Ideas - How port cities like Alexandria shaped the world

Episode Date: May 27, 2026

Alexandria has been the source of invention, innovation, and beauty for millennia — capturing the imagination of Napoleon, the Prophet Muhammad and, of course, Alexander the Great. He envisioned a place that thrived on cultural, intellectual, economic, political and religious exchange. IDEAS examines the big ideas of this port city in Egypt with Islam Issa, author of Alexandria: The City That Changed the World.Part three in our ongoing series about how port cities shaped the world as we know it.Listen to Part Two: How port cities of Elmina shaped the worldListen to Part One: How port cities like Singapore shaped the world

A famous crime writer who gets her inspiration from years of working on real cases at the medical examiner's office. That's the story of Patricia Cornwell, and she told me all about her new memoir on my podcast bookends. I often ask people, if you didn't know what really goes on out there, like if you're talking to a homicide detective friend and say, if you could not know any of this and just kind of have fun, would you want not to know it? Every single person I say that to who knows, it says, I absolutely want to know it. Check out that conversation on bookends with me, Matea Roach, wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. Welcome to Ideas. I'm Nala Ayyed.

There's a story nearly 2,000 years old of a prince of Macedonia. They say his ancestors were gods. At age 15, he tamed a demonic man eating horse. The oracle had prophecy to the prince's father that whoever rode the demon horse would rule the world. When the king heard of his son's feet, he embraced him and shouted, hail Alexander, ruler of the world. By the age of 30, Alexander's empire was one of the largest in history,

stretching from Greece all the way to northwestern India. Along the way, he founded a city, his city, Alexandria. It's a place that's witnessed so many changes, so many different eras, empires, dynasties, important figures, and yet it's endured. It became a center of commerce and knowledge. Alexandria was also an important port city, linking Greece and the Nile Valley. At certain parts of its history, it was larger than Carthage.

It eclipsed Athens and Rome. In fact, Rome's livelihood depended on it. It was a megalopolis, which affected the Abrahamic faiths, and it was a place where misfits and pioneers both gravitated. And as a result of that, They created and disseminated knowledge that has affected us through today. It's affected the Renaissance in Europe, the Islamic Golden Age, the European Enlightenment, and in many ways it's had a perpetual presence ever since.

Much of ancient Alexandria is now buried beneath the modern city and the Mediterranean Sea. It's thought that Alexander himself and later figures like Cleoferior, Napatra and Mark Antony are also buried in the ancient city. But where exactly is unknown? While the modern city persists, the ancient can feel harder to pin down, more like a memory than something material. I'm often asked about Alexandria and its history, and people expect me to reply with these amazing figures and dates and wars.

And I'm just going to quote part of my preference. which has actually turned into a kind of poem on social media for some reason and it's really what I think of when I close my eyes and think about Alexandria. To me, Alexandria is a pleasant feeling in my core. A little root that sprouts no matter where I might be. It's warm days and breezy nights. It's loud waves and quiet sunsets. Ancient artefacts.

Art Deco theatres. palm trees, street florists and green shutters. It's people watching from the balcony and cats roaming around my feet. It's the sound of a classical melody in the moonlit cafe. It sounds like a love poem. The book has been variously described in those terms as a love poem. And I think there's something about it being an ode to the city of my parents, grandparents, great-grandparents. but also there's something about the imperfection of the city that does make it seem like love to me

because love isn't straightforward. And this city's never had a straightforward history. And like I said, it endures, which I think is something that love does as well. This episode is part of our ongoing series exploring significant port cities around the world. I'm speaking with writer and scholar Islam Issa discussing his book, Alexandria, the city that changed the world. Alexander the Great in the 4th century, BC, probably has one main goal, and that's world domination.

