Photo : Ahmed Hassan — CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Cairo · Al-Hussein, Gamaliya
Al-Azhar Mosque
Founded in 970 by the Fatimids, a place of teaching for more than a thousand years.
The first landmark of Fatimid Cairo, founded in 970 by the general Jawhar al-Siqilli for the caliph al-Mu'izz, months after the city itself, and teaching by the end of the tenth century — one of the oldest universities still running anywhere, after al-Qarawiyyin in Fez. Teaching was suspended here for close to a century under the Ayyubids, and Baybars restored it in 1266. Every dynasty left its mark: five minarets from different periods, a white marble courtyard, a Fatimid mihrab, gates added under the Mamluks and then the Ottomans, the Barbers' Gate among them, which is the way in today. Nothing here is embalmed — classes run, people pray, students sleep under the arcades between lessons. Historic Cairo as a whole has been on the World Heritage list since 1979.
The extra bit
Come in by the Barbers' Gate and cross the courtyard, then give the arcades on the far side ten minutes: that is where it becomes clear the place is a school first and a sight second.
Know before you go
This is a working mosque — shoes off, shoulders and knees covered, a headscarf for women, and a cape is sometimes lent at the door. The five prayer times are best avoided, Friday around midday above all, which is no time to visit. The shoe minder and the self-appointed guides expect a tip: decide the amount yourself and have it ready before you go in.
