The last covered market in Cairo, where men still hand-stitch appliqué panels in a trade that is genuinely dying.
Just south of Bab Zuweila, the southern gate of the Fatimid city, is a short covered lane that is the last remaining roofed market in Cairo — a survival of the medieval commercial street, with the original vaulting overhead.
It is the Street of the Tentmakers, Sharia al-Khayamiya, and the craft it is named for is one of the very few genuinely traditional trades still practised in Cairo by hand.
Khayamiya
The craft is appliqué: shapes cut from coloured cotton and hand-stitched onto a heavy backing cloth, in Islamic geometric patterns, calligraphy, arabesques or scenes of Egyptian life.
The name comes from khayma, a tent. These panels were made to line the enormous ceremonial tents — suradeq — used for funerals, weddings, Ramadan gatherings and religious festivals, which are still put up in Cairo streets today, though most are now printed rather than sewn.
A large hand-stitched panel takes weeks. The stitching is done with the panel in the maker’s lap, working from the back, and the men doing it learned from their fathers.
The trade is dying
Printed imitations, made in factories, cost a fraction and have taken most of the market. The number of working tentmakers has fallen from hundreds to a few dozen, most of them older men.
There has been a revival of interest, partly through international quilting and textile-art communities, and some workshops now sell smaller pieces — cushion covers, wall hangings, bags — directly to visitors. That trade is currently what keeps several of them going.
Buying
Prices are much higher than the mass-produced work in Khan el-Khalili, and they should be. You are buying weeks of hand labour.
Look at the back. Hand appliqué has visible stitching and slight irregularity; printed cloth has none. Sellers here are generally straightforward about which is which, but ask.
Small pieces are affordable. Large panels are a serious purchase and can be shipped.
Bargaining is expected but should be gentle. This is not the Khan.
Bab Zuweila
At the head of the street, the gate of 1092 with two minarets added in the fifteenth century by the mosque of al-Mu’ayyad beside it. The minarets can be climbed, and the view over the roofs of Islamic Cairo, the tentmakers’ street below and the Citadel beyond is the best in the quarter.
This was where executions took place, and where the heads of criminals were displayed.
Practicalities
The street is a short walk from the southern end of Al-Muizz Street, and combining the two is the obvious way to do it.
Workshops keep ordinary daytime hours and many close on Fridays.
