Cairo is a city of splendor and spectacle, long celebrated as much for its warmth and bustling street life as for the legacy of its tumultuous past. Yet for the countless visitors who fall under its spell, the prolonged din of its crowds and traffic can seem overwhelming at times, tempting them out of the city’s open spaces into its shadow light, the cooler, quieter interiors of restaurants, homes, hotels, and terraces. Cairo Inside Out evokes the light and moods of this great metropolis with stunning photographs shot from the city’s indoor havens. We observe it through and from nostalgic haunts, such as Café Riche and the Windsor Hotel, and look out onto its great sights—the Nile, the Red Pyramid at Dahshur, Ibn Tulun mosque—from the most intimate urban interiors, homes, and watersides. For those who may have lived in Cairo, this is a reminder of a city that moves and yet remains wonderfully unchanged. For visitors and residents, this evocative collection, an unabashed homage to Cairo’s persistent color and allure, will inspire them to visit those places once more.

The diaries of Muhammad ‘Ali Effendi Sa‘udi, a civil servant and accomplished photographer, offer a rare glimpse of the Hajj through Egyptian eyes at the beginning of the twentieth century when the Ottoman Empire was on the wane and the advance of the Hijaz railway threatened to upset vested interests in the old pattern of pilgrimage.

Sa‘udi twice accompanied the Amir al-Hajj, Ibrahim Rif‘at Pasha, attached to the official Egyptian caravan. His story of these journeys combines the thoughts of a devout Muslim with fine detail on the hardships and health hazards facing pilgrims, the high-level intrigues, and the ever-present dangers of taking photographs.

The authors have compressed the diaries into a highly readable narrative with selected quotations, lavishly illustrated with Sa‘udi’s remarkable photographs.