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WHAT does a Jordanian ex-queen have in common with a former deputy prime minister of Egypt? Not much except that they both live opposite villas confiscated from the dapper Ibrahim Rifaat brothers.

Prince Mohammed-Ali Ibrahim and Prince Amr Ibrahim were wealthy descendants of Viceroy Mohammed Ali Pasha, founder of the dynasty that ruled Egypt from 1805 until 1952. Both married granddaughters of Padishah Abdelhamid, the last of a long line of Ottoman Sultans.

The Ibrahim brothers selected Maadi as the site for their respective villas thus ensuring an gracious living in charming surroundings.

While Prince Mohammed-Ali Ibrahim designed himself a Moresque mansion on Road 78 surrounded by a two-acre garden, Prince Amr opted for a Cavalla-style villa on Road 14 occupying approximately a one-acre spread.

Both villas were confiscated by the state in 1954 by which time the Ibrahims and their Turkish sultanas had relocated to Europe. Soon enough their villas were disposed of by the state. And don't bother to ask what happened to the villas' marvelous azulejos (glazed tiles), frescoes, tapestries and other priceless furnishings. They simply disappeared.

A TALE OF TWO VILLAS

Mohammed-Ali Ibrahim's Moresque palace changed hands several times before becoming a dump heap surrounded by rotting vegetation and dead corpses. Its first and with hindsight best tenant was the Cairo American School. But when CAC outgrew the premises and moved to Digla, the state-owned property reverted to the mercies of the military establishment. This was tantamount to a death sentence. For the next 20 years the house was systematically, mauled, scarred, hurt, tortured and finally abandoned to bats, rodents, stray cats and rabid dogs.

As if to punctuate its fate, the garden's two rows of royal palms, which once dominated the lush vegetation laced with oriental fountains and mossy walls, died a slow agonizing death, more out of chagrin than lack of water.

All of that happened while the nearby Queen of Jordan, like the legendary Lady of Shallot, watched in horror as the nearby architectural wonder turned into lifeless stone. But what could al-Sherifa Dina do? She was herself a fallen princess separated early on from her prince charming. Since he walked out on her King Hussein of Jordan re-married three more times, an Englishwoman, a Palestinian and an American.

Yet, can one be as charitable of the former deputy prime minister who lives opposite the other villa - the one belonging to Prince Amr Ibrahim on Road 14? Can one absolve him from being a passive witness to the slow and horrible demise of another Maadi architectural jewel? Can one ever forgive this former Free Officer who served as Egypt's ambassador to Rome and Paris, only to later take on the job as minister of culture?

To this day Sarwat Okasha is a member of the Supreme Specialized Council, that powerful committee which is supposedly the guardian of our national institutions and treasures! Can one forgive him for looking the other way as one of Maadi most beautiful homes and gardens gradually became a cesspool of sorts!

And if the former Minister of 'Taste and Elegance' behaves this way, can we blame Mr. Ordinary Citizen for his endemic lack of concern and total indifference?

And to the present owner of Prince Amr's villa on Road 14, one has only this to say. Shame on you for what you have done to this noble house. Shame! It was a dark dismal day when the Arab League took over the villa and turned it into offices for a plethora of employees whose only duty it seems is to appear on payday and then disappear for the next 30 days.

Yes, shame on the Arab League for having built such an ugly and devastating bunker-type building on the once beautiful garden, the likes of we shall never see again.

Unlike the gated communities of today's princely apparatchiks, Prince Amr Ibrahim had no qualms in sharing his house and garden with the citizenry. Ordinary mortals could walk, ride or drive by his garden filling their lungs with the scent of jasmine and fruit blossom or admire the camellias, rhododendron, fuscia, orchids and the profusion of wildflowers.

Alternately, visitors to Maadi could appreciate the attractive symmetry of Prince Amr's Ottoman villa; symmetry later marred by ugly new constructions built haphazardly all over the ruined grounds and inhabited by so-called guards and security personnel. Likewise observe their rapid decay.

Today, you have a choice of fetid odors coming from these illegal settlements most of which could easily mistake for outhouses.

When was the last time the Arab League's Secretary General arrived unannounced to see for himself what is going on?

One always thought of Dr. Esmat Abdel Meguid as a sophisticated and sensitive man. Surely he is sympathetic to the plight of our architectural heritage. Then why doesn't the incumbent Secretary General do something worthwhile starting with the removal of those ugly settlements? Why doesn't he make sure the League's outlying offices look decent, clean and respectable so that visitors and passers by, Egyptian or Western, won't comment "tsk tsk... just look at what the Arab League looks like!"

So much for Maadi's ''cultural and architectural landscape''.

Now that the private sector is pulling itself up from the doldrums of Egypt's post revolutionary period, it too should turn its attention to preserving Cairo's princely architectural sites, primarily as a means of saving our cityscape from annihilation as well as attracting tourist dollars.

Like it has been said again and again on this page, tourists don't just come for the Sphinx and the Pyramids. They come to discover and hopefully enjoy the character and romance of Cairo, from its Mamluk alleys to its belle époque vestiges.

We look upon the private sector to rebuild the city's architectural edifices and some of its more artistic relics. This sector must assume an active role in restoring the landscape that geomancers laid out nearly one century ago in downtown Cairo as well as Garden City, Heliopolis and Maadi (dare I say, Mounira, Abassia and Helmiya). And how about repairing those collapsing state-owned architectural monuments scattered around the city and its outskirts!

The prospects for successful preservation improved last January when first lady Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak accepted to head a campaign to list our late 19th and early 20th century landmarks among the historic monuments worthy of protection.

Let's rise to the occasion and show her she hasn't wasted her time and ours by lending us her support.

Princes Amr and Mohammed-Ali Ibrahim are the great-grandsons of Prince Rifaat Ibrahim who drowned while crossing the Nile on 15 May 1858. As for princes' father, he died in a car accident in Paris while still in his twenties.

Prince Amr together with his first wife (a daughter of Maadiite Seifullah Yussri Pasha) and three daughters Nimetullah, Emina and Indji lived in an Arabesque palace especially designed for them in Zamalek by Armenian architect Garo Balian.

Many years after the death of his wife, Prince Amr remarried Najla-Hebutallah Sultan, a granddaughter of both the last Caliph and Sultan of Turkey. They had one son, Prince Osman Ibrahim Rifaat who now lives in Lausane, Switzerland.

When the prince's assets were confiscated by the state following the military coup that toppled King Farouk, his Zamalek palace was turned into an arts and crafts museum. Shortly after Anwar al-Sadat requisitioned the Mohammed Mahmoud Khalil Museum in 1973-4 in order to enlarge the executive wing next to his Giza residence, part of the Khalil collection, mainly French impressionist works, was moved to Zamalek in Prince Amr's palace. There it remained for almost two decades before returning back to its original habitat.

Today, the villa has been designated a ceramics museum. An appropriate choice since the interior of the Ibrahim palace is choc full of encrusted and laid-in ceramic works and alcoves.

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