8. Lighthouses
منارات
The legendary Lighthouse of Alexandria is older than the so-called Common Era.
It was one of the wonders of the so-called ancient world, destroyed in a series of earthquakes in the 14th century. The Alexandrians — the ones who remain in Alexandria — still cling to it today. By ‘today,’ I mean that they cling to it as late as the 21st century. The Lighthouse and not the equally legendary Library of Alexandria — which still exists not in its original building, but as a functioning institution of the city — is the modern-day, 21st Century Alexandria University emblem. That is a curious thing indeed, since one might assume that a historically significant library would be a more fitting emblem for a university. But then, the Arabic root of the word for lighthouse, منار,