So when he stumbles on Alexandria, I say stumbles because I don't think he knew exactly what he's in for when he went there. Legend has it, and this is the Alexandrian founding myth, that he saw a vision in which an old man, presumably Homer, spoke to him about the island of Ferros that's mentioned in Homer's poetry. We have to remember that Homer's poetry at that time

is in the absence of scripture and history is very much seen as fact. So he ventures to this island of Ferros that's part of the Greek imagination because it's mentioned in Homer and Helen of Troy is supposed to have been there and so on. and when he arrives, it's probably something of an anticlimax, but he also sees the potential of this place in terms of location.

It's all about location of Alexandria and Alexander at the beginning. This is a place at the intersection of the continents. It can link the Hellenistic world with the East, as he would have seen it, or Asia, where he wanted to continue. And it was also part of Egypt, and Egypt, was a phenomenal civilization already, just to put it into perspective, when Alexander the Great arrives at the spot that would become Alexandria, he's halfway in time between us and the pyramids of Giza. That tells you how old Egypt is and how established it is.

And so when he arrives, I think he finds that this is a place that can benefit him in terms of location, linking the continents. There's a huge grain supply. that can feed his army. And on top of that, there are some surprises. There's a lake, Lake Mariotis, to the south of that location. And then you have the Ferros Island just to the north of the Mediterranean, which he would then connect to the fishing villages that were there with a causeway. And that would create the ports of Alexandria.

And then there were also canals that had already been built by the Egyptians, and there was a link to the Nile through them and to the Nile Delta. So a lot of it is to do with water. I think he knelt, the story is that he knelt down and began designing this city. Paint that picture, if you don't mind. Of course, as Alexander arrives at this location, he's in awe of its potential. And legend has it that he's so excited that he gets down on his knees and begins to scribble in the sand a design for this great city.

And the city will have the ports. It will have the squares and the temples. But it will also have a shrine to the muses, which is going to become the great library. And he's so excited that he decides to build this Heptus. study on this causeway immediately that connects the Ferros Island with the coast. There are a couple of different versions of the founding story. What's fascinating about them is that despite the fact that they can be viewed as myth, they are still very important to Alexandrians today.

In one version, Alexander scribbles on the sand. In another version, he asks his men, including Dinochetes, the architect for a piece of chalk, they take a while to get one so he's too excited and he reaches for the closest thing he can find which is grains of barley and to everyone's surprise he gets down on his knees and begins to use the barley in his fingers to sketch this map out on the sandy floor there's possibly some symbolism to the fact he uses the barley because it's said that when he finished the design a flock of birds appeared from the horizon and went down to the grain and devoured it.

And Alexander gets confused and startled, but the people around him assure him that this was a sign that the city would be the nurse and feeder of many nations. And there's another version where he begins to mark the city's perimeter with barley flower. And again, when it's taken and the birds fly up with it, the priests tell him not to worry because this means the city would prosper. and there's a really nice little prophecy as well, which is the city will feed the whole inhabited world, and those who are born in it will reach all parts of the world just as the birds fly over the whole earth. And that's a very heartening thing for me as a British Alexandria

who has reached different parts of the world. As you say, he chooses this location, partly because the dream kind of necessitated a port city, as you say, that one that sat at the intersection of three continents, but also on the water. What does that tell us about the significance of port cities at that time? Port cities have the advantage of helping both the military and trade. I think Alexander will take it a step further with his vision for the city, But those are the basic things that you can feed your army and that you can feed your people and trade, both importing and exporting.

Alexander goes a bit further. He gets denocrities of roads, the architect, to design a city that is a lot more functional than just having a port. But for example, he wants streets built at angles that welcome the sea breeze because of the time we think, at the time it's thought there there's a good wind and a bad wind that comes from the sea. So he wanted to make use of that good wind. Where would that appreciation

of port cities have come from at the time? Alexander was taking ideas from his teacher, Aristotle. Aristotle certainly spoke about city planning and didn't exclude port towns from that kind of city planning. They took the ideas of

denocrates, of Rhodes, who was this brilliant, respected architect at the time who also had ideas for how the port of town would work. Islam, you argued that Alexandria was the result of a gamble, you know, a new hypothesis for what a city could be. What new ideas went into the creation of Alexandria? Yeah, I think that there were two radical ideas. and the first of these was from Alexander or at least from the very start which is that you can gather people from different parts of the world to work together and live together in relative, I'll say relative tolerance

