JEFFREY A. NEDOROSCIK, The City of the Dead: A History of Cairo's Cemetery Communities (Westport, Conn.: Bergin and Garvey, 1997). Pp. 140.

Abstract

Jeffrey Nedoroscik's book is a sensitive sociological survey of life in Cairo's City of the Dead, where more than 500,000 people are now enlisted to reside. In an attempt to both demystify and account for this phenomenon, Nedoroscik argues that life in the City of the Dead is as old, and as rich, as life in Cairo itself. Today, residence in and among the family tombs stretching across some five square miles at the base of the muqattam Hills, constitutes an informal housing sector that has developed as a response to Cairo's severe housing crisis. Historically, though, the cemetery also teemed with life as a religious center housing some of the Muslim world's most important monuments, and a site of temporary and permanent shelter to relatives to the deceased, guardians of tombs, itinerants, the poor, the sick, Sufis, and other religious leaders.