I first arrived in Cairo on a grey damp day during the winter of 1969 / 70. A Lebanese friend gave me a ticket for an Um Kalthoum concert to be held, on the first Thursday of the month, as usual, at the Kasr El Nile Theatre. I had heard about Um Kalthoum, but being relatively new to the Middle East, any emotional exposure was non-existent.

I was young, and rather timid in those days. Born in the United States, I was limited in my ability to speak Arabic, unfamiliar with the culture and sensitivities of the Arab Street and unsure of my ability to both absorb and communicate my love for the Arab World, a world that was part of me.

I arrived at the theatre just as a black, highly polished, well-maintained, chrome-trimmed Cadillac pulled up. A burst of excited anticipation surged through the bystanders, and the few women standing along the curb ululated in excitement. The crowd surrounded the car and enveloped its occupant and her escorts as she emerged and hustled into the theatre. It was my first look at Um Kalthoum, and all I saw was the back of her head!

The photographs of that night, my first encounter with Egyptians along the Nile, were lost, consumed. along with so much else, during Lebanon’s Civil War, but the memory remains ever so vivid. The over-heated, smoke-filled room was filled with fellah and bureaucrats, students and aging remnants of the ancient regime. Immediately, there was formed an unbroken, umbilical-like channel between the Diva and her audience, through which passed all the flowing passions, messages of love, angst and faith which connected the Arab World, from Casablanca to cafes in Basra, through living rooms and taxis and doorways populated by sleepy bawaab, where the faithful were hanging onto every phrase, every note, every pause that was as close to them as the memory of their mother’smilk. She sang, “Whatever I saw before my eyes saw you was a wasted life,” and I became a captive of the magic of the night, swept up in the currents of the Nile. I knew that wherever else I traveled a special place had been opened in my heart for Cairo.

I continue to return, with camera and with family. My daughter Iman studied here at AUC and Cairo has claimed a place in her heart as well. Through the lens of my soul I walk your streets, drink your tea, and am consumed by your beauty and love.

As a Muslim, I worship here in sacred spaces that have given solace, protection and education to my Muslim brothers and sisters for centuries…

As an Arab, I walk the streets ever aware of the history that has come before us all, from Asia, Africa and Europe, forging not just a capital but a home that embraces us all…

And, as an American photojournalist, I pass through your streets and suqs and homes as your guest, taking photographs that become memories…

Now, what you see before you are some of those memories, some of my impressions. It is not enough, I know, to show you pictures of the Pyramids and the Khan Khalili as the tourist sees them, or as you Cairenes and Egyptians, residents of this vast and beautiful city, would like me to see it. There is pain in some of the photographs. It was painful to take some of them, painful now to look at some of them, and painful to think of the circumstances that created the pain.

But beyond the pain there is beauty, there is dignity, there is the essence of the triumph of the human spirit, inspired by faith, connected through millennium by history and shared experience, forged in the heat of the desert and colored by the gifts given to us by our Creator. Let us together know that,

“…Still, your trees are motionless
As if you are never enraged
Never bored
Never aware of that alien
Who intends to steal
Your palm trees
Your characteristic sunset
The scarf that lies on your mashrabiah…”

Robert Azzi