and as a result you can be a world trading centre in economic power and true enough from the very start Alexander invited people from different parts of the world there were obviously the Greeks and some some Europeans people came from the east from the Levant there were many Jews who came into the city and formed around a fifth of its original population from the west we have people from the Mare region

and from the south from Nubia and on top of that all the Egyptians that went and even evidence of some Indians coming early on in Alexandria's history. So that's the first radical idea. The second one I can summarize as knowledge equals power. And that's enacted more so by Ptolemy the first and afterwards his son Ptolemy the second. And it's this idea that if you can collect and look after and generate and disseminate knowledge, then you will become.

a power, a global power. And it's a very interesting idea of soft power here, soft power through knowledge, through books, through the Great Library and the Research Centre that was adjacent to it. You call them radical ideas, but just to really underline that, how common was it that in the founding or developing of cities at the time that hybridity or multiculturalism or knowledge as power were actually seen as integral to a city. Certainly, from Alexander's perspective, he would have been expected to Hellenize rather than to harmonize.

There was a hierarchy of races and of peoples and of civilizations, some of which look down on others. So when we look at the example of the Persians going to Egypt just before Alexander, they were very insulting towards the Egyptian priests and towards Egyptian cultures. They looked down on it. They sacrificed one of the gods, the bull apis. And actually, this helped Alexander, because when he arrived, he was seen by Egyptians as somebody who is liberating them from the Persians. So that's a good example of the fact that not all cultures are respected when an invader arrives.

even Alexander's teacher Aristotle would have differentiated between the Greeks and the barbarians with Greeks being higher in the hierarchy. So there's certainly

a vision to what Alexander did that would have been quite different from Hellenistic rulers before him. And in terms of soft power, I think this is a a new idea of how to create soft power.

The idea to collect books is not new in the sense that people did have libraries, but these were often private libraries rather than state-endorsed ones, let alone endorsed at such a level as the Library of Alexandria was. But it's not just a book-collecting project. The idea was to collate and disseminate and in turn instructs. and in turn become well known throughout the world as a place of knowledge and that way create a global learning capital, the centre of learning that attracts people from different parts of the world

to study there and live there, and through which research can be carried out directly for the benefit of the city and directly for the benefit of its trade, actually for the benefit of its port. So there would have been researched that was state endorsed specifically for profit as well. Yeah.

So at the heart of that, as you say, is very shortly after the city itself began to come up. Its founders started laying the intellectual foundations, which at the heart of which was, of course, the Library of Alexandria. Why was the library and this exercise of collecting the world's books so important to the kind of city that they wanted to create? Part of the appeal of the books and the library is to put Alexandria on the map as an autonomous place that's actually not necessarily linked to Egypt, not necessarily linked to the rest of the Ptolemaic Empire. Alexandria has its own reputation and its own image.

And in turn, that attract people to go there. It attracts trade, but it also attracts scholars. These scholars are there not just to research for the sake of it, but they can also do research that is specifically relevant to the city and that can help it make further profits. The relationships with foreign empires and rulers was also built upon this idea that they would write to them about books,

they would boast to them about the knowledge that was coming out of Alexandria as well. So it served multiple purposes. It would make Alexandria a world power not just in terms of knowledge, but economically as well. So the two ideas are linked as a global trading hub

and as a global knowledge capital. I guess, you know, as you say, the place became, gathering place for the world's greatest intellectuals. They came from all over the place. And they lived a very good life, it sounds like, in Alexandra. And what follows is a really impressive list of discoveries and ideas that reshape the world as we know it. I'm wondering when you think of that list, who immediately comes to mind. For me, I would say that a heroine of Alexandria immediately comes to mind as an inventor of such a

