How to Read the Minarets of Cairo

The minarets of Sultan Hassan and Al-Rifa'i mosques against a pink dawn sky

Cairo has been called the City of a Thousand Minarets for centuries. From any rooftop in the old city you can see dozens of them, and once you know what to look for, the skyline becomes a history book. Each era built its towers differently.

The spiral of Ibn Tulun

The oldest minaret people usually see is at the Mosque of Ibn Tulun (876–879). Its outer staircase winds around the tower and recalls the great spiral minaret of Samarra in Iraq, where Ibn Tulun grew up. You can climb it, and from the top the whole of Old Cairo lies in front of you. (We painted Samarra's own spiral in Samarra's Spiral Minaret.)

The minaret of Ibn Tulun Mosque with its outer staircase, against a clear blue sky
The minaret of Ibn Tulun, with its staircase on the outside.
Photo: Berthold Werner, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Mamluk minaret: three storeys and a crown

Most of the minarets on the skyline are Mamluk, built between the thirteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Read them from the bottom up: a square base, then an octagonal middle storey, then a slender round top with a small pavilion and a bulb-shaped finial. Each storey is separated by a carved balcony on stalactite-like brackets called muqarnas, where the muezzin once stood to call the prayer.

Look for the minaret of Al-Maridani Mosque (1340) rising over Bab al-Wazir, the pair of towers at the mosques of Sultan Hassan and Al-Rifa'i beneath the Citadel, and the forest of minarets around Al-Azhar, including the double-headed minaret of Sultan al-Ghuri. Sultan Hassan's mosque-madrasa (1356–1363) and Al-Rifa'i (completed 1912) stand side by side, so in one view you see the Mamluk original and its modern echo.

Birds sweeping past the minaret of Al-Maridani Mosque against a coral sky
The minaret of Al-Maridani Mosque, 1340. From our print The Wings of Cairo II.
Image: Blue Cairo
The carved minarets and dome of Al-Azhar Mosque in the sun
The minarets of Al-Azhar. From our print The Illuminated One.
Image: Blue Cairo

The Ottoman pencil

After the Ottomans arrived in 1517, a new shape appeared: tall, thin, round minarets ending in a sharp cone, like a pencil. The most famous are the twin minarets of the Mosque of Muhammad Ali on the Citadel (1830–1848), visible from almost everywhere in the city.

The Mosque of Muhammad Ali on the Citadel with its domes and two pencil-thin minarets
The Mosque of Muhammad Ali and its Ottoman pencil minarets.
Photo: kallerna, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Where to see them best

  • At sunrise or sunset from a rooftop café near Al-Azhar or the Citadel.
  • From the top of the minarets of Bab Zuwayla, at the end of Al-Muizz Street.
  • From Al-Azhar Park, where the whole Mamluk skyline is lined up against the sky.
Families on the lawns of Al-Azhar Park with the Citadel and minarets of Cairo on the horizon
The skyline from Al-Azhar Park.
Photo: Błażej Pindor, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

We have spent years photographing these towers at every hour. See them in Sunrise over Old Cairo, The Wings of Cairo II and The Illuminated One, part of our Old Cairo photography prints, or dreamt in blue in The Blue World.