Cairo - El-Azhar Mosque

Turning right at the Sharia Gohan el-Qaid intersection, we soon come into Shari el-Azhar, which runs east from the Midan el-Ataba to the square in front of the El-Azhar Mosque. Turning left, we soon reach that square, in which there are many Arabic bookshops.

The El-Azhar Mosque (the "most blooming"), the finest building of the Fatimid period, was completed in 972 by Gohar, and in 988 was given the status of a university by Caliph El-Aziz. It was rebuilt after destruction by an earthquake in 1303, and thereafter the rulers and great ones of Egypt including the wealthy Abd el-Rahman Kihya in the 18th C. and Said Pasha, Taufiq and Abbas II in more recent times emulated one another in maintaining and enlarging this venerable building