CEMETERY OF KHALIL & AFIFI PASHAS
The Khalil family mausoleum was founded sometime in the 1880s. Little is known about the family’s patriarch Ibrahim Khalil Pasha save that he was an Urabist and a legal expert who served on Maglis al-Ahkam, the state’s highest legal body until the onset of legal reforms of the 1870s.
burial chamber with visiting descendant Hussein A. Omar who observes how the layout of the mausoleum is typical of the period. "The long views gives a sense of how the space functioned with sofas, chandeliers etc. An insight into broader funerary and mourning practices."
the covered crypts were reserved for close members of the family, the exterior courtyard was built to house the remains of the servants, slaves and more-distant family members. However the last of the Khalils, senate president Mohammed Mahmoud Khalil bey, chose to be buried the courtyard in an unmarked tomb alongside the family’s beloved Sudanese eunuch Lala Murgan. Conflicting family myths attribute to explain this— some attribute it to his (unlikely) modesty, while others attribute it to the stinginess of his scorned French wife on the other.
Falaki Pasha’s eldest male heir, who chose to be interred beside his maternal relatives, is buried in the courtyard.
The most morbid of the cenotaphs was built in 192? to mark the tomb of Nimet Afifi, a great-granddaughter of Ibrahim Pasha Khalil, who died tragically of a brain tumour only months after her marriage to Ali bey Fuad al-Manasterli. Her eccentric, heartbroken mother insisted on placing the wooden processional board from her wedding atop the marble cenotaph she had built for her.
Ahmed Riad Afifi Pasha husband of Ibrahim Khalil Pasha's only granddaughter Nefissa Mahmoud Khalil
Announcement in Al-Ahram inviting female friends and relatives of the late Mrs. Ahmed Afifi Pasha to attend the coming Friday's evening arbe'een celebration held at the family mausoleum at Imam al-Shafei’s Ibn al-Faared Street commemorating the 40th day of her demise
colored photos by Samir W Raafat & Omar A Hussein