Walls of Cairo

When the Fātimids came to power in the tenth century, the Muslim world was completely overturned. In AD 969 they founded a new caliphal capital, al-Qāhira (‘The Victorious’), to the north of ancient Fustāt, the first settlement, erected from AD 640 near a Byzantine fortification.

When it was founded by al-Mu‘izz and his general, Jawhar al-Siqillī, the citadel of al-Qāhira was enclosed by brick walls with several gates on each of the rectangle’s sides.

As the citadel housed the seat of power—the caliph and his court—inside its walls, it required an effective defensive system and, in 1087, the vizier and commander of the armies, Badr al-Jamālī, was given the responsibility (in the name of the Fātimid Caliph al-Mustansir) of building a second stone enclosure that roughly followed the layout of the first wall. The walls have a series of projecting towers and they are pierced with gateways with symbolic and prophylactic names: Bāb al-Futūh (Gate of Conquest), Bāb al-Nasr (Gate of Victory), and Bāb Zuwayla (a North-African tribe, certain members of whom were part of the Fātimid army) and Bāb al-Tawfiq (Gate of Success).

The walls have a complex layout and contain much re-used material originating from nearby Egyptian temples (a common practice in the Mediterranean Basin, with its wealth of ancient monuments). Blocks of stone or marble alternate with column shafts laid crossways; a practice seen frequently in Near-Eastern architecture[1]. Maqrīzī, the fifteenth-century Egyptian historian, wrote about this practice in the town of Caesarea in Palestine, where he described how the Franks, in order to reinforce the walls, added transversal granite columns.

The entire length of the ramparts housed galleries connected to halls and rooms with various types of vault, which attests to the aesthetic considerations that were taken into account during the building of this defensive architecture. Lastly, the ramparts terminate in a perimeter walk protected by the upper sections of the walls with their merlons.

In the tenth century, part of the al-Hākim Mosque was incorporated into the northern enclosure[2]; and under the reign of al-Amīr in the eleventh century, the observatory on the Moqattam Hills was transferred to the terrace of Bāb al-Nasr.

In 1171, Salāh al-Dīn, Sultan of Syria and Egypt, and hero of the Crusades, restored the Fātimid enclosure and its gates, and decided to unite Fustāt, the economic centre, with al-Qāhira, the political centre. The ensemble was completed with a citadel placed on the heights of the rocky plateau of Muqattam.

These walls have defensive structures: machicolation, bent entrances, glacis, and openings facing the ground. These are Islamic elements that can also be found in Crusader military architecture transmitted to Europe by the Franks. In contrast, Islamic architecture attests to the European influence with elements like dungeons or fortified towers that served as living quarters. The confrontations of the period led to the mutual transfer of skills between Muslims and Christians[3].

The Husayniyy district was bombarded and completely destroyed by Bonaparte’s troops from the Badr al-Jamālī walls[4]. Until the twentieth century, when the archaeological digs and studies finally highlighted the importance of this military heritage, the walls were so well integrated into the urban environment that European travellers visiting the citadel were struck by the apparent absence of fortifications.

[2] Mosque initiated by the fifth Fātimid Caliph, Abū Mansūr Nizar al-‘Azīz Billāh, and finished by his son al-Hākim at the beginning of the eleventh century.

[3] The castle of Shayzar, on the Oronte (1233), is a good example of the application of Western elements by the Arabs.

[4] On the upper parts of the gateways are engraved the name of French officers; they also filled in the battlements and enlarged the slit windows for the canon balls.