The Street Cats of Cairo: A Five-Thousand-Year Lineage Still Roaming

Today's Cairo streets are full of languid street cats — dozing on mosque steps, or sheltering from the sun beneath the spice stalls of Khan el-Khalili. Genetic studies have shown that these street cats are very close in DNA to the mummified cats of ancient Egypt — they may be direct descendants of the sacred cats of the Temple of Bastet, five thousand years ago. Cairenes hold these street cats in a particular respect. In Islamic tradition, dogs are considered ritually unclean, but cats are not — the Prophet Muhammad is said to have cut the sleeve off his robe rather than disturb a sleeping cat. Residents often leave scraps out for them. Groups like Egyptian Mau Rescue provide medical care to the street cats. In Cairo, cats have never lost the reverence they were given three thousand years ago.