exciting things as vending machines, for example, and singing puppets and self-powered carts, which is basically like robots. So he comes to mind immediately. There are probably others that would come to mind more generally like Claudius Ptolemy, who wrote very influential geographic texts. Aristharchus in the 3rd century BC immediately comes to mind as well because he's the first to advocate

heliocentrism, this idea that the sun is at the center of the universe and he caused a real stir and it wasn't accepted for centuries until the Copanican Revolution and so on. In a way he, in fact he was written out of that discovery

by Copernicus and it wasn't even until much after Copernicus that we actually learned the origin of that story was Alexandria. Sure, yeah. I mean, Copernicus, we have from his drafts, will appear to be notes about Aristarchus, and then he changes his mind before he sends it to his publisher

because he doesn't want to be the second person to figure it out or third. Understandable. But by the time we get to the European Renaissance, there's a lot of interest in Aristarchar. Marcus again, who's of course from the third century BC, so quite a while before that. Mathematics figured prominently in the work of scholars in Alexandria. Certainly Euclid of Alexandria, who was there very early on in the city's history

and wrote about geometry in his multi-volume elements, and that was used right until the 20th century is a key textbook on geometry. There are other examples. Apollonius who was known as the great geometer and he invented a handheld analog calculator later known as the astrolabe

which literally means the taker of the stars and would be advanced after him and certainly Hypatia of Alexandria who's one of the most significant female scholars of that era

who whose story is rather tragic, but who certainly made advances in mathematics and philosophy. Knowledge creation was a central part of Alexandria's identity. In his book, Alexandria, the city that changed the world, writer and scholar Islam Issa, lays out how knowledge gathering went on to become an important and sometimes aggressive policy. This is ideal. I'm Nala Ayyad. You know, every day on Up First, NPR's Golden Globe nominated morning news podcast, we bring you three essential stories. At the heart of each story are questions.

What really happened? What really mattered? What happens next? At NPR, we stand for your right to be curious and to follow the facts. Follow up first wherever you get your podcasts and start your day knowing what matters and why. Alexander believed knowledge was power. He wanted his namesake city to be a seat of learning. This drive fed the establishment of the Library of Alexandria,

one of the largest and most important of the ancient world. Well, the letter of Aristéas, which is the first dimension we have of the library in the second century BC, says that Demetrius, who is the first librarian, hired by Ptolemy the first, was tasked with finding, and I quote, readbook in the world. And that's the job description. So that is obviously not too selective, but as a concept, it's the idea that they could prescribe themselves as the caretakers of the world's knowledge. And so the ultimate library, if you like, Kediana ultimate power. In his book, Islam Issa describes the wheeling, dealing, and sometimes thieving that went into

Alexandria's mission to be the book capital of the world. So one of these was to write to different leaders around the world and they did so and ask for any books to be delivered to them. There were some other interesting techniques like searching anyone who enters the city. Every ship that came to the port was searched, not for contraband, but for books. The book was found. It was taken to the library where it would be copied and in all likelihood the owner would probably get the copy back, not the original. There were other tactics like sending agents around the region to collect books and bring them back to Alexandria. There was a stage even where they embargoed the export

of papyrus because Pergamon was trying to compete in terms of getting books and they didn't to want others to be able to get as many books as them. That was a rival city in Turkey. Exactly. And that's where we get the term parchment because they began to write an animal hides there. So there were lots of different ways of trying to acquire the books. And some of those ways could be violent and expensive

and maybe even aggressive. Yes, there's a famous example where they asked Athens to borrow their prized position. possession, which was the original papyrus works, the three famous Greek tragedians, and they paid a huge deposit to borrow them, 15 talents, which is about 450 kilograms of gold today. And once the library had its hand on these, they weren't going back. And actually, they just kept them and didn't mind paying the deposit. that I guess it reached a stage where they had to figure out whether the relationship with that foreign government was worth doing such a thing. And it became a weighing game in that sense.

