The Comité de Conservation des Monuments de l’Art Arabe: Towards a Balanced Appraisal (original) (raw)

The Comité de Conservation des Monuments de l'Art Arabe The Comité, as it is usually called, was founded by Khedive Tawfīq in 1881 and was active until 1953, when it merged into the Antiquities Organization, the predecessor of the present-day Ministry of Antiquities. Its task was the conservation of Arab-Islamic (later on also Coptic) monuments of architecture in Egypt. 2 This was the period of classical colonialism, of massive European intervention in the affairs of Egypt; therefore it is understandable that a sudden appearance of interest in the Comité's activities has been witnessed in recent years, not least within the framework of the Saidian discourse on Orientalism. The activities in question lend themselves to various, multifaceted interpretations on account of the complex nature of the subject. Scholarly discussion has hardly begun, and thus it will take time before reasonably solid, final conclusions can be arrived at. In the meantime it may be hoped that a discussion will ensue helping us elucidate various aspects of this intricate subject. It is with this aim in mind that an analysis is offered here of certain theses and statements in a book by Paula Sanders that was published on this subject some time ago (2008). In this context some basic questions concerning the Comité's activities, along with their ramifications, will also be dealt with. It is important that controversies and differing opinions should be pointed out and formulated clearly so that they become accessible to the academic community. The activities of the Comité have become a highly sensitive topic: it consisted partly of foreign members, who were not Muslims, and it worked mainly on mosques. Therefore it is of absolute importance that only reliable and substantiated statements should be propagated in this context and that one should clearly differentiate between proven data on the one hand and suppositions and hypotheses on the other. 1 We have two sketches of the Comité's history at our disposal: Speiser 2001:47-94; Reid 2002:213-257. Speiser's fresh approach is that of an architect active in the conservation of Cairo. In the present paper, the words "waqf" and "waqfiyya" will not be italicized. 2 In a broader sense, the term "conservation" also covers restoration and reconstruction.