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Street in Islamic Cairo with minarets and lanterns
Cairo and Giza

Islamic Cairo and Khan El Khalili

A thousand years of mosques, gates and markets, still lived in.

Khan El Khalili
Founded 1382 by Emir Djaharks el-Khalili
Al-Azhar
Mosque 970 AD, university 972 AD, the oldest still teaching
Al-Muizz Street
1 km, UNESCO Historic Cairo, pedestrian in the evening
Citadel
Saladin 1176–1183; Muhammad Ali Mosque 1830–1848

Islamic Cairo is the Fatimid, Mamluk and Ottoman core of the city, a UNESCO site around Al-Muizz Street: Al-Azhar Mosque (970 AD), the Qalawun and Sultan Hassan complexes, Bab Zuweila and the Fatimid gates, the Citadel of Saladin with the Muhammad Ali Mosque, and Khan El Khalili, the bazaar founded in 1382. Our walking tours cover it in four hours; the Cairo days combine it with the museums and Coptic Cairo.

Visiting

Cairo was founded in 969 by the Fatimids as a walled palace city, and Al-Muizz Street was its main axis. Walk it today from Bab Zuweila in the south to Bab al-Futuh in the north and you pass the mosque of Al-Ghuri, the complex of Sultan Qalawun with its hospital and mausoleum (1285), the madrasa of Barquq, the sabil-kuttab fountains and the merchant's house of Bayt al-Suhaymi, most of them open to visit.

Khan El Khalili sits off the street's middle: a grid of specialised lanes for gold, copper, spices, lanterns, perfume oils and leather, with El Fishawy café at its heart. Above the old city on the Muqattam spur, the Citadel of Saladin and the alabaster Mosque of Muhammad Ali give the view over all of it to the pyramids.

At night the street is lit and pedestrian, the bazaar stays open late and the food lanes fill up. Our night tours and the street-food walk are built around that.

Tips from our guides

  • Fridays 11:00–13:00 the mosques close for prayers; walk the bazaar then
  • Haggle with a smile; the guide knows the fair price
  • Al-Azhar Park on the hill has the best sunset view of the minarets

Best time: Late afternoon into the evening, any season; mornings in summer.

Questions

Yes, outside prayer times, with shoulders and knees covered and shoes off. Women receive a scarf at the door of Al-Azhar and the Muhammad Ali Mosque.
30.0475 N, 31.2622 EOpen in Google Maps

Tours that visit Islamic Cairo