Below the citadel was the maydan, or parade ground, the stables, where the Mamluks played polo and put on military reviews. From that point one went up to the Citadel to observe or participate in the functions of the royal court.

There the Sultan dispensed justice and injustice, rewarded and punished, received ambassadors and supplicants, examined criminals and officials and carried on the business of ruling personally and arbitrarily in Mamluk fashion.

Salah El Din Ibn Ayyoub, founder of the Ayyoubid dynasty in Egypt, came to power as the result of a threatened attack by a Crusader force against the Fatimids, whose strength was ebbing in 1168. They appealed for help to Nur Al Din, the powerful Seljuk overlord of Damascus, who dispatched a military aid mission of which Salah El Din was the second in command. The Crusaders were successfully repulsed, but the rescuers remained and seized control of Egypt. Salah Al Din became the ruler of Egypt in 1169 and in 1171 he suppressed the Fatimid Caliphate and Egypt returned once more to the Sunni fold.

Salah El Din gave orders to the Citadel as a secure seat of government. He also built the city walls with which he intended to enclose Al-Qahira; the residential royal city of the fatimids; his Citadel-Fortress, and Al-Qata’i, Al-Fustat, the commercial economic center of the greater Cairo complex.

The city walls: Many parts of these walls still exist and are visible along the northern walls and along the Darb Al-Ahmar. The most interesting and easily accessible is the corner which remains where the extension to the northern Fatimid walls turned south towards the Citadel. One way to get there is to drive east along Sharia Al-Azhar to the traffic circle beyond the modern section of the University and make a ¾ turn around it, and on to Sharia Al-Mansuriya. Continue north slowly five hundred meters or so until you see four palm trees on the right, just before a left turn which leads to the North Gates.

Another way is to go east from bab Al-Nasr, along the street that lies just outside the North Walls, until it comes to Sharia Al-Mansuriya The walls will be in front of you.

The corner tower in this section is called burg Al-Zafar. It has an octagonal interior covered by a dome of cut stone supported by (spherical pendentives). It is flanked on either side by a postern gate. The fortifications imitate those of Bab El-Gamali, but the long arrow silts is an advance on the eleventh century ones since it enabled the archer to get a plunging fire. The (vault) of the staircase of the right postern gate is worth noticing for its attractive pattern of stars and hexagons. Proceeding south along the wall, the next gate is called Bab Al-Gadid, or the New Gate. This gate contains a most important feature, a bent entrance, in which the idea was to make the enemy expose its non-Shielded and unprotected side to the defenders. Bent entrances were later incorporated into both domestic and religious architecture.

The Citadel: The Citadel was built on an artificially detached spur of the Moqattam range with limestone quarried from it and large blocks supplied by the small pyramids at Giza. It consisted of two enclosures, the northern and the southern. The northern half was the military area. With its long thread of curtain wall and half round towers, it was completed by Salah El-Din between 1176 and 1182. His brother and successor Al-Adel was responsible for the strengthen f several of the towers in 1207. Two of them, built around Salah El-Din’s original corner towers, are the Burg Al-Ramla and Burg Al-Haddad. They stand above Sharia Salah Salem as it curves behind the Citadel and passes between it and the Moqattam Range.

The southern half was developed by Salah Al-Din’s nephew Al-Kamil (1218 – 38) as a royal residence. The buildings mosque, an audience hall, private palaces, a library, a mansion for the vizier was torn by Sultan Al-Nasir Mohammed.

These buildings in turn were pillaged and allowed to fall to ruin by the Ottomans and the French and finally demolished by Mohammad Ali. There have thus been three major building periods in the Citadel’s history: Ayyubid, fourteenth century Mamluk, and nineteenth century Mohammad Ali. The two enclosures are connected by the Bab Al-Qulla which stands just to the northeast of Al-Nasir Mohammad’s mosque. Below the citadel mound were the royal stables, a ceremonial maydan polo ground, a park, and camel and horse market. Beyond laid the palace and endowments of principal Amirs and pashas.

