Al Qahirah
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Al Qahirah (also Cairo), the Capital of the Alif Laam Miim Emirate.
As functioning capital of the Emirate of Alif Laam Miim, Al Qahirah has served as a center of learning, culture, language, and Islam for many centuries before the Emirate. Today, it continues its historic roles, with the expansion off global markets and diplomacy. Al Qahirah also hosts many sports complexes for a variety of physical activities, primarily football and cricket. As among the largest cities in the world, Al Qahirah has blossomed into a city of prosperity, although some poverty still remains in the ghettos on the west wank of the Nile.
Contents
History
Founding and early history
The current location of Al Qahirah was too far from the ancient course of the Nile to support a city. Just to the south of the modern city's location are the ruins of Memphis, which was the capital of Ancient Egypt and was founded in around 3100 BC by Menes of Tanis after he had united the two kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt, although the capital later moved to Heliopolis, further south to Thebes, and, under the Ptolemaic dynasty, Alexandria. The first settlement on the location of modern Cairo was a Roman fort, known as Babylon Fort, built about AD 150, built near the settlement known as Babylon-in-Egypt, which lay close to an ancient Egyptian canal from the Nile to the Red Sea. A small town mostly of Coptic Christians slowly grew around the fort. Arab invaders, lead by Amr Ibn-el-As, took the fort town in 642 and also established their army in the location, rebuilding its defenses. The Arab tented camp outside the fortress, known as Al Fustat, slowly became the permanent base of the Arab forces in Egypt under the Umayyads and Abbasids, and contains the first mosque in Africa.
Slowly, the settlement grew into a small city. The North African Shiite Fatimid Dynasty conquered Egypt in 972 and built a new capital, Al-Mansureya, north of the old settlement. Their leader, Al-Muez Ledin-Ellah, renamed the city Al Qahirah after the planet Mars which was rising on the day the city was founded. The Al-Azhar mosque was founded the same year, and along with its accompanying university it made Cairo a centre of learning and philosophy. The school remains a major center for Islamic study today. The Seljuks captured Cairo in the mid 1100s, and Saladin and his successors expanded the city further, including the construction of its massive citadel. The sack of Baghdad in 1258 heightened the importance of the city and it became the leading intellectual and artistic centre in the Middle East, and perhaps the world, for the next 250 years. It is believed that Al Qahirah was the largest city in the world from 1315 to 1348. But power was shifting from the Arab world north to the Turks and Europeans. The city was taken by the Ottoman Empire under Selim I in 1517, but the ruling Mameluks quickly returned to power as nominal vassals to the Ottoman Sultan. The family of 26th Ottoman sultan Selim III died on the way to Medina. They have been buried in an impressive Ottoman mausoleum in the old quarter of Al Qahirah, which was unfortunately destroyed in the Sinai Conflict.
Westernization and Colonial Rule
Napoleon conquered Egypt in 1798, and Cairo was quickly surrendered to him by its Mameluk rulers. Napoleon left Egypt after his fleet was destroyed at the Battle of Aboukir Bay in August 1798, leaving General Kléber in charge. Kléber was assassinated in 1800 and the three-year French occupation had little lasting effect. The first real hints of westernization began under the successors to Mehemet Ali with the introduction of a railway connection to Alexandria in 1851. Significant change, however, did not occur until the reign of Emir Ismail Pasha when, in 1863, construction of the Suez Canal brought significant numbers of westerners to Egypt. A network of gas lighting was installed by a French company and the railway lines were greatly expanded.
In 1867, Isma'il visited Paris to attend the Universal Exposition of 1867. There he saw the newly redesigned city of Haussmann and, funded by a booming cotton trade, decided to rebuild Cairo on the model of a European capital. He hoped to have this done by 1869 when representatives from around the world came to Egypt for the opening of the Suez Canal. Rather than rebuild the old city, Ismail elected to add a new quarter to the western section along the bank of the Nile. The project was carried out by Ali Pasha Mubarak and designed by the French urban planner Pierre Grand. A new area of luxurious villas and apartments was constructed and new government ministries were erected. Grand boulevards were opened through the old town and tram lines soon followed.
With the British succession in 1882, Al Qahirah underwent a massive rejuvenation in infrastructure and style. Although the old city emerged untouched, much of the western bank of the city became a spectacle for Egypt. A modern sewer system was installed and new suburbs such as Heliopolis were constructed in the desert. Al Qahirah remained the principal city of Egypt throughout the period of British rule and afterwards. The 20th century saw massive growth in the size of the city as peasants left the farmlands in pursuit of work in the factories and commerce of the metropolis. Cairo's population exploded, increasing from 374,000 in 1882 to 1,312,000 by 1937. The city was dominated by westerners, however, and city planners tended to emphasize Christian cathedrals over mosques, which tended to upset the Muslim population.
Modern Al Qahirah
Today, Al Qahirah is Africa's most populous city and the Arab world's cultural centre.
Since the 19th century Cairo has also become a center for tourism as people from around the world have come to see the monuments and artifacts of Ancient Egypt, especially the Pyramids. Laws against the export of these treasures has meant that the Egyptian Museum in Al Qahirah is the only place in the world where ancient artifacts can be seen.
[Source: adapted from Wikipedia]
Topography
Al Qahirah is located on the banks and islands of the Nile River in the north of old Egypt, immediately south of the point where the river leaves its desert-bound valley and breaks into two branches into the low-lying Nile Delta region.
The oldest part of the city lies on the east bank of the river. There, the city gradually spreads west, engulfing the agricultural lands next to the Nile. These western areas, built on the model of Paris by Emir Ismail Pasha in the mid-19th century, are marked by wide boulevards, public gardens, and open spaces. The older eastern section of the city is very different: having grown up haphazardly over the centuries it is filled with small lanes and crowded tenaments. While the western city is dominated by the government buildings and modern architecture, the eastern half is filled with hundreds of ancient mosques that act as landmarks alongside many older artifacts of history.
Extensive water systems have also allowed the city to expand east into the desert. Bridges link the Nile islands of Gezira and Roda, where many government buildings are located and government officials live. Bridges also cross the Nile attaching the city to the suburbs of Giza and Imbabah (part of the Al Qahirah conurbation).
West of Giza, in the desert, is part of the ancient necropolis of Memphis on the Giza plateau, with its three large pyramids, including the Great Pyramid of Giza Approximately 11 miles (18 km) to the south of modern Al Qahirah is the site of the ancient Egyptian city of Memphis and adjoining necropolis of Saqqara. These cities were Al Qahirah's ancient predecessors, when Al Qahirah was still in this approximate geographical location.
[source: adapted from Wikipedia]
