Coptic Christian women looking out from inside the Virgin Mary Church in the Imbaba neighborhood of Cairo, May 8, 2011. The church was set on fire during clashes between Christians and Muslims the previous night. | Khaled Elfiqi/epa/Corbis
by Yasmine El Rashidi
The forty-year-old Virgin Mary Church on Cairo’s al-Wahda Street—the name means unity, or oneness—looks striking these days. Its cream and white façade is unscathed by the dust and smog that otherwise blanket neighboring buildings and the rest of the city, and inside, its walls and floors glisten with newly laid cappuccino-colored marble. The church, its guardians say, has never looked better. “Ever, in its entire history.”
Egypt: The Victorious Islamists
##### by Yasmine El Rashidi
The forty-year-old Virgin Mary Church on Cairo's al-Wahda Street--the name means unity, or oneness--looks striking these days. Its cream and white façade is unscathed by the dust and smog that otherwise blanket neighboring buildings and the rest of the city, and inside, its walls and floors glisten with newly laid cappuccino-colored marble. The church, its guardians say, has never looked better. "Ever, in its entire history."
