The history of one district can reveal much about the history of a whole country, and such is the case with the Cairo suburb of Maadi.
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Maadi’s history is a long and fascinating one, much more so than one would imagine. Every dive into the story of its origins leads you deeper into a labyrinth of pre-dynastic history, the birth of a modern Egypt, and the amazingly eccentric and wealthy characters that helped build what became affectionately known as ‘the garden suburb’.
Even now, Maadi remains one of Cairo’s most peaceful and well-kept areas, a haven for its diverse expat community and an escape from the chaos of Egypt’s capital. Maadi’s modern history can be traced back to around 1904, but it has far deeper roots in Egypt’s pre-history. Evidence of pre-dynastic communities that lived around 3500 years ago has been found in excavations carried out between the 1930s and 1950s.
Traces of these can still be seen until today, although the substantial amount of development that has taken place in recent years has done a fair job at destroying much of what was left. There is apparently a small plot of protected land right by the Maadi Grand Mall that still holds some of the Neolithic artifacts and antiquities, with only a small and badly-deteriorated sign serving as a half-hearted indication of its presence.
The Delta Land Company and the Making of Maadi
The history of one district can tell you much about the history of a whole country - such is the case with the Cairo suburb of Maadi. The book provides a detailed history of Maadi’s developments, looking at how it was conceived, planned and, with remarkable efficiency, run by the formidable Delta Land Company.
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The successful British and Jewish businessmen constituting the Delta Land and Investment Company which created Maadi in 1907 had meticulous ideas about their planned paradise. Built on British colonial lines, it is a far cry from the stately grandeur of New Delhi. It was a place to be lived in rather than looked at.
Before the turn of the 20th century, Maadi was made up of mostly agricultural land, with fields and canals stretching into what was once still desert and all the way south to Helwan. It was only following the construction of a new railway connecting Bab el-Louk to Helwan that the development of Maadi really began.
Competition for who would get to run the new line was fierce, but it was the Suares family, or more accurately, Suares Group that won the concession to extend and run the Egyptian railway lines, including the Delta line of lower Egypt and the Aswan-Qena line in the south. In 1900, the brothers sold their concession to the British and joined the board of UK-based Egyptian Delta Light Railways, managing the Egyptian lines alongside their new British partners.
The Suares family was absolutely pivotal to the foundation of Maadi, arguably even Egypt, and while a few members lived in Alexandria and elsewhere in Egypt, it was the three brothers, Felix, Joseph and Raphael, who lived in Cairo and managed to create an impressive legacy in both banking and real estate development, building on the already highly celebrated work of their father Isaac Suares.
But it wasn’t the Suares brothers alone who built Maadi. The Suareses were part of a consortium of Jewish families that headed the Egyptian Delta Land and Investment Company, a sister company of the Egyptian Delta Light Railways, along with the Cattauis, Mosseris and the Menashe family. With the help of retired Canadian officer Captain Alexander J. Adams, who was responsible for designing the colonial English layout and town planning, they set the foundation for the development and growth of the garden suburb that would become Maadi.
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The Mosseri cousins had bought up large swathes of land on either side of the new line connecting the northern and southern ends of the city, which they then sold to the Egyptian Delta Land and Investment Company. a feddan. Over the coming forty or fifty years, the garden suburb attracted residents that were amazingly diverse, with flourishing British, French, Greek, Italian and Jewish communities that included some of Cairo’s most influential ambassadors, bankers, artists, and even royalty; the list of names is impressive, and the stories behind those names even more so, it would take a lifetime to go through them all.
Williamson and Adams were determined that Maadi should be built along English lines. The Jewish directors acquiesced, attracting people to come and live in the new suburb was all that mattered. House construction was next on the list. Certain plots of land in different parts of Maadi had been reserved for Delta Land to build houses on, first for rent, then for sale. The board had decided that construction would start in the central area on the main avenue, then slowly spread out to other parts of the Maadi.
But which architect to commission? Williamson strongly recommended Ariston St. John Diamant (1874-1950), a British educated Greek from his own home town, Smyrna, who had already done some good work for the Daira Sanieh Company.
Further west, in an imposing gothic stone mansion overlooking the beautiful verdant square opposite Maadi station, lived John and Hannah Williamson. Greystone Manor, as the Williamsons Gothic-style house was called, occupied an entire block of 5,500 sq.m. (East of the railway tracts, the Williamson property would have been to the north of todays principal flyover.
