Queen Safia's Mosque; Stair Way To Heaven

©Aga Khan Trust for Culture

One year ago, I felt frustrated about a degree I had and needed to have one of those long walks that sets your mind at ease. So, me and a friend of mine took a walk down Mohamed Ali street. We decided to walk from Attaba square to Al-Sultan Hassan. A lot of people would think of taking a walk down Mohamed Ali street with its interesting history, old houses, stores and large Arches.

I don’t know why but instead of walking down the St., We found ourselves in the Parallel passageways, ones which I didn’t expect to find in this place.

The Passages had the sense of the old Egyptian neighborhood with its narrow alleys and beautiful Cobblestone paving.

As we walked through one of the passages we found a dead end; shaped by the back of a huge mosque. We explored our way around the mosque to find an entrance. Apparently, this marvelous creation has been long time neglected as many before it. We didn’t get the chance to see it from the inside.
Most of the mosques I visited before had their names carved on the main entrance, but this one had no carving whatsoever. In all the places that I’ve been to so far I’ve seen nothing like the semicircular stairs leading to the entrance. I kept thinking of the Stair way to heaven. And Later, a little research had to be done.  

Queen Safiya's Mosque

Unfortunately, the doors were closed, but the top of the stairs about 3m above the ground shaped a beautiful platform that oversees Mohamed Ali’s street, a place you would enjoy with the company of a friend and a good cup of tea that you can easily find in the fronting Coffee shop at the other end of the stairs. The place is surrounded by houses from all sides and parked cars on its frontier. If you’re there by sunset or a little earlier, you might enjoy the pigeons’ groups flying around.

©Aga Khan Trust for Culture

“Along the Street lies the Mosque of Malika Safiya (Queen Safiya) built in 1610, in an alley called Sikkat Al-Malika (the Queen’s Pathway) to the right. 

The mosque resembles those in Istanbul, Turkey more than any other in Cairo. It was originally set in a garden with high steps on the south side, leading to a courtyard surrounded by domed arcades. The central dome rests on six arches supported by red granite Ptolemaic columns. Unfortunately, what was once a garden is now a car park and homes.”

After surfing the internet for more images for the mosque from the inside I found out it is as impressive from the inside as it is from the outside.

©Aga Khan Trust for Culture

When I first realized the name of the mosque, I knew it as “EL-Set Safyia’s mosque” and I wondered if it was related somehow to Queen Sofia’s mosque in Istanbul which is also known their as Hagia Sofia’s Mosque, the famous church that was converted into a mosque. As Fascinating as I hoped it would be, it was not the same person. However, the firstly mentioned Queen Sofia had another mosque Yeni Mosque also in Istanbul, it was being built under her regency. And it appeared that even though she is not Hagia sofia, she is most certainly Sultana Safiye, Sultana of the Uthman Empire.

“The identity of Safiye has often been confused with that of her Venetian mother-in-law, leading some to believe that Safiye was also of Venetian descent. There is dispute about Safiye's origins in contemporary sources. However, according to a contemporary Venetian source, Safiye was of Albanian origin. In 1563, at the age of 13, she was presented as a slave to the future Murad III, son of Suleiman the Magnificent and Hürrem Sultan. Given the name Safiye ("the pure one"), she became a concubine of Murad (then the eldest son of Sultan Selim II). In 26 May 1566, she was the Valid Sultan of the Ottoman Empire after she gave birth to Mohamed III the son of Murad.” 

She lived in a period of the Uthman empire called the Sultanate of women, a nearly 130 years’ phase when the women had extreme political influence by being mothers or wives of the male ottoman sultan.

I am sure there is much more to the story of Sultana Safiya, as she was indeed a woman of great impact in her time. Aside from the fact that it is a very influential historical landmark, I think a mosque with her name holds a great deal of debates If it was paid enough attention to. The place also holds a great potential for many adaptive reuse ideas. Comes in the top of my head, reusing it as a culture center to discuss variable historical events.

Queen Safia’s mosque is only one of the hidden gems in the alleys surrounding Mohamed Ali’s street, their will certainly be more to discover.

Queen Safia's Mosque, Main Entrance. 

