English: Tomb of Sheikh Salama Hegazi (b. 1851 in Alexandria; d. 1917 in Cairo), turn-of-the-century Egyptian musician, singer, pioneer of musical theatre, and the Arab cultural renaissance.

The tomb of Sheikh Salama Hegazi stands in the Cemetery of El-Tahawy in Cairo's Southern Necropolis near El-Basateen. It is an example of turn-of-the-century architecture of the Egyptian Nahda or Renaissance, a style characterised by the reinvigoration of elements of Ancient Egyptian antiquity into a neo-Mamluk Islamic artform combining art nouveau and art deco influences.

The tomb as seen in this photo was erected in 1930 by a Hegazi fan club. Members of the club wished to memorialise the 19th-century musician. They erected the tomb and moved Hegazi's remains to the new gravesite in the then-new cemetery of El-Tahawy, west of the El-Megawreen cemetery and the Mausoleum of Imam Shafi'i. El-Megawreen is part of the Sayyida Nafisa necropolis, itself a landmark of Cairo's famous City of the Dead. A Cairo court ruled that the tomb should be demolished in 1931 due to building irregularity and a failure to obtain appropriate licences, however notables and authorities intervened to save the grave and the memory of Sheikh Salama Hegazi, and the tomb survived. Today, this tomb and many others in El-Megawreen and neighbouring cemeteries are destined to be demolished as part a new governmental effort to upgrade Cairo's network of roads and bridges, dubbed "Cairo 2050", an urban intervention announced in 2009 and accelerated since 2013. This tomb is expected to be demolished in the planed urban intervention.

© Fouad Gehad Marei (2009)