User:NeveenAhmed9/sandbox

How did Cairo get its name? '
= Cairo, Her Name is her First Secret      =

A 'Present Replete with 'Absent' Tales
She is beautiful ... stunning ... charming ... amazing ... fully

aware of her beauty ... Thus, her King may proudly come out in his royal parade. He may command palaces to be built, and so it happens. He shows his might, and so celebrations are held for him. And why wouldn'the do so as long as he managed to rise and share with her the throne of Egypt? She is the one that won the title of the beauty queen over the years. Age can only increase her beauty and magnificence. She is the temptress admired and sought by many of those who save their money throughout the year, hoping that their wishes would be fulfilled and they get her acceptance and be allowed to visit her. The lucky ones are those to whom she opens the door to her secrets. Proud, she is always proud and victorious. She has never been controlled by anyone. If someone is tempted to challenge her, she stands there concurring and defeating him. She is the concurring one (in Arabic: al-Qahira). She is more than three times the age of Paris, 7 times the age of Berlin, and 13 times the age of New York. In the old times, she was called “Min Nafarre”, which means “the beautiful harbor”. She is the capital of unified Egypt since the unification led by King Narmer since 3,200 years B.C. This beautiful one is over 5,000 years old. We can say that it is the oldest capital ever. She is almost the only city that incubated four of the eldest civilizations: the Ancient Egyptian, the Romanian, the Coptic and the Islamic. Although each of them has shaped her in a certain way, she managed to maintain each one of them distinctively and the remaining monuments are the witnesses for that. Yes! She is the most beautiful city ever. She is “Cairo".

Her Name is her First Secret
Gawhar al-Siqilly, the military commander of the Fatimid Caliph al-Muizz LiDeen-illah, chose her location using his military sense, where al-Mukktam Mountain would act as a shield that protects the city from the east. Yet, he wanted to fortify it even more and make it more of a royal fortress for the Caliph, his entourage and his soldiers, thus he decided to establish a fence that would surround the four corners of the city. He brought the workers and summoned the Moroccan astrologers and fortune tellers to choose a happy sign for building the fence. They put beams of wood marking the locations of the fences, tied them with ropes and placed bells between each two beams. They told the workers to put down the clay and stones that are in their hands if the bells moved. It happened that a crow stood on one of the ropes, thus all the bells moved. The workers thought that the astrologers are the ones who moved the ropes, so they put down what they had in their hands and started building. The astrologers shouted: “Al-Qahir is on the rise”. “AlQahir” is the planet Mars, which is not a good omen because it is a symbol of war. This is the story that explains the name of Al-Qahira (Cairo). It is said that it was called (al-Mansouriyyah), taking after the name of the Caliph “al-Mansour” who is the father of the Fatimid Caliph al-Muizz Li-Deen-illah. Yet, al-Muizz himself is the one who changed her name to be “al-Qahira (Cairo), to make the name of the city a mark for its strong fortification.

What does the name Cairo mean?
 Written by Neveen Ahmed