city of the dead in Egypt | مدينة الموتي في مصر
The City of the Dead in Cairo (Qarafa) is a 4 miles (6.4 km) long (north-south) dense grid of tomb , where some people live and work amongst the dead.
Filmed by : Abd-elrahmen Kashaba
Mahmoud Hany
Special thanks :
Ahmed Farrag
Rehab Nagy
sound track : Aftermath - Madness Paranoia by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (
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Egypt Graveyard: Living in the city of the dead
In Egypt, poverty, inequality and unemployment are longstanding challenges . People in the overcrowded capital Cairo are often unable to afford decent housing. As Ahmed al Burai reports, many of them are forced to live among the dead.
Great Muslim Graveyards- City of the Dead, Cairo, Egypt
The largest graveyard of Cairo is called Qarafa as well as Arafa by the Egyptions and City of the Dead by the Westerners. It is a four mile long cemetery from northern to southern part of Cairo, near the renowned fort of Salah-ud-Din Ayyubi. It is a bustling place of graves, premises, tombs and mausoleums where people live and work amongst their dead and ancestors. Many residents live here as they were forced by poverty and from more crowded areas in Cairo.
Its foundation dates back to the Arab conquest of Egypt in 642 AD when Arab commander, Amr ibn al Aas, founded the first family's graveyard at the foot of the hill al Moqattam. The other tribes buried their dead within the living quarters. The following Arab dynasties built their own family graveyards.
The first living residents of the graveyard consisted of the custodians to the graves of nobles, elite and lords and the staff in charge of the burial service as well as the Sufi mystics in their khanqahs/academies.
During the Fatimid Caliphate people started visiting this graveyard frequently because of beliefs of Ismaeili Shi'ite faith. These pilgrimages increased the cemetery's habitat in order to provide pligrims' needs.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century an urban and heterogeneous community populated Al Qarafa. During the following centuries Egyptian population impoverished more and more and moved to the City of the Dead for residence. The newcomers changed Al Qarafa's face. Following the 1992 earthquake many people were forced to move into family tombs thus adding to the number of people already living there.
Due to housing shortages, overpopulation, and the rising cost of living, the cemeteries in Qarafa have become home to over 1.5 million of Egypt's urban poor. They have migrated there in droves turning these tombs of the dead into residences for the living. Some families are living in the tombs and burial premises for generations spread over centuries and they have lost the will to shift from there to some better areas.
Sometimes rich people, or persons who own a family graveyard premises in the Qarafa, allow other people to live in their premises on the condition of upkeep and cleanliness and in order to avoid encroachment and elimination of the graves of their ancestors.
The eastern side of the City of the Dead contains some very magnificent tombs and buildings such as the mosque of Farag, the tomb of Barquq, tomb of Barsbey , and mausoleum of the Sultan Qait Bey.
It is generally stated that it is dangerous to go to the areas of this long graveyard without proper guide and suitable protective measures.
The graveyards and cemeteries are no longer haunted places in Qarafa and it appears to be full of life for the millions of people residing there. The area abounds in all basic necessities of life, shops, motor garages, net cafés, schools, bakeries, puppet theatres, barber shops, tea stalls, laundries, mosques, video stores, tile factories, furniture makers, plying their craft inside tombs and streams of uniformed children parading to and from school, stopping for a quick soccer game between the cenotaphs. In fact, the Qarafa is a necropolis turned metropolis, where the needs of the living have far outpaced the sanctity of the dead. Here, survival takes precedence over superstition, and the impact of overpopulation and overcrowding wears a human face.
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Please watch: Farhat Abbas Shah, Dubai Mushaera 1996
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City of the Dead (Qarafa, Arafa) Cairo Egypt
City of the Dead (Qarafa, Arafa) is a four mile long cemetery from northern to southern part of Cairo, Egypt. To the people of Cairo and other Egyptians, it is simply el'arafa which means the cemetery. It is a bustling grid of tombs and mausoleums where people live and work amongst their dead and ancestors. Many residents live here to be near their loved ones, or because they were forced from more crowded areas in Cairo and 60s immigration from countryside. In fact many came from their villages simply looking for work — a good example of rural to urban migration in an LEDC.