For many recent years the citadel was used as a military installation and much of it was not open to visitors. In 1983, however, the Egyptian Antiquities Organization engaged in widespread restoration and refurbishing program so that the area is now a major tourist center. Plans to withdraw the army, for the first time in history, were almost completed in 1984.

The Citadel is divided into three major sections: The fortress proper on the northeast, the walls of which are largely Ayyubid and Turkish: the southern enclosure with nineteenth century wall; and the lower enclosure marching down the face of the hill on the west which is almost exclusively from the Mohammad Ali period. Its walls are nineteenth century, except for the Bab Al-Azab, the great lower gate opening on to the Maydan built by Abd Al-Rahman Katkhuda in 1754 / 1168.

The Western Approach: This is no longer an approach that can be made by car, but it can be walked. The road leads up from Maydan Mohammad Ali in front of the Madrasa of Sultan Hassan and curves around almost 180 degrees, circumnavigating the old Daftarkhana or archives building in the process. The wall on the left before the first gate is sixteenth century in its lower courses and Mohammad Ali in the upper. The first gate dates from Mohammad Ali and is called Bab Al-Gadid, New Gate. The wall from here to the next, or middle, gate dates from Salah Al-Din’s time, with some courses added on top by Mohammad Ali. Passing through the middle gate you find yourself in the slopin courtyard before Bab Al-Qulla.

The eastern approach: As you drive out to Heliopolis and the airport on Sharia Salah Salim, you approach closest to the Ayyubid walls just opposite the little coffee house by the Tomb of ya’qub Shah Al-Mihmandar (Jacob king the chief of protocol), 1495. Turn left just before this point to enter the citadel and the parking lot where cars are left. You pass along Salah Al-Din’s Ayyubid wall, characterized by smooth masonry with narrow headers and by small, half-round towers with arrow slits.

Al-Adel’s addition is the great square tower which is midway down the stretch from the southwest corner to the inner gate. This leads to the main parking area. On entering that gate, the walls you see on your right are sixteenth or seventeenth century. The Gawhara Palace is on the left and the Mosque of Mohammad Ali looms above.

In the courtyard front of the sanctuary there is a charming Turkish barque ablution fountain, which in its individual and collective features I very similar to the sabils of the Mohammad Ali dynasty around Cairo. The gingerbread clock was given by Louis Philippe in 1846 as gift in exchange for obelisk now in the place de la Corncorde, Paris. The clock does not seem out of place, even though by all right it should.

The plan of the interior consists of a great central dome, supported by four semi-domes, one on each side, with four smaller domes, one for each corner. The interior is impressive because of its size, and it shows the wonderful arrangements of mass and space that is characteristic of the Istanbul mosques. But the decoration, which was not finished until 1857, in its profusion and eclecticism, is at odds with the simplicity of the architectural structure itself. Six large medallions around the dome enclose the names of God, Mohammad and the first four Caliphs, the Rightly Guided Ones: Abu Bakr, Omar, Othman and Ali.

Mohammad Ali, who died in 1848, is buried in this mosque, behind the bronze grill to the right of the entrance. A magnificent white marble cenotaph marks his final resting place.

There are two minbars or pulpits in the mosque. The larger one of wood decorated with gilt ornament is original. The smaller one of alabaster was a gift from king Farouk in 1939 / 1358.

Structurally the mosque has not enjoyed good health. Towards the end of the nineteenth century it showed signs of cracking and the masonry in various parts was reinforced. By 1930, however, major cracks had appeared again, especially in the cupolas, and the condition became so dangerous that a complete scheme of overhaul was drawn up. Between 1931 and 1939 the domes were demolished, rebuilt, repainted and gilded at a cost of L.E 100,000.

After a quick look at the mosque, go around behind it to its southwestern side and walk over to the parapet, from which three is a fascinating view of Cairo. Directly in front of you is the fortress-like Madrasa of Sultan Hassan, flanked by the Rifa’i Mosque. Directly to the west, in the left quadrant, is the great Mosque of Ibn Tulun. Off to the south, you can see the tomb of Imam Al-Shafi’i and on the horizon on a clear day the pyramids of Giza are visible. Looking north you can also see from this point Bab Zuwayla, Al-Azhar, and the other monuments of the Fatimid City.