Buying a book from rare books dealer Sabri Ali Montaser is an excuse for an excursion into Egypt's history, says Mohamed Mursi Sabri Ali Montaser's shop, a small affair in a tourist market, is filled with old books and paintings. Montaser used to be a tourist guide, but following injury in a car accident in Sharm El-Sheikh, he opted for a more sedentary career. Now he sells rare books and antiques in Souq Al-Fustat, the shopping arcade sandwiched between the Mosque of Amr Ibn Al-Aas and the church complex in Coptic Cairo. A natural storyteller, Montaser enjoys telling stories to his customers. He can talk forever about biblical history, tales of Jewish history in Sinai, and more recent memories of pre-revolutionary Cairo. Some of the paintings in his shop used to adorn the walls of the Cataract Hotel in Aswan. Others depict folkloric themes, especially those produced by local artists. He has something he wants to show me. From behind the rows of old perfume bottles and past a display of silver anklets, he extracts a leather-bound volume, a history of Egypt written by the French historian Gabriel Hanotaux. The book documents life in Egypt in the 18th century, discussing customs relating to marriage and divorce and health and common illnesses, as well as the habits of Bedouin tribes. It contains a lovely illustration depicting Mohamed Ali. Another book, this time by architect Fabricius Pasha, a contemporary of Khedive Ismail, includes drawings and plans for the modernisation of Cairo in the 19th century, as well as a scene from the opening of Haram Street. While the books by Hanotoux and Fabricius may not be as well-known as Englishman Edward W Lane's Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, published in 1836, this makes them just as valuable, if not more so, Montaser tells me. Then he launches into a summary of Lane's life. Inspired by the Description de l'Egypte produced in Paris following the French invasion of the country at the end of the 18th century, Lane tried to collect data about contemporary Egypt. He visited homes, attended events, talked to scholars, and mixed with ordinary people. But there was one section of Egyptian life into which he was never admitted. He had no access to Egyptian women, a gap in his writing that he filled by sending his sister, Sophia Lane Poole, to visit various homes and bathhouses around Cairo. He included his sister's reports in a study entitled The Englishwoman in Egypt: Letters from Cairo, published in 1844. Lane, who eventually married an Egyptian woman of Greek origin called Nafisa, went on to translate The Arabian Nights, dying while working on a translation of the Quran. Dealing in rare books is a tough business, Montaser tells me, describing his prolonged negotiations with their owners. Some of the books he buys require the professional care of experts in restoration. The prices of the books depend on their scarcity and condition. He often chats with visiting tourists about the history of Egypt and Cairo, and the sale of a book is usually accompanied by a discussion of its subject matter. To his astonishment, he has discovered that few tourists are aware that the veil for women is a pre-Islamic custom. It was common in the region and was embraced by Jewish and other communities, he says. photos: Mohamed El-Seheiti
