Islamic Cairo is a part of Cairo which contains parts, which are already individually described, like Al Azhar park, the Al Rifai and Sultan Hasan Mosque, the Citadel and the Khan El Khalil Bazar. Walking around, you see numerous mosques, minarets, merchant houses, public drinking fountains and former caravanserais. Underneath to the left are two pictures of the Al Azhar mosque, which was built in 972. The minarets were added later, during the Mamluk period. One of the pictures above in the middle shows the double arched "Gate of the barbers" of Al Azhar Mosque, where new students used to have their heads shaved. The El Azhar Mosque is the world's oldest university and is still an important center of Islamic theology, with a curriculum, which is almost unchanged since the 12th century. The fact that Nasser forced the university to introduce medicine, science and languages makes it competitive with other universities as well.
The thin Turkish style minaret above to the left belongs to the Mosque of Sayyidna al-Husayn. Underneath to the right is a tower belong to the Mosque of Qalaun. The brown square building next to it is the Sabil Kuttab of Abdul Kathkuda. The building was erected in 1744 and the first floor still serves as kuttab, Koran school. The Sabil (public drinking place) used to be behind the grill , of which the top side is just visible. Sabil-kuttabs, buildings with public drinking water combined with a Koran school were quite common, in the eighteenth century there were about three hundred in Cairo.

Underneath are pictures of Bayt El Suhaymi, the house which was built in the Ottoman period, 16th or 17th century, and belonged to a wealthy merchant. To keep the house cool, in those days the builders made use of mashrabiya screens. The house seems to be build in a way that allows optimal air circulation and it has a beautiful loggia.