Ayyubid
The Citadel of Cairo
Salah al-Din fortifies his capital, c. 1183 CE
c. 572-579 AH / 1176-1183 CE
Educational historical reconstructionWhere
Cairo, on the Muqattam spur, in Egypt
30.0287, 31.2614 · View on OpenStreetMap
Background
After Salah al-Din (Saladin, rahimahu Allah) ended the Fatimid caliphate and made himself master of Egypt, and as he gathered Egypt and Muslim Syria into a single power for the struggle against the Crusader states, he resolved to give his Egyptian capital a strong fortified seat of government. From about 1176 he began the Citadel of Cairo, the Qal'at al-Jabal or Citadel of the Mountain, upon a spur of the Muqattam hills that overlooks the city from the east, choosing the high ground both to dominate and to protect the twin cities of Cairo and Fustat. The fortress was built of cut stone, with massive round towers and curtain walls in the most advanced style of military architecture of the age, an age in which the Muslims and the Crusaders alike were raising great castles; and within the rock a deep well, later called the Well of Joseph, was cut down to secure water against a siege. The walls were meant to enclose the palaces of the ruler and the apparatus of the state, and the Citadel became, from the time of Salah al-Din's successors onward, the seat of the rulers of Egypt, the Ayyubids and after them the Mamluks and others, for some seven hundred years, growing over the centuries into the great complex of walls, towers, palaces and mosques that crowns the skyline of Cairo today. This scene depicts the Citadel in its first Ayyubid building, with the city, the river and the pyramids beyond. In keeping with the project's ethics any figure is anonymous and at a distance.
What you see
A great fortress of pale cut stone rises on a rocky spur above a vast city, with massive round towers, curtain walls and a deep dry ditch; the masonry is new and raw, the work of an age of fortress-building against a determined enemy.
Below the walls a vast capital of mosques and minarets spreads across the plain to a great river, and beyond the river the pyramids stand on the desert edge; this is the chief city of Egypt.
This is the Citadel begun by Salah al-Din (rahimahu Allah), the sultan who united Egypt and Syria, founder of the Ayyubid house, to be the fortified seat of his rule and the bulwark of his capital in the age of the wars with the Crusaders.
Gangs of labourers and stonemasons toil at the walls, and a deep well is being cut down through the rock to bring up water; the fortress is planned to enclose the rulers' palaces and to withstand a long siege.
The spur of bare hills overlooks the city from the east, the desert behind and the green valley of the great river before, on the road that links the cities of the Nile.
The Citadel of Cairo, begun by Salah al-Din, is an extant monument much enlarged by later rulers. The scene depicts the early Ayyubid fortress; no individual is shown by likeness.
Further reading & cross-references
The Citadel of Cairo (extant monument and its Ayyubid fabric and inscriptions): The primary monument. Used for the fortress, its towers and walls and the well. Confidence high for the building.
Arabic chronicles and biographies of Salah al-Din (e.g. Ibn Shaddad, Abu Shama): Used for Salah al-Din's founding of the Citadel and the union of Egypt and Syria. Confidence high.
Histories of Ayyubid and medieval military architecture: Used for the design of the fortress and its place in the age of castle-building. Confidence high.
Medieval Cairo and its setting (material/geographic context): The Muqattam spur, the city, the Nile and the pyramids constrain the depiction; later additions are excluded from this early scene.
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