The Citadel

Hello again. This week's adventure was a trip to the Citadel, a fortress built by Salah al-Din (often referred to as Saladin) during the Crusades in the 12th century. The people of Cairo asked for protection against the Crusaders, so the Sultan of Syria sent his Kurdish commander, General Shirkuh. After his death, he was succeeded by his nephew Salah al-Din. Shortly after Salah al-Din became Sultan, he began work on the Citadel, and became yet another builder to strip limestone off the pyramids at Giza.

We don't have a photo of this unfortunately, but the Citadel sits up on a bluff and is a prominent feature on the Cairene horizon. It was the first landmark I saw in Cairo...the fortification itself as well as the domes of the Mohammad Ali mosque in the center of the complex. A picture of a small section of the walls and towers:


And then a view of Cairo from one of the ramparts:



Salah al-Din's original Citadel was reinforced and fortified by just about every ruler and invader who took over after him. I know that some destroyed most of what was there and rebuilt so I don't know if any of the original Citadel still exists! At any rate, although Salah al-Din didn't live there, his nephew al-Kamil who succeeded him moved in and the Citadel served as the royal residence for the next 700 years. One of its last residents was Muhammad Ali who ruled from 1806-1849 and , according to my guidebook, was responsible for much of what the Citadel is today including the mosque he built in 1839.

The Muhammad Ali mosque:


Before entering the mosque, they asked everyone to take off their shoes and then the women who were wearing short-sleeved shirts or shorts were draped in a green smock. Interestingly, they didn't concern themselves with women covering their heads. Some women did and others didn't. Some images of the mosque inside. The man talking with David had offered to be our tour guide and he was actually really informative. We were glad to have taken him up on his offer.















Now I can't find the photo but our tour guide told us a story about the clock tower in the mosque courtyard. It was a gift from King Louis-Philippe from France in exchange for the obelisk from Luxor Muhammad Ali relinquished (the Obelisk which now stands in the Place de la Concorde in Paris). The clock was the first electric clock introduced to the Middle East but it was damaged in transport and dead on arrival. There's been a few attempts to repair it to little avail but recently, some bigwig (I couldn't understand who it was from what our guide said) came through and was dismayed at it not working and said his country would send a repairman to come fix it (maybe he was from France?). The repairman came over and said he would start working on it once it was cleaned so the government put him up in a condo in Cairo and has a team at work on it. That was 12 years ago and they still haven't finished....not even close. Our tour guide said they work less than an hour a day. When we were there, there was a man sitting on the scaffolding but he wasn't working! According to our tour guide, the repairman is still living in the condo. :)

Muhammad Ali is infamous for the banquet he gave in 1811 for 470 prominent Mamluk citizens. The Mamluks were out of power but still influential foes of the new ruler. After the feast, he trapped them in the narrow passageway of one of the large Citadel gates and his guards shot and killed all of them. We didn't actually find this gate. It was 104 degrees out so we hit some highlights and will come back when it's cooler!

Muhammad Ali tore down a great many earlier buildings to make room for his own monuments and palaces but one mosque which escaped his demolition was the Al-Nasir Muhammad Mosque which was built in 1335. Apparently, he used it for his stables which is amazing because the columns you see in these photos are from the pharoanic and Roman eras. I guess when you have a wealth of historic treasures you can afford to be casual with the past.