Islamic heritage · Cairo
Ibn Tulun Mosque
Egypt's oldest mosque still standing in anything like its original form, with a striking spiral minaret and a vast courtyard ringed by pointed arches.
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The story
The mosque was built between AD 876 and 879 for Ahmad ibn Tulun, the Abbasid governor of Egypt who went on to found the Tulunid dynasty, as the main congregational mosque of his new capital, al-Qata'i. Its design drew on the mosques of Samarra in Iraq: brick piers carry pointed arches around a vast square courtyard, and an outer enclosure (the ziyada) holds the spiral minaret. In 1296 the Mamluk sultan Lajin renewed it, and the fountain kiosk with its dome in the courtyard dates from that work. After a long period of neglect in the 19th century it was restored in the 20th, and today it stands within Historic Cairo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979.
Good to know
- It was the third congregational mosque built in the Fustat area, after the mosques of Amr ibn al-As and al-Askar.
- The spiral minaret with its external staircase echoes the famous spiral minaret of Samarra, and remains one of Cairo's most distinctive.
- With its surrounding ziyadas the complex covers roughly 26,300 square metres, making it one of Cairo's largest mosques by area.
- Its pointed arches are among the earliest large-scale uses of the form, predating Gothic architecture in Europe by several centuries.
- Next door stands the Gayer-Anderson Museum, a pair of historic houses that is easy to combine with the same visit.
Visiting tips
The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities lists daily opening from 9:00 to 17:00. Please check before visiting. Dress modestly and be ready to remove your shoes.