Who was Al-Zahir Baybars?
Al-Zahir Baybars became sultan while the Mamluk state was being founded and was establishing its power after the Mongol invasion and the Crusader conflicts. Alongside his military and administrative work, in 665 AH he began building his great mosque in Cairo on a large site of about three feddans.
Over the following centuries the mosque was put to military and civil uses that stripped it of many of its features, then went through long phases of restoration that ended with it being brought back to life and reopened.
How did they shape Cairo?
The Mosque of al-Zahir Baybars matters because it represents royal Mamluk architecture at an early stage, before the great complexes of Bayn al-Qasrayn and the Citadel flourished in the two centuries that followed. Its large size shows the new state's wish to make its presence felt in Cairo through massive public building.
Its journey from mosque to fort and storehouse, then through a long restoration, also makes it a witness to how the use of monuments changed as power and the city changed.
Monuments linked to Al-Zahir Baybars
Where to see their legacy today
A visit to the mosque gives a different picture of the Mamluks away from al-Muizz Street and the Citadel: it is a huge monument in the Zahir district that shows how far Mamluk Cairo spread beyond its old centre.