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**Cairo
Cairo is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. It was founded in the year 969 A.D. making it 1,042 years old. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region´s political and cultural life. Cairo was founded by the Fatimid dynasty in the 10th century AD.; but the land composing the present-day city was the site of national capitals whose remnants remain visible in parts of Old Cairo. Cairo is also associated with Ancient Egypt due to its proximity to the ancient cities of Memphis, Giza and Fustat which are nearby to the Great Sphinx and the pyramids of Giza.
Egyptians today often refer to Cairo as Maṣr , the Arabic pronunciation of the name for Egypt itself, emphasizing the city´s continued role in Egyptian influence. Cairo has the oldest and largest film and music industries in the Arab World, as well as the world´s second-oldest institution of higher learning, al-Azhar University. Many international media, businesses, and organizations have regional headquarters in the city, and the Arab League has had its headquarters in Cairo for most of its existence.
With a population of 6.76 million[5] spread over 453 square kilometers (175 sq mi), Cairo is by far the largest city in Egypt. With an additional ten million inhabitants just outside the city, Cairo resides at the centre of the largest metropolitan area in Africa and the eleventh-largest urban area in the world. Cairo, like many other mega-cities, suffers from high levels of pollution and traffic, but its metro – the only one on the African continent until the Algiers Metro began service on November 1, 2011 – also ranks among the fifteen busiest in the world, with over 700 million passenger rides annually. The economy of Cairo was ranked first in the Middle East, and 43rd globally by Foreign Policy´s 2010 Global Cities Index
History
The area around present-day Cairo, especially Memphis, had long been a focal point of Ancient Egypt due to its strategic location just upstream from the Nile Delta. However, the origins of the modern city are generally traced back to a series of settlements in the first millennium. Around the turn of the 4th century, as Memphis was continuing to decline in importance, the Romans established a fortress town along the east bank of the Nile. This fortress, known as Babylon, remains the oldest structure in the city. It is also situated at the nucleus of Egypt´s Coptic Christian community, which separated from the Roman and Byzantine church in the late 4th century. Many of Cairo´s oldest Coptic churches, including The Hanging Church, are located along the fortress walls in a section of the city known as Coptic Cairo.
After the Arab conquest of Egypt in 641, Rashidun commander ´Amr ibn al-´As established Fustat just north of Cairo and Babylon. At Caliph Umar´s request, the Egyptian capital was moved from Alexandria to the new city. Fustat also became a regional centre of Islam and home to the Mosque of Amr ibn al-As, the first mosque in Egypt. When the Abbasids usurped the Umayyads in 750, they moved the capital to al-Askar, which they had built just north of Fustat. In 868, under the Tulunids, Egypt´s capital was moved further north to their own settlement, al-Qatta´i. However, neither al-Askar nor al-Qatta´i achieved the prominence of Fustat; al-Askar had become indistinguishable from Fustat by the end of the 9th century, and al-Qatta´i was destroyed by the Abbasids when they recaptured Egypt in 905. With the Abbasids´ second conquest, Fustat once again became the capital of Egypt. According to Encyclopædia Americana, the city was founded by the second caliph, Omar ibn al-Khattab.
Foundation and expansion
In 969 the Fatimids led by General Gawhar al-Siqilli conquered Egypt from their base in Tunisia and established a new fortified city northeast of Fustat. It took four years for Gawhar to build the city, initially known as al-Manṣūriyyah, which was to serve as the new capital of the caliphate. During that time, Jawhar also commissioned the construction of al-Azhar Mosque, which developed into the third-oldest university in the world. Cairo would eventually become a centre of learning, with the library of Cairo containing hundreds of thousands of books. When Caliph al-Mu´izz li Din Allah finally arrived from the old Fatimid capital of Mahdia in Tunisia in 973, the city was given its present name, al-Qahira ("The Victorious"), in reference to the caliph.
A multi-domed mosque dominates the walled Citadel, with ruined tombs and a lone minaret in front.
The Cairo Citadel, seen above in the late 19th century, was commissioned by Saladin between 1176 and 1183
For nearly 200 years after Cairo was established, the administrative centre of Egypt remained in Fustat. However, in 1168 the Fatimids under the leadership of Vizier Shawar set fire to Fustat to prevent Cairo´s capture by the Crusaders. Egypt´s capital was permanently moved to Cairo, which was eventually expanded to include the ruins of Fustat and the previous capitals of al-Askar and al-Qatta´i. While the Fustat fire successfully protected the city of Cairo, a continuing power struggle between Shawar, King Amalric I of Jerusalem, and Zengid general Shirkuh led to the downfall of the Fatimid establishment.
In 1169 Saladin was appointed as the new vizier of Egypt by the Fatimids and two years later he would seize power from the family of the last Fatimid caliph, al-´Āḍid. As the first Sultan of Egypt, Saladin established the Ayyubid dynasty, based in Cairo, and aligned Egypt with the Abbasids, who were based in Baghdad. During his reign, Saladin also constructed the Cairo Citadel, which served as the seat of the Egyptian government until the mid-19th century.
In 1250 slave soldiers, known as the Mamluks, seized control of Egypt and like many of their predecessors established Cairo as the capital of their new dynasty. Continuing a practice started by the Ayyubids, much of the land occupied by former Fatimid palaces was sold and replaced by newer buildings. Construction projects initiated by the Mamluks pushed the city outward while also bringing new infrastructure to the centre of the city.[23] Meanwhile, Cairo flourished as a centre of Islamic scholarship and a crossroads on the spice trade route between Europe and Asia. By 1340, Cairo had a population of close to half a million, making it the largest city west of China.
from WIKIPEDIA
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