It also meant that there were, obviously there was a black market because if you want to acquire every book in the world, then anything that's written will be purchased. So people just started to write anything or write books that were anonymous or pretended they'd listen to someone. one famous and wrote what they heard. So there was a lot of unauthorized content forgeries. And it took a while for the Library of Alexandria to notice that not all books were necessarily equal. The extraordinary thing that happens in this whole process, which I found absolutely fascinating, is that for the first time in human history, and you point this out in the book, that books had become a valuable commodity, like precious stones and oil and wheat.

Yes, it's a fascinating development, isn't it? The books could become so valuable, so wanted, so state endorsed the whole process. The fact that the city's makeup begins to change, and so the markets begin to sell books, and people obviously who are visiting Alexandria for trade will want to. go back with a souvenir of a book. But obviously it would have to be a copy of a book that the library won't take from them on their way out. But it's a business opportunity for so many people.

And I think it's a fascinating development that books have this value as a commodity. But obviously it leads to all sorts of issues in terms of underground activity in black markets as well. Yeah. There was a sign apparently hanging in there that said it was a place of the cure of the souls. But it no longer exists. Those books no longer exist in that form in that building. What happened to the library in the end? There were lots of theories about what happened to the library. There's an idea that it maybe was burnt down and certainly there were fires that affected it. What we can say for sure is there was a decline. So just in the same way that it was supported as a state endeavor and all these resources were put into it, they came a time when these resources were reduced, or when the head librarian, who is actually a kind of minister,

the head librarian lived in the royal palace, tutored the prince and princess, and there was a time when the Ptolemy's eventually gave that role, for example, to army generals or friends, not to scholars. So as a result, there was some decline there. As freedoms reduced during certain times, scholars may have left and left with books as well. There were periods where scholars were removed from the city for various reasons. So we know that during Julius Caesar's attack, his war with Cleopatra's brother in the first century BC, that the library is partially destroyed with a fire that Caesar admits in his, autobiography. When

Octavian or Augustus takes over Egypt, he orders some books to be burnt. The third century, Caracula, a Roman emperor, attacks the city and burns some of the Aristotelian books.

Oralian after him. Burns part of the royal quarter, which is where the library was. We also have the rise of Christianity and some of the so-called pagan books. were destroyed at that time. We have a report in the fifth century of empty shells from the Roman historian, Erosius.

And so it's still there in the fifth century, but it's gone through this steady decline until it vanishes. You're writing your book that Alexandria is a megalopolis without which Judaism, Christianity, and Islam would be unrecognizable. What would you say are the major, you know, the biggest contributions, the city-making? to each religious tradition. So maybe starting with Judaism. When it comes to Judaism,

the history of the Jews in Alexandria is naturally longer than the history of the Christians and the Muslims. The Jews were in Egypt even before Alexandria's founding. And from the very start of Alexandria's founding, a tax exemption was created by Alexander that encouraged Jewish populations to move there.

They even joined the army. And to add to that, the Ptolemyes also ruled Palestine. So there was a real link with Jews, and they were an important demographic in Alexandria's early history. They had their own district, and they were promised to worship in peace there and carry out their rituals in peace there. one of the things that this resulted in was the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek. So Ptolemy II contacts Jerusalem's high priest, and they summon Jewish scholars to Alexandria to translate the Hebrew Bible. And this is a really important event because it allows the Jews of Alexandria to more fully integrate into that society.

because by the second, third, fourth generation of Jews in Alexandria, they don't longer understand Hebrew and they know Greek or Alexandrian Greek, Coiny Greek, which is a language that Jesus is thought to have spoken. So they translate this Hebrew Bible into Greek, today known as the Septuagint. It's obviously one of the most influential translations of anything in history, in large part because it's going to be used in the composition of the new. Testament and adopted by the church afterwards. There are other such examples as far as the

Jews of Alexandria are concerned by Ptolemy of the 5th reign, so we're talking early second century BC. There's the most magnificent synagogue in the region according to rabbinic texts. Even as we go further along, we see that a Jewish philosopher, for example, Mamanides in the 12th century right to the Mishina Torah in Alexandria which is the only medieval work that compiles every aspect of

Jewish observance. So there's a really long and important history. Yes. And equally for Christianity as well. Maybe perhaps not as long as you say, but what's the influence? How did Alexandria help shape

Christianity and the practice of Christianity. Alexandria's Christians are certainly influenced by the different religions and make-ups in the city already. So we have Egyptian mysticism, Greek thought like Platonism, Neo-Platonism, Jewish tradition. There were Buddhists in Alexandria from the first century as well. So all of these help to shape the Christianity of Alexandria.

