Damietta - El-Gabbana

Northeast of the town, in the cemetery district of El-Gabbana, is the badly dilapidated Abul Maata Mosque (or Amr ibn el-As Mosque), which may date from the time of the old town. In the vestibule are Kufic inscriptions. Many of the columns in the interior are antique. In the southwest corner are twin columns, set close together; and anyone accused of a crime who could squeeze between them was held to be innocent. In the same row is a column which is licked by sufferers from jaundice in the hope of a cure. On the minaret are the remains of early Arab ornamentation.