Why You Are Not Getting Paid what you think you should be paid

This an issue we all face, especially for the fresh graduates out there, when you go to a company and you’re asked for your expected salary, it’s kind of a struggle because your brain is confused between what you deserve and what the company can offer. however, there is much more to it than what you think, there is pros and cons to any given job and at the end it all come to priorities and the vision you have for your life.

A lot of architects settle for a salary much less than what they deserve because they need the years of experience or this is the only job they can find, but what they don’t know is that they are not even taking below the minimum of salaries.
Cindy Quarter wrote in his article “According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2010 the lowest paid 10 percent of all architects nationwide received just under $43,000 per year.” Which is almost 3500$ per month and that is to all type of architects starting from drafters, designers and landscapers. In Egypt as a start salary in a regular firm you’re paid 2500 EGP which is almost 200$, you do the math! [1]

So, what can you do to make sure you’re taking the salary you deserve or at least know you're on the right track? Here are few things you might want to have in mind.

 

Skills

You must be aware of your capabilities, technical and personal ones. For example, a company can’t pay a drafter the same it pays a BIM architect or a GIS analyst for many reasons;

-   The number of architects that work in drafting is much more than those working in building information modeling and so the rarer your skill is the more it’s needed and the higher you’re paid.

-   All architecture students graduate with the ability to draft but not so many in other fields so it takes effort and time to learn another skill which is rewarded latter with a higher salary.

According to Payscale, When it comes to the skills needed to find  a proper jobs locally in Egypt, On top of the required skills that affect your paycheck comes Autodesk and 3dsMax. However, on the long term those 2 might not be very rewarding and here's why;

 Future of the profession

Some jobs have future more than another, according to the American institute of architecture. The AIA Guide predict the future needs for the profession and rates different architecture jobs; between the importance of the job in the future and how much that same job qualifies you in the present.

Working on Energy analysis has the highest rate when it comes to the future but leaves you with average qualification to present jobs. While signage standards; also known as drawing standards and drafting comes in the bottom of the list when it comes to the future, but makes you very qualified in the present time.

 

Firm Size

The size of firm is very vital when it comes to salaries but each has its advantages and disadvantages

-   5 to 10 employees

Smaller firms usually pay the least salaries, have more flexible working hours that enables you to learn other skills outside the firm, it’s most suitable for fresh grads as they can learn a lot from colleagues and are directly under the supervision of the manager who probably have years of experience.

However, I’ve tried this myself and it can be time consuming, so if you can’t control the number of your working hours or just ended up doing everyone’s job, then you might want to reconsider another firm.

-   11 to 50 employees

Slightly higher in payment, abided by a working schedule. It might be useful if you are looking for a certain skill you want to grasp but other than that it’s not very rewarding.

-   More than 50 employees

Startup salaries are certainly higher in such large firms but comes with a lot of prices if so to speak.

§ Large companies usually consume all the time you have, working at least 10 hours/day and have maximum of 2 days’ vacation.

§  The amount of time to develop your skills is narrowed down to very few hours per day, if you think of spending more time on your skills you will start reconsidering your sleeping hours, or family time.

§ The chances of a developing a career in a large company is very small, even annual raises are not fair enough as they range between 1 to 2 %. how you see this can vary from one person to another but from my point of view, on the long term it can’t be very rewarding.

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  Gender and Region

Although this shouldn’t be criteria but gender plays a vital role here, many small companies prefer hiring male architects over female ones, not in favor of the gender itself but because male architects have more flexible hours to work at night, stay in late in the office for late delivered projects. This might be only related to the region they work in. For example, according to Payscale the ratio of female architects in Egypt is 25% which is very small compared to male architects 75%. However, on the world-wide scale the ratio is 44% females to 56% males which is more reasonable.
Accordingly, some cities are better than others when it comes to architects’ salaries, male and female.
Different regions inside the city itself have different salaries and it can vary to a very wide range, a job in the city center for example can’t be the same as one in the outskirts because of the different types and prices of accommodation and transportation.

To sum it up, there can be lots of other elements beside the already mentioned ones, your efficiency, the time you spend to deliver a certain task, your personal skills and your willingness to improve your self over time. 

A lot of comparison needs to be done between what qualifies you now and what is more important in the future.
What I know is, that if you haven't found the right job yet, you eventually will. Just make sure you're spending the right amount of time and effort in the right place.