The capital of the seven ages...the city that has seen the faces of many eras and has given its features to history. Cairo: the wonder of ages and the wealth of days. Were its builders aware of the delicate duality between its order and its civilizational messages, some clearly expressed, some only hinted at ?

...

Cairo's intriguing and intricate history stretches back thousands of years, its earliest intimations in the ancient cities of Heliopolis and Memphis and the great funeral complexes of Saqqara and Giza.The actual foundation of "The Mother of the World," as Cairo is called by the Egyptians, dates from 641 AD, when the newly Muslim Arabs captured the Roman fortress of Babylon-in-Egypt,establishing the tent city of Fustat nearby. In the tenth century, the Fatimid dynasty established their royal city, al-Qahira, just to the north of the older city. As the Fatimids gave way to the Ayyubids, and the Ayyubids to the Mamluks, the importance of the northern city grew, eclipsing Fustat, and it was alQahira that gave its name to Egypt's capital--the name that has reached English as Cairo.

The Mamluks, soldier-slaves who became sultans, embellished the city with spectacular monuments including mosques and mausoleums--indeed, the "City of the Dead," which flourished in this period, came to rival the city of the living in the opulence of its edifices. When the Ottomans conquered Egypt in 1517, they pushed this development further by expanding on Egyptian tradition and adding Turkish elements to the artistic mix. The brief French occupation of 1798-1801 brought the first substantial contact with European ways and ideas that were to have a lasting influence.

Muhammad 'All, the Albanian ruler of Egypt for the first half of the nineteenth century, left his imprint all over the city, and his successors were inspired by the great European capitals in their reshaping of Cairo, which for the first time boasted broad, tree-lined boulevards. Later, in the so-called "Belle Epoque," art nouveau and art deco were the design styles of choice in the new downtown Cairo.With the departure of King Farouk in 1952 and the arrival of Gamal 'Abd al-Nasser (the first head of state of Egyptian blood for more than two thousand years), the city entered the modern era and responded to the challenges facing it as one of the most overpopulated cities of the world--yet one boasting an artistic heritage unrivaled anywhere.In Cairo, the history of this great city and its vast array of architectural, literary, and artistic achievements are laid out in all their splendor. Each phase of Cairo's story is told by some of the finest scholars of Middle Eastern history, accompanied by many stunning prints and photographs of the art,architecture, and life of the city. This book brilliantly illuminates Cairo's complex but fascinating development through the centuries, right up until the beginning of the twenty-first century,when writers, artists, and architects continue to grapple with this rich and varied heritage as they try to find a medium of expression for today's Cairo.

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

The Site

From the primeval era to the Arab invasions

The geographical context

Prehistory

Heliopolis

Memphis and necropolises

Babylon-of-Egypt

The Early Arab Period

From the Conquest to the Shiite Fatimid caliphs (641-1171)

The early city

The Fatimids (969-1170): a new urban model, or the royal city of al-Qahira

Emergence of an industrious city: Fustat in its prime

Cairo under the Ayyubids and the Mamluks

1174-1517

Cairo under Saladin and Baybars (1174-1280)

Cairo under Nasir ibn Qalawun and Barquq (1280-1421)

Cairo under the Circassians and Qaytbay (1421-1517)

Cairo under the Ottomans

1517-1798

The city administration

Urban society

An active economy

The city in the Ottoman era

Public architecture : tradition and innovation

Domestic architecture

Cairo at the time of the French Expedition

The Age of Transition

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries

The emergence of modern Cairo

Building fever at the turn of the century

Cairo under the late monarchs

The modern metropolis

Maps

Chronology

Glossary

Bibliography

Index