In front of you stands one of the best-preserved medieval gates in the Islamic world. Take a moment with it, because the whole story of Cairo begins at these walls.

1A city for the caliphs

In 969 the general Jawhar al-Siqilli conquered Egypt for the Fatimid caliph al-Muizz and laid out a palace city beside the Nile, ringed by mud-brick walls. He called it al-Qahira, ‘the Victorious’, and that is where the name Cairo comes from. For its first centuries it was an enclosure reserved for the court, the army and officials; ordinary people lived outside.

A century later the vizier Badr al-Jamali, a soldier of Armenian origin who ruled on behalf of the caliph al-Mustansir, enlarged the enclosure and rebuilt the walls in stone. The inscription running across the facade dates the work to the year 480 of the Hijra, that is, 1087. Badr named the gate Bab al-Izz, ‘Gate of Glory’, but Cairenes kept using the old name: Bab al-Nasr, ‘Gate of Victory’.

2French fingerprints

Seven centuries later, in 1798, Napoleon's troops arrived. They turned the wall into a fortress and named each tower after an officer: the eastern one became Tour Courbin and the western one Tour Julien, after Thomas-Prosper Jullien, Bonaparte's aide-de-camp. Those names are still carved into the stone.

Outside this gate lies an old cemetery: the historian Ibn Khaldun was buried here in 1406, although his exact grave is unknown.

3What to look for

  • The shields and swords carved on the towers, symbols of the city's defence.
  • The Arabic inscription running above the arch and naming Badr al-Jamali.
  • Bab al-Futuh, to your left, with its rounded towers from the same period.
Decorated stone arch of Bab al-Futuh, the neighbouring gate with rounded towers
Bab al-Futuh, the other northern gate in Badr al-Jamali's wall.

Documented

The facade inscription dates the gate to 1087 and credits it to Badr al-Jamali under the caliph al-Mustansir; the tower names date from the French occupation (1798-1801).

Sources and credits

K. A. C. Creswell, ‘The Muslim Architecture of Egypt’, vol. I (1952); Doris Behrens-Abouseif, ‘Islamic Architecture in Cairo: An Introduction’ (1989); UNESCO, ‘Historic Cairo’ listing (no. 89).

Photos:

  • Bab al-Nasr, a stone gate between two square towers of the Fatimid wall: R Prazeres, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  • Decorated stone arch of Bab al-Futuh, the neighbouring gate with rounded towers: Djehouty, CC BY-SA 4.0.

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