Maadi During the World Wars
But Maadi was never entirely severed from the outside world. World War I opened the gates to Australian, New Zealand, South African and Indian troops and hundreds of orange tents. Maadites, not known for their tolerance of outsiders abhorred the way in which public tennis courts were turned into drill grounds and the outlying deserts ransacked by excited soldiers hunting furiously for antiquities.
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War passed and life of residents resumed its sedentary ease once again. In 1921, shortly after nationalist leader returned from exile in the Seychelles, the British-run Maadi Sporting Club opened with ginger biscuits, Indian tea and an 18-hole golf course.
Before the cricket pitch was inaugurated, the only problem being its upkeep. Hundreds of sheep were enlisted to graze the three days at a at time, which seemed a suitable holistic approach in the absence of technology. The triangle within the Maadi British Community operated was son completed with the construction of the Anglican Church at St.
Within a decade, the effects of the war began to impinge again on the small insular Maadi community, polarizing it into different ethnic groupings, nationalities and religion. Prominent German personalities were welcoming Dr. Joseph Goebbels and making scant effort to obscure their Nazi sympathies much to the concern and chagrin of Maadi's large Jewish population. Gas masks were distributed to British subjects by the British run Delta Land Company.
The Divisional Cavalry Regiment disembarked on 14 February 1940 and entrained for the New Zealand base camp at Maadi. In total around 76,000 members of the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force trained at a camp near Maadi at the base of the desert slopes of Wadi Degla and Tel al-Maadi. During that time this area belonged to the Delta Land Company which created Maadi in 1907.
A British Army interrogation centre was also located in Maadi. In July 1942, at the height of the Western Desert Campaign, two German spies revealed under questioning that they had been using a copy of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, found among their possessions, as a codebook for secret, coded radio transmissions.
Post-War Transformations and Modern Maadi
The end of World War II closed another chapter in Maadi's history. The British were on their way out of Egypt. Maadi's Egyptian residents could not help their mixed feelings. On one hand they were sad that those who made this town so unique were going. On the other hand, it was time for them to leave.
From among Maadi's young Egyptians came the officers and the gentlemen. Eventually the officers gained preeminence as they unsettled the established order following the 1952 coup which toppled Farouk. Egypt's future prime minister renown for being the architect of its new socialism came from Maadi. Hardly a conducive environment for propagating such unrealistic -- and now -- defunct values.
After the British it was the turn of the French, the Greeks and the Jews. One by one they left. With excess luggage limits being rigidly enforced, all they could take with them were their memories of paradise.
But with the 1952 revolution and the ensuing wave of Egyptian nationalism, the face of Maadi was stripped of its royal and colonial identity, with street and square names being changed to fit Egypt’s new national pride and modern high-rise buildings being introduced to make room for a growing population. Although much of the original neighbourhood has disappeared as a result, including many of its historic villas and gardens, there are still fragments of Maadi’s former beauty all around us.
Following the 1952 revolution (which ended the British occupation of the Suez Canal) and the 1956 Suez Crisis, in which Britain, France and Israel launched an invasion of Egypt to regain control of the canal, British and French expatriates living in Maadi and elsewhere were forced to leave by the Egyptian government.
Today, Maadi remains a favorite with American and European expats perhaps because the American and French schools are located there. Both are run by their respective countries free from any local educational controls and restrictions. Also, because Maadi offers many facilities such as shopping malls, fast food, including Pizza Hut and McDonalds, a sporting club (frequented today mostly by Egyptians) and two access routes into Cairo - the corniche and the autostrada (highway).
The disappearance of many of Maadi's villas and gardens notwithstanding, a few survived as though testimonials of its past. If Maadi had always been exterior-looking taking advantage of each season, today its inhabitants prefer to remain in sealed blocs with the hum of air-conditions replacing the sounds and fragrance of its once abbundant flora and fauna. And yet, despite changes evoked and lamented in Samir Raafat's book on Maadi, it remains Cairo's greenest suburb.
A Look at Maadi's Neighborhoods and Culture
The oldest area in Maadi is El Sarayat, composed mostly of villas and low rise buildings. It is the most affluent part of Maadi along with the adjacent Degla area. There are many flats in Maadi, mostly in lowrise buildings. The new Maadi areas include El-Laselky St. and the Autostrad, as well as Masaken El Arays, Saqr kuraish and the houses of the Kuwaiti company, and el basatin el sharkya. which is between saqr kuraish and the houses of the Kuwaiti company.