Its foundation dates back to the Arab conquest of Egypt in 642 AD. The Arab commander, Amr ibn al As, founded the first Egyptian Arab capital, the city of Al Fustat, and established his family's graveyard at the foot of the hill al Moqattam. The other tribes buried their dead within the living quartiers. The following Arab dinasties built own political citadel northwards to the previous, founding a new graveyard every time. The Great Qarafa and the Lesser Qarafa (the commander's family cemetery) have been inhabiting since the first centuries after the conquest. Its first resident nucleus consisted of the custodians to noble graves and the staff in charge of the burial service as well as the Sufi mystics in their khawaniq (colleges). During the Fatimid Caliphate, because of their Shi'ite faith, the sovereigns supported pilgrimages to Ahl al Bayt (Prophet's family) shrines as part of their politics. These pilgrimages increased the cemetery's habitat in order to provide pligrims' needs. The following sultan, Salah el Din, in order to unify all the four capitals within a surrounding wall, included both cemeteries in an unique urban space. The next Mamluk rulers, originally freed slaves forming a military caste, founded a new graveyard named Sahara, because of its deserted environment, outside the city at its north-eastern border. It was also a place for military parades, such as tournaments and investiture ceremonies, as well as for processions, at which sultan and nobles took part during the religious celebrations. So that many of them built their palaces on the main road of the cemetery in order to assist to the spectacles. With the Ottomans (1517-1798) Egypt became just a mere province of a vaste empire with Istanbul as capital. During the following three centuries Egypt was ruled by pashas, sultan's representatives, selected among his closest because of the importance of this country for agricultural and financial supplies. Because of the short term of the rulers' office, only few of one hundred and ten pashas who administrated Egypt, decided to build own tomb there, on the contrary of Cairenes. At the beginning of the sixteenth century an urban and heterogeneous community, populated Al Qarafa. The economic improvements affected the urban territory of Cairo with the birth of new neighbourhoods which caused a reduction in the utilization of the old cemetery. However since the funerary monuments were symbols of self-glorification for the upper classes in order to perpetuate own memory, their tombs were garlanded with gilded decorations with festoons, based on nature, flowers and fruits. The necropolis, because as a site of extraordinary concentration of awalya's tombs, Sufi colleges and madrasa, it attracted many people in search of baraka (blessing). during the following centuries Egyptian population empoverished more and more. The lower stratum of middle class collapsed and moved to other peripheral zones and the fellahin, the Egyptian peasants and farmers, emigrated to the capital. Both of them crowded the poorest fringe zones as well as the City of the Dead. The newcomers changed Al Qarafa's face from an urban district to a hybrid community of rurals and citizens. Following the 1992 earthquake many people were forced to move into family tombs thus adding to the number of people already living there
Al Jazeera Frames - City of the Dead
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Al-Qarafa, known as the City of the Dead, is a four-mile-long cemetery from northern to southern part of Cairo, Egypt's capital. It is the oldest Muslim cemetary in Egypt - a bustling grid of tombs and mausoleums where people live and work amongst their dead and ancestors. Many residents live here to be near their loved ones, or because they were forced from more crowded areas in Cairo.
The documentary provides a glimpse of a veiled reality that even Egypt itself wants to ignore preferring to glorify the past of the Pharaohs and their glamorous cemeteries rather than face the present of al-Qarafa with its dead and living inhabitants.
At Al Jazeera English, we focus on people and events that affect people's lives. We bring topics to light that often go under-reported, listening to all sides of the story and giving a 'voice to the voiceless.'
Reaching more than 270 million households in over 140 countries across the globe, our viewers trust Al Jazeera English to keep them informed, inspired, and entertained.
Our impartial, fact-based reporting wins worldwide praise and respect. It is our unique brand of journalism that the world has come to rely on.
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The Northern cemetery
Northern cemetery
in the northern cemetery- city of the dead, Cairo, Egypt
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City of the Dead, Zabbaleen
A trip through some lesser visited but interesting parts of Old Cairo; the necropolis where people live with their entombed ancestors, and the unbelievable city of garbage..
Egypt Vlog - #6 - City of the Dead or Cairo Necropolis, Al-Hussein Mosque & Old Town
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From Zabaleen or Garbage City I'm visiting City of the Dead, then Al-Hussein Mosque and Old Town
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City of the Dead - It's a Islamic cemetery where people living and working amongst the dead. Its a 6.4 km long with tombs and mausoleum structures. It was established at 7 century. After the 1992 earthquake in Cairo, many were forced to flee their homes and reside in the tombs of relatives. The cemeteries built in the City of the Dead are much different than the western idea of cemeteries. This is because traditionally, Egyptians buried their dead in room-like burial sites so they could live in them during the long mourning period of forty days.
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Tomb of an Imam: City of the Dead, Cairo
Cairo's infamous City of the Dead is a centuries old cemetery that has become home to as many as 5 million Egyptians during the last decades. The buildings in the cemetery are like full-blown houses and the cemetery has long had mosques, school and markets.
The historic belief in Egypt is that the cemeteries are an active part of the community and not exclusively for the dead. Egyptians have not so much thought of cemeteries as a place of the dead, but rather a place where life begins.
We recently visited The City of the Dead along with our friend and guide, Emil Shaker. In typical fashion, he gets into a forbidden area the tomb of the Imam of the Mosque. This room serves several purposes: the tomb of the Imam, a burial place for the newly dead, a cooling room for freshly baked date pies, a place to read the Koran, and, as Emil snickers toward the end of the clip: the place where the blind undertaker hunts his wife!
The man who lets us into the crypt is the blind sheikh and undertaker in the City of the Dead - there was a very famous Egyptian film made about him called Kit Kat
City of the Dead, Cairo Egpyt
Alive in the 'City of the Dead'
This video offers an insight into the work of the Sultan Foundation in the City of the Dead in Cairo, Egypt. The British documentary filmmaker Mark Hammond visited for several weeks in autumn 2018 to capture the unique setting in which community outreach and artistic events in and around the Maq‘ad of Sultan Qaitbey cultural centre take place.
