CEMETERY OF FAHMI-RAGAB
The Hassan Fahmi Bey mausoleum was built in 1894, to house the remains of his eldest daughter Zaynab (wife Ahmad Hishmat bey, later pasha) who had died in childbirth that year
Hassan Fahmy Bey ibn Ali al-Gereidly was a Cretan soldier in the Egyptian army serving in amongst other places, the Sudan. Upon his return he married the Franco-Albanian daughter of Muhammad Ali’s chief engineer Mustafa Bahgat Pasha. He was subsequently appointed as mudir (governor) of Qalyubiyya and Minufiyya, until he was forcibly removed by Urabi’s brief three-month government in the summer of 1882.
Although the cenotaphs marking the tombs of Hassan Fahmi Bey, his grandson Ahmad Talaat Bey and his daughter Zainab Hishmat are typical of the late Ottoman style, the rest of his descendants are commemorating by peculiar plaques lining the wall of the main crypt.
Notable amongst Hassan Fahmi Bey's great-grandchildren are the siblings Zohra and Hassan Ragab. Although Hassan Ragab (d. 2004) was an engineer by training, he is best known for his scholarship on papyrus-making. He is credited with rediscovered the technique for the making of the ancient paper, as well as reintroducing the papyrus plant from Sicily back into Egypt. He was also the first Egyptian ambassador to post-revolutionary China in the mid-1950s.
photos Hussein A. Omar