One of the key things that we have to remember is that Alexandria is seen as a kind of liberal place that allows different people to come and take refuge there. And Christianity is initially a very niche religion before the Roman Empire adopts it under Constantine. So they're welcomed there and they begin to see the Roman Empire. the influence of these other religions around them. And one of the key things, for example, one of the key groups, for example, is the Gnostic group that they were being treated badly by the Romans. And so they began to think about their place within humanity and divine wisdom.

And this take took on a very esoteric kind of, more mystical idea of religion. And so both the Jews and the Christians take on this Gnostic idea. Christianity is also something that women are attracted to in Alexandria because women have a bigger role in society in Alexandria than in other places. So women began to take a more active role in the faith development as a result. Just to give an example of that earlier, you know, the medical school of of Alexandria welcomed women, whereas in Athens it didn't.

Oh, wow. So those are some of the key ideas, but then we also get church fathers, like Clement of Alexandria, his student, Oregon of Alexandria, who writes some influential texts about Christianity and in Alexandria, the idea of allegory has developed quite a bit more and it seems to have lasted in Christianity as a whole, where lots of the, stories of the New Testament are taken for their allegorical value first and foremost.

We also have in the fourth century Arias. Aris was a significant scholar of Christianity who advocated for a hierarchy in the Trinity. And this was so

influential in Alexandria that a council of Christian bishops was gathered together by the emperor in Turkey, today's Turkey, and they set to settle the issue with the Nicene Creed, which was a direct response to Arias' ideas. In the 5th century as well, Alexandria's Christian scholars combined the Old Testament and the New Testament

into a single manuscript, which is a huge event as well, still known today as the Codex of Alexandria. It's also essentially how Christianity, enters Africa, Alexandria. Absolutely. One of the key figures in Alexandria's history, even today, is St. Mark the Evangelist. St. Mark, the Evangelist is an important figure because it's thought that he witnessed both the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.

And he was somebody who arrived in Alexandria and preached the new faith. Initially, he only stayed for a short while, but he managed to found what became the church of Alexandria and would later become the Orthodox Church or the Coptic Church. and this is essentially the way or the route through which Christianity spread into Africa through Alexandria. Yeah. And finally, just on this list, Islam was also shaped by Alexandria and the belief of its people in Islam. Just one or two things that you think the city changed or affected or influenced in the practice. of the religion. Okay.

If I had to pick two things. I'd say one of them is the development of Sufism and mystic Islamic faith because as mentioned, the

Jews went to a more mystic idea of Judaism through their Gnostic beliefs and the Christians were influenced by that. And I would also say that the Muslims were because this was a haven for Sufis who could express themselves philosophically in a capital of philosophy and who could move away from more orthodox ideas that were imposed in other parts of the region. You know, one of the most famous Islamic poems of all time, the Kassida Borda, or the poem of the mantle, was written in Alexandria in the 11th century by, a man named El Busiri, who is a student of El Mulsi Abbas, who's the saint of the city.

The second thing would probably be the architecture, Islamic architecture, because when it came to the Umayyids, they wanted to build these ostentatious mosques. And so what they found in Alexandria was this history of, Egyptian and Greek temples, synagogues, churches, and they were influenced by them. So there was one particular temple, which was a so-called pagan temple, which had a golden dome. And this shimmering golden layer was a technique long used in Alexandria. So in 7th century Jerusalem, the Umeid's built the dome of the rock with a golden dome. and then they built the Dome of the Rock with an octagonal design

that they borrowed from the Alexandrian cathedral, the Church of St. John the Baptist, that had an octagonal design. And we know that Alexandrian artists were transported in numbers to Palestine to construct the Alaksa Mosque. They were also transported to Damascus, where they constructed the Omeid Mosque or the Mosque of Damascus. So all of these places have this astonishing Alexandria inspired mosaic style. And so Alexandria's influence on Islam actually extends to architecture and that kind of tradition.

