É. Apor , I. Ormos (ed.): Goldziher Memorial Conference, June 21–22, 2000, Budapest.

ORMOS, István: The Correspondence of Ignaz Goldziher and Max Herz

ISTVÁN ORMOS the legend of the oath in which Goldziher was interested.

4 ' He accompanied his explanations with a sketch (croquis):" In another letter he discussed the question whether or not it may have been a synagogue before it had been converted into a mosque and if it was possible that a Jewish cemetery or even a Jewish quarter had been located in this area.

5' Herz gave some information concerning the area of Bäb Zuwayla mentioning his own work which he was just undertaking on this important gate. Here again he accompanied his explanations with a fine sketch (croquis): " In your friendly letter of 20 August the fact that the Bannä Mosque, the place of execution at and a former Jewish cemetery are all situated together at a narrow spot allows you to draw the conclusion that it is there that the former Jewish quarter of Cairo must have been situated. You also mention that the Muayyed Mosque has been erected on the site of a trade house [= wikäla? I. O.]. To my regret 1 cannot contribute anything to support this idea but it has some probability. I want to remark only that until approximately forty years ago Bäb Z. was used as a place of execution, or rather ordinary criminals were hanged on the grille of the sebil of the zauye of Farag ibn Barkuk. This is the sebil that is situated outside B. Z. falling almost in its axis (see the sketch).

5- In any case we know that the ill-fated Tumänbai was hanged by Selim the Grim under the gate B. Z. itself, and further that during the time of the Crusades the heads of the enemy would be displayed here, but whether this designation was inherited or not I do not know. (Actually in these days I am supervising the preservation works that the government is having carried out on this gate. 1 have just remembered a passage in Marcel's History /:Egypte, par H. J. J. Marcel, Paris 1848, Firmin Didót fréres - p. 191, footnote 2:/ where he is talking of the notorious hook on which Tumanbai said to have ended. The scaffolding erected there convinced me that about four hooks are still there. I want to leave them on the spot, these unknowing assistants of human suffering.) You say that on the site of the mosque el-Muayyed there once stood a trade house [=wikäla? I. O.]. El-Makrizi calls the former building a prison ( ). Please don't regard my remarks as unkind. After having made them I cannot but ask myself: "How does a Jewish temple get on this site? Do you know the study of P. Ravaisse, which he made on the basis of elMakrizi? He reconstructed the map of Cairo after the data of this author. (Published in the Mémoires of the Mission Archéologique fran^aise au Caire : Tome I, 3

m

e fasc. and Tome III, 4" fasc.). It is impossible that Ravaisse could contribute anything to your theory because he draws all his data from cl-Makrizi alone while you surely 4

9 The oath referred to by Goldziher is probably the "Eid" mentioned ibid., p. 236 [=114], line 9. Cf. also al-Maqrizi, Kitäb al-i'tibär

.... Büläq ed., vol. 2, p. 409, line (-5) = London (Ayman Fu'äd Sayyid) ed., vol. 4, part 2, p. 709, line 7. 51

1 Letter dated Cairo, 1 o June 1896. 5

1 See the following note. 5

2 Sketch enclosed to the letter, not reproduced here. 172