The people of the cave

Fayza Hassan contemplates from afar the remains of a retreat whose dwellers have vanished
Over a year ago, leafing through an old tourist magazine, I chanced upon an article titled "The Monastery of the Biktashis." As I read further, my curiosity was so piqued by the Muslim recluses of the Muqattam that I went in search of their story:
FORTY WISE MEN: The article described the circumstances of the arrival of the first Biktashis (or Bektaçi) in Egypt, dating back to the 13th century, when some 40 members of this religious order (originally from Anatolia), came to Egypt to visit the great spiritual guide Al-Sayed Al-Aini. They presented themselves each with a dressing covering one of their eyes. When one of Al-Aini's murids (disciples) asked the reason for the bandage, they replied that, having known that Al-Aini was blind, they thought it unseemly to use both their eyes in his presence. Al-Aini was so moved by this answer that he put his own palace at their disposal.
This is where the small group stayed temporarily, but when their leader felt his end coming, he expressed the desire to be buried in the Muqattam. His wish was granted and a vast area at the foot of the hills was presented to the Biktashis who left Qasr Al-Aini and established their tekke (or tikiya, hospice) around his grave. This first Biktashi sheikh had a difficult Turkish name that Arabic speakers found impossible to pronounce. They therefore referred to him as Sheikh Abdallah (used as a generic name) Al-Maghawri (of the cave), and this is how he is known popularly to this day.
A MONASTERY IN THE HILLS: There is some controversy as to exactly when the order was granted the right to occupy the old quarry and caves at the foot of the hills. Most written sources place the move at the time of Sheikh Al-Maghawri's death. The Blue Guide dates the move to the Muqattam to the beginning of Khedive Ismail's rule. Following the 1826 massacre of the Janissaries in Turkey, they were allowed to reform in 1839 and flocked to Egypt, where the rulers gave them protection. Oral history, on the other hand, indicates that the Biktashis moved to the Muqattam later, after the order was driven out of Turkey by Ataturk (around 1920); led by their spiritual father, Baba Sirry, many settled definitively in Egypt.
DERVISHES IN ARMS: "The Biktashis," says Ahmed Sultan, a Sufi scholar and prominent calligrapher whose family was well-acquainted with the order, "were different from any other religious order in that their members were primarily warriors. Of course they followed the basic concept of Sufism, which can be defined in a simplified way as the attempt to bring about the development of the whole being through enlightenment, based on the discipline of body and mind; but while most Sufi orders concentrate on spiritual development, Biktashis stressed physical strength equally, through the practice of martial arts. They exercised strenuously and constantly and achieved a degree of control of all their faculties so great that they became superior warriors, instrumental in giving the Ottoman armies their reputation for courage as well as cruelty and ruthlessness. They contributed in a major way to the Ottomans' successes in building their empire." After the Ottoman debacle, of course, adds Sultan, "the Biktashis abandoned martial arts and became a contemplative order of celibate dervishes whose dwindling membership had no wish to meddle in the affairs of the world. This is how they were known in Egypt." Commenting on the religious practices of the order, the Blue Guide describes the Biktashi dogma as an amalgam of Sunni and Shi'i but with the added imposition on the initiates of the practices of asceticism and celibacy inspired by Christian monasticism.
THE ORIGINS: According to Ibrahim Yagli, counsellor at the embassy of Turkey, the Biktashi order is said to have drawn its inspiration from the religio-social Baba'i movement, which disturbed the Turkoman centres of Asia Minor a few years before the Mongol invasion, and which seems to have been of great importance in the general history and cultural development of the Turkish people. The Biktashi order attracted the masses in Turkey rather than the aristocracy and was perceived as heretic by the dominant Sunni establishment.
Retracing the history of the order in the Encyclopedia of Islam, I discovered that by the 13th century, the Saljukid state of the Rum had developed a strong administrative and cultural framework, based on the Muslim Sunni population of the towns. In the countryside and the frontier lands, on the other hand, the Turkoman element had remained more faithful to the old Turkish traditions and was becoming more and more isolated from the influence of the state while being exposed at the same time to doctrines from Central Asia imported by Turkoman refugees fleeing the Mongols. In this troubled atmosphere, by 1240, the scene seemed to have been set for the appearance of a popular preacher (baba) named Ishaq, who came from the Kafarsud region on the Syrian border and began preaching to the Turkomans both of the region south of the eastern Taurus and of Amasya. Taking advantage of the weakening of the regime caused by internecine rifts, Baba Ishaq raised the banner of revolt; having successfully defied several large Saljukid armies, he himself was eventually defeated and captured by Frankish mercenaries hired by the state for this purpose. The movement, however, was not entirely suppressed.