Yeah, I'm not sure I knew that, actually. That's fascinating. We've been talking about religion and how each has been influenced by Alexandria. but how, what models, or what's the main model for religious coexistence that you see in that city's long history? Like, how is it that it was ensured that those, that cocktail of religions was able to, most of the time, not always, but harmoniously exists at the same time? The first thing that was done by the Ptolemy's was actually to create a new god, Serapis, and he's an amalgamation. of Greek and Egyptian gods. And this was a way of trying to appease both and get them to see some mutuality.

And to a large extent, that did work. When it came to the early Jews, it was about respecting their culture and respecting their traditions. And we have, even from the famous Cleopatra's time, we have documents that show that she was funding renovations, of synagogues and so on, and that the rituals of the city weren't imposed on them. So this is something that would actually create issues further along the line,

but where there were certain sacrifices or rituals, these didn't have to take place in the synagogues. And so we have a really interesting model there for the first four centuries. There was no ghettoization for the first four centuries. And things do change as, the city's history goes along and it doesn't remain within that ideal for its whole history, of course. Yeah, and you point out some of those episodes in Alexandria's history where it did become a site of religious persecution and violence. What do you make of that pendulum swing between tolerance and hostility?

What does it say? I don't think that the pendulum swing is inevitable. That's the first thing. I think it's a result of rhetoric and policies. And a lot of the changes that happen in Egypt are as a result of Roman influence. When we look at Alexandria, even if we're not idealizing and just being pragmatic, there was relative religious tolerance for those first four centuries of the city's existence. The Roman influence changes that.

And there are a few reasons for that. one of these is actually a kind of divide and conquer idea, which isn't just a phrase. It's actually a very viable tactic for the Romans, divide and conquer. The second would probably be the idea of citizenship. Now, Alexandria gave citizenship to Jews, for example. Now, once it becomes part of the Roman Empire, Alexandrians were still entitled to Roman citizenship.

despite the rest of Egypt not being entitled to Roman citizenship. So this makes Jewish Alexandrians a problem for the Romans because that means that there will be Jewish Roman citizens. And so the idea of citizenship and the kind of exclusivity and importance of Roman citizenship is one of the things that changes the state of play in Alexandria. Port City's location gives them power, of course, both economic and political. But it also makes them vulnerable to invasion.

And I wonder how that dynamic of both strength and vulnerability shaped Alexandria's political fortunes. Certainly the fact it's accessible from both land and sea makes it vulnerable. if a ruler does not strengthen their navy, then they certainly can be attacked. So there's an element of vulnerability in terms of that kind of location. There's also the idea that it's in such a good location that people will want it. People will think certain rulers will think this is exactly what I need in order to achieve my goals. So that's certainly true.

The other aspect of that is that it brings about pandemics reach it quicker because there's so much activity at the port and so many people coming from different parts of the world. So, you know, the Black Death reaches Alexandria quite quickly in the 18th century cholera reaches Alexandria, reaches Alexandria, reaches Alexandria and then spreads to England, France, and Spain. Well, true to what you're saying, of course, the city changed hands so many times over its history. It was ruled by the Romans, the Umayas, the Abbasids, as you said earlier, the Fatimids, the Crusaders, the Mamluk, Saladin, the Ottomans, I mean, you know, there are so many people. And of course the city was coveted because of what it could bring economic. to an empire or to a place. But I wonder why it was an important political prize for so many people, for so many different people.

