History Lesson:
Citadel: the air smelled great here and there were great views of the city.The Ayyubid ruler Salah al-Din (Saladin)fortified it between 1176 and 1183 AD, to protect it from the Crusaders.
The Citadel was completed in 1183-1184.
Ibn Tulun: The oldest mosque in the city surviving in its original form. The largest mosque in Cairo.
Commissioned by Ahmad ibn Ţūlūn, the Abbassid governor of Egypt from 868–884.
Intended as the focal point of Ibn Ţūlūn's capital, al-Qatta'i, which served as the center of administration for the Tulunid dynasty.
Architectural style: Samarran (common with Abbassid constructions). Constructed around a courtyard, one covered hall on each of the four sides.
On the outskirts of Cairo there is the Citadel which sits near a large patch of green (a botanical garden of some sort that we never got a chance to explore. The drive to the citadel is on an incline and it overlooks the city. The air here, like I said, smelled much better because there were trees here, lots of them. The mosque nearby, within the citadel is surrounded by gardens and people are always seen watering the plants. It almost smells like suburbia on the weekends, water, fertilizer, cut grass.
After climbing up to a patio-type area this was the view of Cairo.
I read somewhere that Cairo out-pollutes LA. From this view I can believe it.We could see two mosques that unfortunately you had to pay a fee to enter. One of these is the Sultan Hussein mosque, the one Obama visited on his trip to Cairo.
We entered the mosque of Muhammad Ali which is contained inside the citadel.
It looks like the Turkish mosques that Daniel brought back photos of. It has beautiful ceilings.
A short cab-ride away was the Ibn Tulun mosque. It was easy to walk to this mosque but the day had become very hot and I was feeling lethargic. The only relief we felt from the constant sunshine beating down on us was on top of minarets and inside mosques where there were always breezes.
In Ibn Tulun especially I noticed the calm and relief from the city's chaos and odors. It was a peaceful place to visit that felt very imposing because it was built in centuries past and was still standing. People did not use this place to pray anymore, but I am sure in the past they did. I wonder if much has changed since the time that men would crowd the courtyard to perform their ablutions in preparation for jumma prayers.