Unlike the Western cemeteries, the “City of the Dead” in Cairo was always also meant to be a city of the living. Rulers and dignitaries built not just tombs, but huge religious complexes that included mosques endowed as teaching madrasas, convents of Sufi mystics, as well as various charities, and housed numerous people. Nowadays the cemeteries that stretch for more than eight kilometres, include some of the most important historic monuments in Cairo, and are home to populous communities.
For the past few years, the Cairo-based ARCHiNOS Architecture has been conserving monuments within the funerary complex built by Sultan al-Ashraf Qaitbey in the 1470s. The work is primarily financed by the European Union and the done under the auspices of the Historic Cairo Project within the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities.
Experience has shown that long-term preservation of cultural heritage cannot be achieved in isolation from the communities of the historic neighbourhoods, and the work of ARCHiNOS increasingly included social development and cultural components. A lofty reception hall in the Sultan’s onetime residence (maq‘ad) has been adapted for a hub of art and culture in the neighbourhood. ARCHiNOS also upgraded the small urban square in front of the building to make it a fitting setting for various cultural events organised in and around the MASQ: Maq‘ad of Sultan Qaitbey.
In 2016, the not-for-profit Sultan Foundation has been established to promote links between preservation of cultural heritage and social and economic development, and to provide access to culture and means for development to underprivileged communities while helping to preserve heritage. Believing that culture and heritage can be vehicles for development we work on ensuring access to culture and art, on improving living and working conditions of the local community and upgrading services, on creating sustainable sources of income, and on educational activities. Our particular focus are women and youth, and the craftspeople practicing their trades in the low-income neighbourhood.
We aim at re-integrating the rich cultural heritage of the area into the life of the community in a way that benefits both the inhabitants and the heritage.
Website: archinos.com
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Egyptian cemetery
The journey
El sultan Ahmed street - northern cemetery
El sultan Ahmed street - northern cemetery
in the northern cemetery- city of the dead, Cairo, Egypt
Thanks to :Aya Ebrahim for taking the video.
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Living among Egypt's dead - 27 Oct 07
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Thousands of Cairo's residents have transformed centuries old graveyards and tombs into homes.
Al Jazeera's Jamal el-Shayyal reports from Egypt where a chronic homeless problem has forced those without houses to live among the dead.
At Al Jazeera English, we focus on people and events that affect people's lives. We bring topics to light that often go under-reported, listening to all sides of the story and giving a 'voice to the voiceless.'
Reaching more than 270 million households in over 140 countries across the globe, our viewers trust Al Jazeera English to keep them informed, inspired, and entertained.
Our impartial, fact-based reporting wins worldwide praise and respect. It is our unique brand of journalism that the world has come to rely on.
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Living in a cemetery
This video short looks at how up to a million poor people have made one of the biggest burial grounds in Egypt their home. Dubbed 'the City of the Dead' and located on the outskirts of the capital, Cairo, many of the families who live there migrated from rural areas in search of work. In the cemetery grounds, they can live rent-free in exchange for guarding tombstones housed in mud houses.
As Cairo's population of an estimated 18 million continues to grow every year, so too does the demand for housing. Yahya Mohammed and his family of three moved to the cemetery five years ago. It's a basic existence for them, without sanitation or electricity. He digs graves in exchange for a roof over his head.
Archaeologists unveil ancient Luxor tomb, open closed coffin for first time
A previously unopened sarcophagus was opened for the first time on Saturday (November 24) as two Egyptian discoveries were unveiled in Luxor's west bank. The intact sarcophagus contained a well preserved mummy of a woman named Thuya and dates to the 18th Egyptian dynasty.
It was discovered earlier this month by a French led mission in the northern region of El-Assasif, along with another anthropoid sarcophagus which was opened and examined.
Earlier in the day a tomb belonging to Thaw Rakht If, the overseer of the mummification shrine, was unveiled along with 1000 small wooden and clay statues, and five coloured masks.
Three-hundred metres of rubble was removed over five months to uncover the tomb, which contains coloured wall scenes depicting the owner and his family. The tomb dates back to the middle-kingdom almost 4000 years ago, but was reused during the alte period.
Ancient Egyptians mummified humans to preserve their bodies for the afterlife, while animal mummies were used as religious offerings. So far Egypt has revealed over a dozen ancient discoveries this year.
Egypt is hoping these discoveries will brighten its image abroad and revive interest among travellers who once flocked to its iconic pharaonic temples and pyramids but who have shunned the country since its 2011 political uprising.
The Cemetery People (Philippines, 2008)
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Faraj ibn Barquq complex - Northern cemetery
From the inside of Faraj Ibn Barquq complex in the northern cemetery- city of the dead, Cairo, Egypt
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Ghost Demon in Cairo
A real ghost / demon is spotted in Cairo. Scary. Video is authentic :/
those who live among the dead the city of the dead cairo mp4