CREATING THE LEGEND: The legendary patron of the Biktashi order is Hajj Biktash Wali, whose biography, as passed on by his followers (the first version of the biography dates from the beginning of the 15th century), attempts to bring together the holy man with famous and more legitimate religious figures and draws attention to the importance of the Biktashiya by flaunting the political role of their alleged founder.
MORE TO THE POINT: Documents do indicate the appearance in the 13th century of a Hajj Biktash of Khurasan among the dervishes of Anatolia who may have been a disciple of Baba Ishaq and who is referred to frequently in the writings of the aristocratic entourage of the rival Mawlawiya order. There is, however, precious little in the Maqalat of Hajj Biktash, originally written in Arabic and translated into Turkish, of the secret rites and doctrine of the order as they were known at a later stage, and it is believed that it is only at the end of the 16th century that the grand master Balim Sultan gave this doctrine its definitive form.
Counter-clockwise from top left: Baba Sirry in the room where he used to receive visitors; below: Hagg Ragab lighting a candle next to Sheikh Al-Maghawri's tomb; and preparing the traditional coffee for some visitors; right page top: the Biktashis on the terrace of their monastery
THE DOCTRINE AND RITES: The Biktashiya, like many Turkish institutions, received their characteristic features in western Turkestan from Ahmed Yasawi (d. 1166). Expanding in Anatolia, where the order absorbed Muslims as well as Christians, it came to include a large part of the population, especially in Albania, where there arose an amalgam of Islamic and Christian elements. The attitude of the Biktashis toward Islam is marked by popular mysticism and an almost total disregard for Muslim rituals and worship -- hence the hostility they have encountered among Sunni Muslims. According to the Encyclopedia of Islam: "In their secret doctrines they are Shi'is, acknowledging the 12 Imams and, in particular, holding Ja'far Al-Saddiq in high esteem. The centre of their worship is Ali; they unite Ali with Allah and Mohamed into a trinity. From one till ten Muharram they celebrate the nights of mourning... Furthermore they believe in the migration of souls." In the 15th century they became interested in the cabbalistic speculations of the Hurufis, while the "Turkish exposition of the doctrines of the sect, written by Ferishte-oglu under the title Ashknama, have canonical authority with them."
It is possible that many of the Christian elements incorporated in the doctrine belonged to the Biktashis' Anatolian predecessors and that more were taken over from the Christian groups who joined later. On the occasion of the induction of new members, there is a distribution of wine, bread and cheese, which is probably a survival of the Holy Communion as practiced by the Artotyrites. The Biktashis also make a confession of sins before their spiritual chiefs, who have the power to grant them absolution. Women take part in these rites without veiling their faces. A group among the Biktashis vow themselves to celibacy and wear earrings as a distinctive sign. It is thought that celibacy was introduced for the first time in the order by Balim Sultan.
The celibates have their own grand master, called dede. The head of a single monastery or hospice (tekke or tikiye) is called baba, the fully initiated member derwish, the member who has taken his first vows muhibb (in Egypt, they are referred to as murid) while adherents who have not yet been initiated are 'ushaq (sing. 'ashiq).
The discipline is governed by the relation of the murshid (guide) to his disciples and novices. The Biktashis wear a white cap, consisting of four or 12 folds. The number four symbolises the four gates: shari'a (law), tariqa (sect or order), ma'rifa (knowledge), haqiqa (truth) and the four corresponding classes of people: abid (slaves), zahid (free people), 'arif (knowledgeable), muhibb (sympathiser or initiate); the number 12 refers to the 12 imams. Other symbols are the twelve-fluted shawl (taslim tashi) which is worn around the neck and the teber, a sort of double axe.
THE JANISSARY CONNECTION: Bernard Lewis writes that, from the 13th century on, "Sufism became the binding force of Islamic unity, the main expression of religious sentiment and loyalty. In time it became a source also of intellectual culture, and sometimes even of political power. The dynasties that ruled in Turkey and Iran... were both deeply affected in their origins by Sufi ideals and organisations." Before the second half of the 16th century, the janissaries, who were recruited exclusively from Christian captives and slaves, joined the mystical brotherhood of the Biktashiya with which this corps had been associated since its foundation. It is therefore not surprising, comments Lewis, that the fortunes of the brotherhood remained closely linked to the rise and decline of their patrons. According to him, by 1570 the Biktashis had three tikiyas in Egypt. The only one that survived until the early 1950s, however, was in the caves surrounding Sheikh Al-Maghawri's grave.
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: It was time, I thought, to find out what had happened to the last Egyptian home of the Biktashis.
