About al-Madaq

A Virtual Tour of Cairo’s History

This website presents the history of Cairo through various texts, maps, photographs, and artworks. It relies on digital technologies to make historical maps and photographs available to the public and to rediscover them as sources for historical writing. Al-Madaq contains three main components. First, an archive that features a collection of some of Cairo’s most important historical maps, from the French Expedition map of 1809 to a map from 1920, that are geotagged onto satellite images. Second, a series of articles that presents the author’s doctoral research on the history of modern Cairo, particularly during the British colonial period, which will be published gradually over the course of this and the coming year. Third, artworks and texts by collaborating artists and writers.

The articles utilize visual media to take a "virtual tour" of Cairo’s history, through which we explore the city’s geography and the forces that contributed towards its growth since the middle of the nineteenth century. They highlight the role of real estate investment and public health in shaping Cairo during this period. They uncover the various links between these developments and engineers, infrastructures, and maps, and they recount how Cairenes interacted with a changing city.

This website is based on the fundamental assumption that knowledge is an inherent right. Its conceptualization was a result of many influences, including the January 25, 2011 revolution, which raised questions about the role of knowledge during moments when society erupts and attempts to shed the past, as well as other questions about the frameworks and conditions that govern the production of knowledge.

Shehab Fakhry Ismail

Also with the support of

Team

Project Author and Director

Shehab Fakhry Ismail

Design

Mohamed Gaber

Development and Programming

Husamuddin Hamad

Mapping

Abdulrahman El-Taliawi

Shehab Fakhry Ismail

Abdullah Nagy

Tasnime Hagag

Social Media

Tasnime Hagag

English Translation

Nariman Youssef

Photography

Ahmed El Ghoneimy

Amr Adel

Ahmad al-Bindari

Editing

Waiel Ashry

Arabic Proofreading

Al-Sayed Abdel Moti

Artistic Contributions

Mohamed Gaber

Mostafa El Sayed         

Amr Wishahy

Curator

Ali Hussein Al Adawy

"How to Use the Archive" Guide

Noura Abdel Rahman

This website would like to thank those who facilitated its conceptual development and implementation, especially

Mai Taha, Salma Shamel, Mariam Mekiwi, Khaled Fahmy, Wael Iskandar, Andy Isaac, Kareem Hammam, Seif El Rashidi, Sam Pickens, Barry Iverson, Hanan Yazigi, Majd Al-Shihabi, Pascale Ghazaleh, Mohammed Said Ezzeldin, Tamer El Said, Muhammad El-Hajj, Mohammad Shawky Hassan, Ola Seif, Ahmed El Ghoneimy, Mahmoud Othman, Yara Sallam, Rim Naguib, Ahmad Gharbeia, Amr Gharbeia, Aya Nassar, Mohammad El-Taher, Mohamed Tita, Adam Mestyan and other organizers of the workshop ‘Urban Topography and Political Economy in the Middle East’ (Duke University, North Carolina)