There's something about its history that makes it attractive as well. There's an emulation of Alexander the Great, actually, as a key figure. We see that emulation from the Romans all the way to Napoleon and Muhammad Ali Pasha. all seem to emulate Alexander and think that this could be the crossroads to some sort of world domination. It's a place where you can be ambitious.

There's also this mix of histories. So when you think of certain classical capitals, they might only have one or two of those, but here is a place that actually fulfills the what we call the seven columns of Egyptian

an identity, if you like. So it's Veronica, it's Greco-Roman, it's Arab, it's Mediterranean, it's Coptic, it's Muslim, and it's African. It's all of those things in a way that many places aren't. We started this conversation by talking about the two founding ideas of Alexandria, hybridity and knowledge as power. You say that Alexandria can be part of the answer to some of the urgent questions that we have today about our values and relationships and politics.

What's the most urgent question today that you think those ideas that Alexandria was built on could help us with today? I think there's something important about people getting along as simple as that sounds. People letting others live life as they want to be lived

without imposition of whatever values. values they might have and think are important. Alexandria shows us how much can be achieved when that kind of tolerance and liberal ideology is enacted and how much can go wrong when these ideas are affected. What can we learn from Alexandria about the nature of change? Well, one aspect of that is that change is inevitable. There will always be peaks and troughs.

Societies undergo change and external influences, whether they are the force of nature or someone you weren't expecting to appear, can just come out of the blue. It also tells us, I think, to have some humility, in the sense that nothing lasts forever. Things can change and we have the tendency as humans to perceive our own moment as the ultimate moment and assume that things will remain as they are. But actually, we're just a small part of a grander scheme and much can change in short amount of time

in between one generation and the next. The last part of your book is so beautiful and captures so beautifully your feelings about the city and you talk about walking around and that if you breathe deeply enough, history is in the air. But as you mentioned, ancient Alexandria is a city that has disappeared

under modernity. I wonder how much of what you've done here is an attempt at resurrecting that city. I think there's a definite attempt at resurrecting the city because the historical ancient city is so conspicuously absent when you're there. But I think so much of it is present in the Alexandrian makeup, in how people are, in how people speak about Alexander the Great, in how people boast about their varied ancestries and friends and neighbours. in the fact that actually the erasure of one culture to the next, which happens, for example, in the architecture, when we see a temple, become a church, become a mosque,

doesn't take away from the story of that particular building. If anything, that particular building or place or square has its own history. and that history, even if it includes an erasure of the past, simply can't erase it because it's always part of the story of that place. The story of that place lives on. Then you have some places that are just so ordinarily part of everyday life in Alexandria that we almost forget how wonderful and historic they are. So we have the oldest

planned street in the world that's still in use and we have the oldest garden that's still in use and both of those are places where people walk around casually aware or unaware of the great history of the city.

I think that there is something about ideas that extends beyond the physical. We don't necessarily really have to see it or touch it for it to be an idea. What makes us human is our ability to tell stories, to create art, to pass on histories. And so the idea itself doesn't have to be physically manifested in front of us for it to hold power and for it to hold significance. There's a lot of hope contained in that answer. I think there's a lot of to be said about seeing the best in humanity and hoping that humanity can think of itself in that

way, think of itself in a hopeful way. I think the moment where we lose hope is a really sad, sad moment. Islam Issa, thank you so much for coming in and talking to us about Alexandria. We really appreciate it. It's a real pleasure. Thank you for having me. I've been speaking with Islam Issa, Professor of Public Humanities at Burr. Birmingham City University and author of Alexandria, The City That Changed the World. This episode is part of our ongoing series on significant port cities. You can listen to other episodes about Singapore and Elmina in our podcast feed. You can also find them wherever you get your podcasts or on our website, cbc.ca.ca.

Ideas. This episode was produced by Pauline Holdsworth and Nahid Mustafa. Our web producer is Lisa Ayuso. Technical production, Sam McNulty and Danielle Duval. The senior producer is Nicola Luxchich. Greg Kelly is the executive producer of ideas, and I'm Nala Ayyad. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca.com.