Joey Michilli

 Ibn Ṭūlūn, huge complex built in 876 by the Turkish governor of Egypt and Syria. It was built on the site of present-day Cairo and includes a mosque surrounded by three outer ziyādahs, or courtyards. Much of the decoration and design recalls the ʿAbbāsid architecture of Iraq. The crenelated outside walls are shaped and perforated in a decorative pattern. The courtyards are lined with arcades of broad arches and heavy pillars. In the mosque and the courtyard the arches are decorated with elaborate designs in carved stucco. The roofed oratory of the mosque is divided by pillars into five long aisles or naves originally ornamented with panels of carved wood.

The building was restored several times, notably between 1296 and 1299, when the wall facing Mecca and the minaret—which has three floors, each in a different shape (square, spiral, and octagonal)—were rebuilt. It was used as a belt factory in the 18th century and was divided into shops in 1814. Classed as a historic monument in 1890, the mosque has since been completely restored.

Tulun himself was a Turkish slave from Bokhara who was given to Caliph Mamun in 815 AD as a present. Afterwards, he became a powerful and influential person in the court of Mamun, allowing his son Ahmad Ibn Tulun (ibn means son of) to be well educated in the best traditions of Islamic law and government. As a young man, Ahmad was a loyal servant to his caliph in Samarra (north of modern Baghdad), Mesopotamia and when his father died and his stepfather was given Egypt as a sort of private estate by the caliph, Ahmad Ibn Tulun was sent to administer the country.

Ibn Tulun's appointment as prefect of Egypt came in 868 and at the end of a long period of political strife. The Bashmurite rebellion of 832 in the Nile River delta between the river's Rosetta and Damietta branches was the last and most violent of the Christian uprisings in Egypt. Caliph Mamun himself had spent forty-nine days in Egypt taking part in its suppression. Maqrizi, a well known historian of that period, says that, "From then on, the Copts were obedient and their power was destroyed once and for all; none were able to rebel or even oppose the government, and the Muslims gained a majority in the villages". In 853 the Byzantines successfully attacked Damietta, and then from 866 to 868 AD and Arab-led revolt smoldered in a vast region of the delta and Fayoum.

It is said that this was a Christian cemetery where Moses was supposed to have had a conversation with God, and where Abraham slew his sacrifice. Muslims considered it a holy place, since Christians and Jews were both respected by Islam as "people of the Book". However, Ibn Tulun cleared the Christian graves from the area and built his royal capital around the hill. This new town was divided into special katais (districts) for each segment of the population who came there to live. Each of these districts was then named according to the kind of population, consisting of servants, soldiers, guards, Romans (actually Greeks) or Nubians. Hence, the city was called Katai (al-Qatai, the districts, the wards or the plots). This by the way was a tradition from Samarra, which was likewise divided into districts. There, Ibn Tulun built a palace (qasr) at the foot of the Mukattam Hills, a garden, a racecourse and polo grounds, a zoo, a palace for his wives, baths, a hospital and rich houses for his staff. A road led from the palace and the square to the mosque and the "Main Avenue (Shari el Azam), which possibly coincides with that would become Saliba Street. Now the city that would become Cairo consisted of three capitals built by three rulers, consisting of Askar, Fustat and Katai, and with Ibn Tulun, it began to take on the decorative style that made it a genuinely fabulous place.

Ibn Tulun sat in a little summerhouse he had built high up on the Gate of Lions and at night, look down on his square which would always be filled with people and lights.  By simply turning around, he could see the Mukattam on one side and the Nile on the other. In fact, the whole conception of this midan implies a rich and prosperous population, as well as one that was not under too much restraint.

Sources-(http://www.muslimheritage.com/article/ibn-tulun-mosque)