Because of their shape and their closeness to the city, the Muqattam hills have always been one of the most remarkable landmarks of Cairo. Their strategic importance is well known; the lives and deeds of the various residents who have dwelt in the quarries and caves that scar their stony flanks form the stuff of legends. One can observe several of these pockmarks fleetingly and from afar while negotiating the improbable potholes on the thoroughfare smugly baptised the Autostrad. All along the base of the cliffs and higher, round black holes form mysterious clusters, "the first and northernmost of them (at present occupied by the army) surround[ing] the Kahf Al-Sudan (Cave of the Blacks), a Fatimid mashhad of unknown purpose built in 1013," the Blue Guide informs us. "This is the site where once stood the khelwa (hermitage) of the Biktashi order, a religious brotherhood who arrived from the wilds of central Anatolia to settle in Egypt around half a century before the Ottoman conquest."
Inquiring about the site, I was immediately told that I could harbour no hope of visiting the khelwa, since the whole area was now occupied by the Egyptian Air Defence forces. Besides, nothing was left of the monastery except two domes, one ornate, the other plain, which could be observed from the road. Although few people know it, these surmount the graves of Baba Sirry and that of the sister of King Zog of Albania respectively.
FIT FOR ROYALTY: According to Sultan, the official history of the Biktashis in Egypt has never been fully documented, but apparently, before the 1952 Revolution, Baba Sirry, the last of the Biktashi spiritual leaders in this country, received countless visitors to the monastery who were curious to know more about the brotherhood. The old sheikh complied graciously, showing his guests (who included heads of state, writers and journalists) the many remarkable features of the tikiya on the mountain: the walls of the oratory covered with Qur'anic inscriptions; the richly framed pictures of his predecessors; the hall hewn in the rock-face and hung with Albanian weapons, such as spears, swords and pikes, banner-heads, shields and spiked helmets, as well as ancient narguilehs and strange musical instruments. He delighted in recounting the many marvelous tales attached to each of the artefacts. He would then lead his visitors up some steps, through a gateway and into a large open courtyard surrounded by the rock-hewn cells of the initiates and show them the vast cave containing the graves of the dervishes. At the far end, enclosed by a grille, Sheikh Al-Sayed Abdallah Al-Maghawri, the first leader of the Biktashis in Egypt, lay buried. Bypassing his own house, the large kitchen, the bakery and the women's quarters, he would take them to a terrace with a magnificent view, at the far end of which, inside a smaller cave, stood the tomb of Prince Kamaleddin (1874-1932), eldest son of Sultan Hussein Kamel. On his father's death in 1919, Prince Kamaleddin renounced the succession, preferring to continue the pursuits of archaeology and art collecting. It is said that he was a frequent visitor to the tikiya, enjoying the quiet of the surroundings and the beautiful view.
MOVING TO MAADI: Sultan recounts that at the outset of the 1952 Revolution, it seemed that the dervishes on the mountain would not be disturbed in their retreat, but some time later, Baba Sirry and his followers were suddenly stigmatised as foreigners (it was conveniently remembered that many members of the brotherhood were Albanians and that they had been protected by the royal family) and therefore branded personae non gratae on the Muqattam, where they were occupying a site that the military deemed vital. Sultan says many of the artefacts contained in the monastery were lost when Baba Sirry was forced to relinquish his retreat in the hills. The Free Officers however, taking pity on the old dervish, gave him the use of Prince Omar Ibrahim's sequestrated villa in Maadi, as well as the adjoining plot of land (which had also belonged to the prince) for Baba Sirry's herd of goats and sheep.
The tombs of the Biktashis as seen today in Bassatin photos: Egypt Travel Magazine no 8, March 1955 and photos: Khaled El-Fiqi
LEST THEY FORGET: Still according to Sultan, while in Maadi, Baba Sirry spent his remaining years writing a little-known book about the Egyptian journey of the Biktashis. In it he mentions that he moved the monastery's library of precious illuminated manuscripts and religious texts -- some dating from the 14 century -- to the Maadi villa. At his death, however, there was no mention of this invaluable collection. Luckier with another endeavour, before leaving his beloved Muqattam, Baba Sirry gathered the bones of all the members of the brotherhood who had died and were buried in individual graves and placed them in a common tomb in Bassatin, where they remained for many years. The marble plaques on which their names were carved lay gathering dust.
