Private Half Day Guided Tour to Al Azhar with Transfer Included

Starts with pickup from your hotel in either Cairo or Giza By Emo Tours guide and transfer to Bab Zuwayla, with its impressive dimensions, perfect stone masonry, and graceful twin minarets rising from its round-fronted towers, is one of Cairo’s most iconic monuments. It is the only remaining gate of the southern wall of the city’s Fatimid phase. It lies at the end of Khiyamiyya Street and opens onto the historic al-Muizz Street, which leads to Bab al-Futuh. Built by the Fatimid vizier, Badr al-Jamali, in 485 AH/1092 AD. The gate was named after the tribe of Zuwayla, who came from north Africa with Jawhar al-Siqili and quartered near the gate. Bab Zuwayla was also known as Bawabat al-Mitwalli, after the mitwalli al-hesba, the official in charge of finances and tax collection, who was based here. Mitwalli, "one of the righteous friends of Allah," resides in this area, and performs miracles.

The Qalawun complex (Arabic: مجمع قلاون) is a massive pious complex in Cairo, Egypt, built by Sultan al-Mansur Qalawun from 1284 to 1285. It is located at Bayn al-Qasrayn on al-Mu'izz street and like many other pious complexes includes a hospital (bimaristan), a madrasa and mausoleum. Despite controversy surrounding its construction, this building is widely regarded as one of the major monuments of Islamic Cairo and of Mamluk architecture, notable for the size and scope of its contributions to legal scholarship and charitable operations as well as for the richness of its architecture.

The Aqsunqur Mosque (Arabic: مسجد آق, Turkish: Aksungur Camii; also known as the Blue Mosque (Arabic: الجامع الأزرق, Turkish: Mavi Cami) or the Mosque of Ibrahim Agha (Arabic: مسجد إبراهيم أغا مستحفظان, Turkish: İbrahim Ağa Camii) is located in Cairo, Egypt and is one of several "blue mosques" in the world. It is situated in the Tabbana Quarter (Darb al-Ahmar district) in Islamic Cairo, between Bab Zuweila and the Citadel of Cairo. The Aqsunqur Mosque also serves as a funerary complex, containing the mausoleums of its founder Shams ad-Din Aqsunqur, his sons, a number of children of the Bahri Mamluk sultan an-Nasir Muhammad and that of its principal restorer, Ibrahim Agha al-Mustahfizan.

The Mosque of al-Salih Tala'i (Arabic: مسجد الصالح طلائع) is a late Fatimid-era mosque built by the vizier Tala'i ibn Ruzzik in 1160. It is located south of Bab Zuweila, just outside the southern entrance to the old walled city of Cairo.

Postcard showing the mosque's ruined courtyard circa 1885, with the Ottoman-era minaret visible over the entrance (left)

The mosque was commissioned by Tala'i ibn Ruzzik, the vizier of the Fatimid Caliphate, in 1160. Tala'i was one of the last powerful and competent viziers who maintained a level of stability in the Fatimid empire in its last decades. As the Fatimid Caliphate was abolished in 1171, this mosque is the last major Fatimid monument to have been built (and which still survives). Some of the mosque's original decorative elements continued to appear in post-Fatimid architecture in Cairo.

Al-Aqmar mosque is located on al-Muizz Street, and was commissioned by the Fatimid Caliph al-Amir bi-Ahkam Allah in 519 AH/ 1125 AD. The mosque’s construction was supervised by the Vizier al-Ma’mun al-Bata’ihi, and it was renewed during the reign of Sultan Barquq in 799 AH/ 1397 AD under the supervision of Prince Yalbugha al-Salmi.

The main façade of the mosque is presently one of the oldest surviving stone façades in Egypt. Its architecture is characterized by its intricate stone carvings and the repetition of the phrase “Muhammad and Ali”, in addition to Qur’anic verses written in the Kufic script. The engineer’s ingenuity is most manifest in his ability to orient the façade to the direction of the street and maintain the direction of prayer inside the mosque.

When the Coptic Museum was built in the twentieth century, its façade was inspired by al-Aqmar Mosque’s architecture, but with Biblical

Mosque-Madrasa of Sultan Barquq or Mosque-Madrasa-Khanqah of Az-Zaher Barquq (Arabic: مسجد ومدرسة وخانقاه الظاهر برقوق) is a religious complex in Islamic Cairo, the historic medieval district of Cairo, Egypt. It was commissioned by Sultan al-Zahir Barquq as a school for religious education in the four Islamic schools of thought, composed of a mosque, madrasa, mausoleum and khanqah. The complex was constructed in 1384-1386 CE (786 to 788 AH), with the dome added last. It was the first architectural facility built during the rule of the Circassian (Burji) dynasty of Mamluk Sultanate.

The complex is situated in the traditional area of Muizz Street. Along with the Complex of Sultan Qalawun and the Madrasa of al-Nasir Muhammad, with which it is contiguous, it forms one of the greatest arrangements of Mamluk monumental architecture in Cairo, in the section of al-Mu'izz street known as Bayn al-Qasrayn.