Maadi is the highest densely populated district in Greater Cairo, and much of it is inhabited by well-to-do Egyptians, as well as expatriates, many of whom are connected with embassies, ambassadorial residences and international corporations located in Maadi. Maadi has a reputation for being green, quieter and more relaxed than urban Cairo.
In some parts of Maadi, most notably around Cairo American College, there is virtually no traffic noise. The abundant greenery bears little resemblance to most of the crowded areas seen in urban Cairo. Along with its affluent residents, Maadi is home to many major restaurants, outlets and chains as well as a variety of high-end clothing shops, and other retail businesses, many of which are located along the locally famous "Road 9", Nasr st, or new Maadi as well as Maadi's original "downtown" located just south of the Maadi Metro stop on the east side of the track.
Road 9 still remains a hub for both locals and expats with its diverse dining options as well as coffee shops and even bookstores. Most notably are expatriate owned businesses such as Lucille's (known for their American style hamburgers) and The BookSpot (an English language bookstore that has become a staple for Egyptians and westerners for more than 15 years).
Century-old Eucalyptus trees proudly line Canal Street, named after the Khashab Canal that used to run north from Helwan until it was filled and turned into a public garden in the 80s. On the corner of Road 13 and Orabi lies the Meyr Biton Synagogue, sitting quietly on its little plot of land, all but abandoned; a memento of Maadi’s once-vibrant Jewish community. A Friday morning walk through Sarayat and Sakanat el Maadi, two of the neighbourhood’s oldest areas, will reveal some of the gorgeous villas that were built closer to the 40s and 50s, many of which are abandoned but still standing, with wild gardens and remnants of past lives left behind by the families who once resided there.
And of course, there are the trees. Maadi’s love affair with her trees is perhaps the most enduring legacy left behind by her founders and early residents. She remains, until today, one of Cairo’s greenest neighbourhoods, a fact that becomes especially clear in the spring when the streets are filled with the beautiful red and purple blossoms of her royal poincianas, orchid and silk floss trees.
Transportation and Cultural Life
Maadi is served by the Cairo Metro's Line 1, which has now taken over the Cairo-to-Helwan railway. There are three stops in Maadi - from north to south: Hadayek El Maadi, Maadi and Sakanat (Thakanat) El Maadi. Egyptian National Railways also operates a line through Maadi, although it is strictly a freight line.
Cultural life in Maadi is geared to a great extent towards serving the large expatriate and affluent, bilingual Egyptian populations. For expatriates, Maadi offers a variety of community activities: religious institutions (many churches and a synagogue), amateur theatre groups, sporting clubs, adult courses, and other interest groups. The Maadi Sporting Club, for example, has served the local expat and Egyptian communities since 1921. It is also associated with the Maadi Sporting & Yacht Club by the Nile.
Cultural life, locally, largely revolves around dining out and shopping. In addition to numerous Western restaurant chains and cafés, Maadi offers a variety of international cuisine. The most popular places for westerners to shop at "local" stores is along Road 9.
Maadi's Schools and Sporting Achievements
Maadi has a variety of public and private schools. During World War II members of the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force based at Maadi Camp competed in regattas on the Nile against local Egyptian rowing clubs. At a regatta held on 20 November 1943 the Maadi Camp Rowing Club "Kiwi" oarsmen beat the Cairo River Club by 11 points to six to win the Freyberg Cup, which they then gifted to the competitors. Youssef Bahgat's cup was offered to the NZARA (now NZRA) as a trophy for an annual boys' eight-oared race between secondary schools and was brought to New Zealand at the end of the war. Renamed the Maadi Cup it was first raced for in 1947 at Wanganui where it was won by Mount Albert Grammar School.
The following table lists key historical events and developments in Maadi's history:
| Year/Period | Event/Development |
|---|---|
| ca. 3500 BC | Pre-dynastic communities settle in the area |
| 1904 | Railway between Cairo and Helwan is built |
| 1907 | Delta Land and Investment Company is established |
| 1921 | Maadi Sporting Club opens |
| 1940s | Maadi serves as a base for the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force during WWII |
| 1952 | Egyptian Revolution leads to changes in Maadi's identity |
| Present | Maadi remains a popular residential area for expatriates and affluent Egyptians |
Maadi continues to evolve, blending its historical charm with modern amenities, making it a unique and desirable place to live in Cairo.
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