The Mevlevi lodge … the dwelling of Sheikh ʿAbd al-ʿAziz al-Rifaʿi in the heart of Cairo during the time he resided there …
The place is enchanting, in every sense the word can carry …
Here the sheikh wrote and gilded the Qur’an of King Fuad in the 1920s …
I was not convinced by any account of this place, so I resolved to spend even a few simple hours in it …
I imagined the sheikh in his comings and goings within the porticoes of the place … The place makes an artist, or a poet. The dome of “Sunqur al-Saʿdi” stands with ornamental details that cannot be described … before the rooms of the lodge. And the most difficult, most shocking question remains …
Did Sheikh Muhammad ʿAbd al-ʿAziz al-Rifaʿi teach the Egyptians Arabic calligraphy, yet not teach them his Sufism??