RIP: Sultan had awakened my interest in the marvelous tombstones, which, he explained, presented rare examples of Arabic calligraphy. He was worried that they might be stolen or destroyed. It is only several months later, however, that we got around to visiting the Bassatin Qarafa on a Friday, after prayer. The cemetery was quiet, the grave-diggers drinking tea with their families in shady courtyards while children played ball in the sandy alleys. Sultan's memory seemed to betray him for a while, and as we turned left, right and then right again in search of "a shrine enclosed by a wrought-iron grille," we felt quite overwhelmed by the difficulty of our quest. Questions to passersby did not yield any useful information. Obviously no one had heard of Baba Sirry or the Biktashiya. Should we give up? Suddenly someone mentioned Sheikh Al-Maghawri. The name worked like an Open Sesame. Everyone knew where the tomb was, of course. Why hadn't we said clearly whose tomb we were looking for? Followed by a troupe of little boys and girls, we soon arrived at our destination, which, to Sultan's utter surprise, was totally changed. A new wall enclosed a small, neatly paved courtyard, where a number of richly decorated tombs were surmounted by the headstones -- recently painted in a rather unfortunate green -- the loss of which had worried Sultan so much. Although he whispered that some of the plaques had in fact disappeared, he was overjoyed that the bulk of what he considered unique examples of Arabic calligraphy had been saved.
A STROKE OF LUCK: Who had fixed the tombs, I wanted to know. Could it have been an anonymous benefactor, someone who had frequented the tikiya in days gone by? "Hagg Mahmoud Bikdash and his son," the caretaker told us. "These are members of his family," he added pointing at the tombstones. Sultan had no idea that there were any Biktashis left in Egypt, but Amm Ibrahim was quite assertive. We could find the hagg in downtown Cairo, where he owned a well-known clothes shop. An appointment was promptly arranged and the following Friday I was led to Hagg Mahmoud Biktashi's tiny but extremely well appointed office, on the mezzanine of his store in the Baehler Passage.
A FAMILY AFFAIR: Hagg Mahmoud Bikdash is one of those old-fashioned men to whom gallantry comes naturally. His son Amr combines his father's exquisite manners with a businesslike briskness, acquired during his long stay in the United States. Hagg Mahmoud's wife is the daughter of Baba Sirry's brother. The information I had gathered painstakingly from various sources is well-known family history to him.
Although not a Biktashi himself, his own family is originally from Bikdash, and he insists that his marriage to Baba Sirry's niece happened fortuitously. "Baba Sirry," he says, "was warned of the arrival of Ataturk's soldiers by friends who helped him escape Turkey before his tikiya was attacked. He had time to pack his library, the collection of antique weaponry and his musical instruments on a ship. With his followers and their families, he sailed to Alexandria, where King Fouad met him." Here, Amr adds that they have a photo of the king kissing the sheikh's hand as he welcomed him aboard the docked vessel. "Baba Sirry was received with the honours due to his rank," continues Hagg Mahmoud. "One should not forget that the royal family was Albanian and considered him a spiritual leader, not unlike the Pope for the Catholics. The Biktashis practiced a brand of Islam that was very accommodating and drew their tenets from several sources of Islamic thought, peppered with a dash of Christianity. This is why their appeal was so great in Turkey and Albania. They offered a set of beliefs that attracted men from every walk of life. Some of them practiced celibacy, but they were not averse to life's pleasures. Baba Sirry had a beautiful voice and encouraged his entourage to sing and play various instruments." Incidentally, adds Hagg Mahmoud, "the famous singer Shadia grew in the tikiya. Baba Sirry also enjoyed the company of the rich and famous, and spent a fortune decorating his retreat in the Muqattam, where he played host to royalty. King Zog of Albania, among others, was a frequent visitor when he was in Egypt and some members of his family who settled permanently in Alexandria called on the old dervish regularly."
A SAD DEPARTURE: The fortunes of Baba Sirry waned with the ousting of the monarchy. When the powder magazines blew up at the Citadel, the tikiya was partly destroyed and the sheikh sued the state for LE50,000 in damages. This undoubtedly angered the authorities and hastened his move from the Muqattam to Maadi. There he tended his herd on the plot of land adjoining his villa. "The Biktashis," comments Hagg Mahmoud, "were meat-eaters, and proper hospitality necessarily involved the slaughter of one or more sheep; this, however, was Maadi, no longer the Muqattam, and soon a high official who occupied a neighbouring villa complained about the practice." Many unpleasant incidents occurred during that period and the ageing Baba Sirry, who suffered from diabetes, became depressed and ill. Sojourns in hospital were followed, on his return home, by the discovery of burglaries and acts of vandalism on his house. His brother advised him to leave Maadi and to move in with him. It is only after his second amputation that Baba Sirry finally heeded his advice. It was too late, however, and the old baba died in 1963 a broken man.
BIKTASHIS IN AMERICA: After Baba Sirry's death, Hagg Ragab, his closest follower, gathered the remaining Biktashis and whatever could be saved of their belongings and moved to Taylor, near Detroit, opening a tekke there. Others followed, and the order seems to be thriving in the United States. Says Amr, "still, nothing will ever equal Baba Sirry's retreat in the Muqattam."
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