. Saladin and the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. of the citadel which he afterwardsbegan. All the way his road lay through thecrowded suburbs of the populace, whose housescovered the site where once had stood the famouscity of the Wards (el-Katai), where Ibn-Tulunthree centuries before had kept his kingly was, like the city of Cairo, essentiallyan official capital, and was inhabited chiefly by theking and his court, his soldiers, and his purveyors,each class in a separate ward. It was the thirdcapital built since the Arabs conquered Egypt, andof all its magnificence nothing r
. Saladin and the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. of the citadel which he afterwardsbegan. All the way his road lay through thecrowded suburbs of the populace, whose housescovered the site where once had stood the famouscity of the Wards (el-Katai), where Ibn-Tulunthree centuries before had kept his kingly was, like the city of Cairo, essentiallyan official capital, and was inhabited chiefly by theking and his court, his soldiers, and his purveyors,each class in a separate ward. It was the thirdcapital built since the Arabs conquered Egypt, andof all its magnificence nothing remains but theruined mosque of Ibn-Tulun, of which the grandeurand admirable designs reveal something of what hasbeen lost. Beyond, still to the south-west, oncestood el-Askar, the Camp, another official centre,where the governors dwelt who were sent fromBaghdad to rule Egypt in the days when the Ab-basid Caliph held undivided sway from the bordersof India to the Atlantic Ocean. Furthest south ofall, between the Abyssinians Lake and the Nile, lay. MOSQUE OF IBN-TULUN, CAIRO. 1171] Fust at. 117 what remained of the oldest capital of MohammedanEgypt, at once the official centre and the metropolisof commerce, called el-Fustat, the Tent, in mem-ory of the pavilion of the Arab conqueror. In spiteof the devastations of the great fire of 1168, theinhabitants had begun to return to their ruinedhomes and were trying to re-people the desolatestreets. But Fustat never recovered its lost pro-sperity, when its bazars were renowned for wealthand commerce, and its houses reared their six storiesaloft, and gardens of fruit and flowers stretched allaround. Now nothing remains but the old Mosqueof Amr, so often repaired and altered that itsfounder would not know it, and the Roman fortressof Babylon, the Castle of the Beacon of the Arabs,now a hive of Coptic churches served by Copticdrones, but once the guardian of a busy Christiancity, the ancient and populous Babylon of scanty suburb
Size: 1328px × 1882px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookauthorlanepool, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookyear1898
