, Shubra Al-Khyam is mentioned by the Egyptian historian Taqiyy Al- Din Al-Maqrizi in his celebrated chronicle Al- Suluk li Ma�rifat Duwal Al-Muluk in an account dating 1400. The Shubra Al-Khyam he writes of is a group of villages on the outskirts of the capital, with orchards and vineyards. Wine making seems to have been a major activity of its population and the neighbourhood housed several drinking houses. Shubra Al-Khyam included a significant Christian population and had its own church. Even as late as the 19th century, Ali Mubarak in Al-Khitat Al-Tawfikiyya Al-Gadida described Shubra Al-Khayma as a village of Qalubiyya on the outskirts of Cairo, on the eastern bank of the blessed Nile river. It was also called Shubra Al-Makasa and was noted for its magnificent buildings, palaces, gardens and trees. Muhammad Ali Pasha, Egypt's ruler during the first half of the 19th century, led the modern urbanisation of Shubra. He built the famous saray, Shubra Palace, in 1808-1809 as well as waterwheels to water the gardens. A wide avenue was laid out connecting the palace with Azbakiyya and the core of Cairo and by mid-century the Shubra Avenue had become a favorite upper-class carriage promenade. Shari' Shubra remains the main thoroughfare to Shubra and Rawd Al-Farag today. When the pasha found that the Egyptian army's horses were not breeding in good numbers, many of them falling sick and dying, he built new stables for horse breeding -- in Shubra Al-Khayma -- and placed them under the direction of a French veterinarian who introduced modern breeding practices. The new stables were clean, wide and airy, ensuring enough space for the horses. Fields were cultivated especially to feed these horses. The Shubra stables became the model which Egypt's horse breeding elite tried to emulate. But Shubra Al-Khayma as we now know it is a result of the hyper urbanisation of the twentieth century. It is in stark contrast to this healthy, idyllic suburb of the capital with its waterwheels, drinking houses, palaces and gardens. The area remained largely agricultural with the exception of a few villas and palaces until World War I. Shubra itself continued to grow as a residential district during the first quarter of the century, attracting large numbers of Egyptian Copts and foreigners. In May 1907, a tramline was extended northward from Shari' Shubra to the outlying village of Shubra Al-Khayma. As Cairo continued to grow and encroach on its rural margins, many of the settlements on the outskirts were partially urbanised and unevenly absorbed into the urban fabric. These peripheral areas typically attracted rural migrants to the city during World War II and since in pursuit of better living conditions and economic opportunities. During the 1940s war boom and after the 1952 revolution, new industrial estates were constructed on the farmland peripheries of the capital, including Shubra Al-Khayma in the north. Modern textile factories were established, providing job opportunities and attracting migrants. Shubra's Khazindar bus terminal was the last station on the line linking Cairo with the towns of the delta. So this was the first part of the city rural migrants discovered at their arrival during the 1940s. Janet Abu Lughod suggests that in fact many of them settled right in the area around the bus station. The rural outskirt of the city was receptive space for the continuation of a village life-style. As Shubra Al-Khayma grew, apartment buildings sprang up side by side with smaller dwellings reminiscent of Delta village houses, resulting in spontaneous and largely unplanned urbanisation. In his memoirs, Mashaynaha Khuta, Egyptian historian Raouf Abbas describes growing up in one of the settlements on the outskirts of Shubra, Ezbet Hermees, in the 1940s and early 1950s. Lacking running water, residents lined up before a public water fountain where a worker filled up their jerry cans in return for a nominal sum while two water carriers brought water to the houses. Residents, mostly rural migrants, also had to manage their own spontaneous sewage system and regularly clear it. The dwellings Abbas describes are reminiscent of the traditional rab' since individual rooms where rented out to families and each number of rooms shared a foyer and latrine. Many of the residents and landlords were poor craftsmen, workers at the nearby factories and the workshops of the British army. Abbas estimates that the residents of Ezbet Hermees were equally divided between Christians and Muslims. Indeed, Shubra and its rural environs continued to be characterised by a high percentage of Christian residents. The ezab attracted poor rural migrants of both religions. Migrants of particular villages and provinces typically resettled together in their new abodes. Despite difficult living conditions, the population of Shubra Al-Khayma continued to grow from 39,000 in 1947, to 100,000 in 1960 to 711,000 in 1986. And with the factories came the labour movement so that in the late 1940s Shubra Al-Khayma came to be known as "Shubra Al-Hamra" -- Red Shubra -- in reference to communist labour organisation and activism. The nationalisation of the mills in the 1960s heavily curtailed the labour movement there as elsewhere, yet the echoes of a tradition of labour activism reverberate today; just recently workers at the ESCO textile mills near Shubra Al-Khayma have been protesting the government's sale of their mill to a private investor because of the downsising policies they expect will follow. By the early twenty-first century Shubra Al- Khayma has become incorporated into Cairo, despite the persisting uneven urbanisation and the density of population. It is an epitome of the spontaneous urban quarters that form several rings around the heart of the historic capital.
