Cairo’s Al-Azhar Mosque is a must-see.

The Al Azhar Mosque in Cairo is considered the world’s oldest university, focusing on Islamic studies.

It is home to the world’s most extensive collection of Islamic art.

On the way inside the Mosque, it is typical to find Muslim students sitting inside and reading, representing a diverse range of nations across the globe.

If you want to enjoy a memorable trip in Egypt, check out our Egypt Excursions with our certified Egyptologist and Egypt travel guide.

Location:

It is around 30 minutes from downtown Cairo and is located in the Khan Khalili area, close to the Bazaar’s underpass.

It is also the site of many of Cairo’s oldest mosques, which date back to various times and styles.

History:

The Al-Azhar Mosque, whose name may be translated as ‘The Radiant,’ ‘Blooming,’ or ‘Resplendent,’ was established in 970, and Al-Azhar University claims to be the world’s oldest institution of higher learning.

The Mosque has always been politically relevant in Egypt since it is the highest religious authority for Egyptian Muslims.

During his reign, Salah al-Din transformed it from a Shi’ite hotspot into a bulwark of Sunni orthodoxy, while Napoleon’s forces brutally desecrated it to display their superiority.

Al-Azhar, a nationalist bastion since the eighteenth century, was the site of Nasser’s defiant speech during the 1956 invasion of Egypt by the Egyptian army.
The mosque is an accumulation of ages and styles, which is both harmonious and confused simultaneously.

You enter via the Barber’s Gate, built in the fourteenth century and where students used to have their heads shaved, into a large Sahn (courtyard) that’s five hundred years older than you and which is overseen by three minarets.

Even though the Fatimid era is represented by the sahn façade, which has rosettes and keel-arched panels, the madrassa’s rituals (residential quarters), which are screened with latticework, come from the Mamluk period.

Ascending to the top of these buildings (which are rarely open to visitors at the time of writing, but it’s worth asking if you can go up) provides spectacular views of Islamic Cairo’s vista of crumbling, dust-colored buildings that appear to have been constructed decades or centuries ago, the skyline studded with dozens of minarets.

Don’t miss to check our Egypt Vacation Packages.