Sanctity Elusive and Manifest: The Nilometer at al-Rawda Island and its Cosmological Entanglements
Heba Mostafa, Associate Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture, University of Toronto.
The mandate to govern Egypt has long been contingent upon the critical responsibility of gauging and controlling the seasonal inundation of the River Nile, upon which Egypt’s prosperity depends. This included the management of sophisticated infrastructure, such as gauges to measure flood waters known as Nilometers, canal and dike maintenance, and overall management of agricultural land. Coexisting alongside these pragmatic measures, intricate rituals and ceremonies were enacted throughout the year to offer supplications for an ample flood or celebrate its fulfillment. These ritualistic and ceremonial efforts focused mostly upon the ninth century Abbasid Nilometer at al-Rawda Island across from al-Fustat (medieval Cairo) with city wide ceremonies extending beyond the island throughout the year and across the confessional divide. In this sense the pragmatic, scientific, quantifiable, and observable formed one facet of the coin while the symbolic, spiritual, and esoteric, formed the other. This is why the Nilometer, while principally a measuring device, received decorative treatment similar to other early Islamic sacred sites, including an inscription band along the sides of its well that include Quranic verses extolling the beneficence of God through rainfall. This talk will consider these facets symbiotically by situating the Nilometer as a sacred precinct and de facto shrine to nature, unveiling its agility at the intersection of the cosmological, urban, ritualistic, and material.