Imagining Fatimid Cairo

March 21, 2008

The image above is from an essay entitled "Bayn al-Qasrayn: The Street between Two Palaces" by Nezar Alsayyad (from the edited collection Streets: Critical Perspectives on Public Space). This is a representation of the central zone of Cairo at the end of the Fatimid dynasty.. so say 1150 AD. The two main structures in this image are the palaces for the Fatimid caliph/imam. Out of everything seen in this image, only the small al-Aqmar moque labeled #4 remains today. The gardens behind the palace labeled #2 were filled in with structures almost as soon as the Fatimids fell. The palaces themselves were quickly transformed.. the space they occupied becoming the sites for numerous monuments.

This is the most detailed attempt to imagine the palace complex of the Fatimids that I have yet found. The area of the palaces is not difficult to reconstruct since the length and breadth of the palaces are all described by al-Maqrizi. But it is something else to try to imagine how it actually looked. The Persian traveler Naser-e Khusraw describes the palace.. which as the home of the Fatimid imam was more than a political center.. as towering like a mountain when seen from a distance. I am not convinced that this image represents such a towering palace. But that is not to say we are not impressed at the attempt here to represent the complex. We will try to point out other attempts to visualize Fatimid Cairo as we come across them.