Who was Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah?
Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah inherited both the throne and an unfinished great mosque. Work continued until the mosque was completed in 403 AH, becoming one of the most important religious buildings of Fatimid Cairo and a centre of religious learning alongside al-Azhar.
Over the following centuries the mosque went through many uses and changes, but it kept its huge scale and its position at the northern end of al-Muizz Street, almost touching Bab al-Futuh.
How did they shape Cairo?
A mosque of this size shows how far the ambitions of the Fatimid city reached at the start of the 5th century AH. When the walls were later rebuilt, the mosque ended up inside Cairo instead of outside its old wall. The site thus brings together, in one spot, the work of a Fatimid caliph and a military expansion that came decades later.
For visitors to Cairo, al-Hakim is more than a name in the list of caliphs: his name is fixed to one of the largest architectural spaces you can walk into on al-Muizz Street today.
Monuments linked to Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah
Where to see their legacy today
Combine your visit to the mosque with Bab al-Futuh and Bab al-Nasr to see the difference between Cairo in al-Hakim's time and Cairo after Badr al-Jamali's expansion.