Cairo is covered in celebratory graffiti. “Freedom,” is spray-painted on a brick wall downtown, alongside the image of two hands breaking a chain. “We Rule Egypt,” is scrawled near a grade school and “Enjoy the Revolution” is stenciled in big block letters in Midan Tahrir, Liberation Square. “No to Mubarak,” someone else wrote, “Free Egypt,” “God Bless Egypt,” and “Justice.”

The revolution is fresh in the city’s memory.

At night, the air is cool and the now-historic Tahrir Square is busy; it feels like a street party. You can have your face painted the colors of the Egyptian flag. There’s chanting, singing and a constant chorus of car horns, the steady rumble of the Cairo night. Sweet coffee, fresh popcorn and salted peanuts are for sale. Couples walk arm in arm and families roll out blankets to picnic.

“We’re proud to be Egyptians now,” Omar, a young Egyptian student tells me. He’s tall, wiry, and speaks English well. “Really, really proud. You saw what our country did, right?”

It’s past midnight and Omar is with a group of classmates. Omar is studying to be a pharmacist and his three friends are studying to be engineers. All four of them attend the University of Cairo, not far from here.

“We made history; we took control of the country.” Omar tells me. He gets a faraway look in his eyes when he speaks about the revolution. His voice softens.

Cairo is called the “City of a Thousand Minarets.” The tall spires punctuate the skyline. When the call to prayer sounds, the voices of hundreds of muezzin rise over the city.

Cairo is an important, historical Muslim city — it houses old, well-regarded Islamic institutions like Al-Azhar University — and it’s also an important place for other faiths, too. Egypt has biblical history, a significant place in the Abrahamic narrative.

Religious traditions teach us that Abram came here. Jacob, Joseph and his brothers all lived in Egypt.

The apostle Matthew writes that Jesus, Joseph and Mary all travelled to Egypt, when Jesus was just a newborn, passing by the pyramids and the sphinx on their way.

Sacred sites in Cairo, and across the country, recall biblical history. It’s not important to practitioners if the stories about these places are always true. It’s the intention, the telling of the story that matters most.

In Cairo, there are churches built on the ground where the Holy Family slept. One synagogue was built on the spot where Moses was drawn from the banks of the Nile, where he was saved from drowning. There’s a mosque built where Noah’s ark ran aground.

And far outside the city, on the Sinai Peninsula, other sacred stories are told. In the Sinai Peninsula, rocky, jagged mountains rise out of the desert. One of these mountains today is called Jebel Musa, Mount Moses.

Pilgrims have been coming here for hundreds of years, remembering the story of Moses, and the revelation at Mt. Sinai. The St. Catherine Monastery is here, nestled at the base of the mountain between boulders.

This is where, pilgrims believe, Moses walked with God and where the Israelites stood in attention at the bottom of the mountain.

They watched as thunder rumbled and lightning flashed. Dark, heavy clouds hung low in the sky. The ground shook. The earth trembled and the heavens poured. Fire erupted from the rocky peak of the mountain and ash fell from the sky.

“I bore you on eagles’ wings,” God said to the Israelites. “I brought you to me.”

In this frightening moment, this encountering with the divine, they were united. They saw with the same eyes. It was traumatic and humbling.

“If you accept me,” God said, “and if you keep your promises to me, you will be a holy nation.”

Would they accept? They responded with one voice, an affirmation: “Yes.” They were given the Ten Commandments and many other laws, too. As a nation they would accept new fundamental rules about how to treat neighbors, parents and their enemies.

At Mt Sinai, they made a binding agreement, to not only be faithful to their God, but also fair and just to each other.

Hamad studies business management at the American University in Cairo. He has a dark bruise on the center of his forehead where he touches the ground every day during prayer, a marker of his devotion as a Muslim.

I ask him where he was during the revolution; he points to the ground.

“Here. Cairo. Tahrir,” he laughs. “Where else?”

Hamad is quiet, but when he talks about the revolution he’s animated. “We threw out the corrupt officials, we threw out Mubarak. Now, we might really have democracy,” he says.

“But it won’t happen tomorrow,” Hamad goes on. “We can’t expect that. We still have a lot of work to do.”

We’re sitting cross-legged on the grass at Tahrir Square. A group of protestors is gathered on the far side of the square, waving Egyptian flags and beating a drum. Nearby, two newlyweds pose for photos in their suit and gown.

I ask him what he remembers from the revolution.

“We all stood together, here.” Hamad says. “Christians and Muslims walked together. Students, workers, everyone.”

People put aside their religious differences, he tells me. The rich and the poor stood together. Men and women, too. For Mohammad, it was revelatory. “We told the world that we wanted change. And we got it.”

He’s quiet for a moment.

“It was a dream,” he says, now speaking almost to himself. “I’ll never forget it.”