[641–1250] Early Islamic Period (Caliphates' Rule)
The year is 641. For centuries, the land of the pharaohs has answered to Rome, and then to its eastern successor, Byzantium. The golden eagle of the legions has been replaced by the cross of Constantinople. But now, a new force, born in the deserts of Arabia, is sweeping across the world. A general named Amr ibn al-As, at the head of a surprisingly small army of around 4,000 horsemen, stands at the gates of the mighty Roman fortress of Babylon, near modern-day Cairo. The conquest is shockingly swift. The old world, with its Greek-speaking administrators and imperial bureaucracy, crumbles. A new chapter for Egypt has begun. The first capital of this new Islamic Egypt was not the grand Cairo we know today. It was a military camp, a sprawling settlement of tents that grew into a city called Fustat, meaning "The City of Tents." Here, life began to change, but not always in the ways you might expect. The Arab conquerors were a minority, and they had no intention of forcing their religion on the populace. The Coptic Christians, who had long chafed under Byzantine rule, were initially treated with a degree of tolerance. They, along with the Jewish population, were designated *dhimmi*, or "protected people." They paid a special tax, the *jizya*, in return for which they were exempt from military service and allowed to practice their faith. For the average Egyptian farmer tending his fields along the Nile, life continued much as it had for a thousand years—a cycle of flood, planting, and harvest, governed by the timeless rhythm of the great river. But the grip of a distant Caliph in Damascus, and later in Baghdad, was often light. Egypt was the breadbasket of the empire, a source of immense wealth from its grain and taxes, and local governors began to yearn for more control. In 868, a man named Ahmad ibn Tulun, the son of a Turkic slave-soldier sent to govern Egypt, decided he would not just govern but rule. He stopped sending the majority of tax revenues to the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad and used the wealth to transform Egypt. He established the first independent dynasty in Islamic Egypt, the Tulunids. In his new capital, al-Qata'i, he commanded the construction of a spiritual fortress, the Mosque of Ibn Tulun. Even today, it stands as a testament to his ambition. Built from hardy red brick, not stone, its vast courtyard could hold his entire army for Friday prayers. Its most striking feature is the unique minaret, with an outer staircase spiraling towards the heavens, a design inspired by the great mosques of his homeland in Samarra, Iraq. This was a statement: Egypt was no longer a mere province, but a power in its own right. This new independence was a taste of things to come. A century later, in 969, a new power would not just govern Egypt, but redefine it. From across North Africa swept the Fatimids, a revolutionary Shi’a dynasty that considered the Sunni Caliphs in Baghdad to be illegitimate usurpers. They conquered Egypt and immediately began building a new, magnificent imperial city just north of Fustat. They named it *Al-Qahira*—"The Victorious." This is the city we now know as Cairo. Under Fatimid rule, Cairo blossomed into one of the world's greatest cities. Its wealth was staggering, fueled by control over trade routes that stretched from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. The narrow streets of Cairo were a kaleidoscope of humanity. The air was thick with the aroma of spices from the East and roasting meat from street stalls. The clang of the coppersmith’s hammer mixed with the call to prayer and the chatter of merchants haggling in a dozen languages. In the workshops, artisans perfected techniques for producing exquisite rock-crystal carvings, fine linens, and, crucially, paper—a technology that had arrived from the East and was now being produced in Egypt on a massive scale, fueling a boom in scholarship and administration. At the heart of this new city, the Fatimids founded the Al-Azhar Mosque in 970. It quickly evolved into a leading center of learning, what many consider the oldest degree-granting university in the world, a beacon for scholars from across the Islamic world. While the rulers were Shi'a, the population of Egypt remained largely Sunni, a religious tension that simmered beneath the surface of this golden age. But golden ages rarely last. By the mid-12th century, the Fatimid dynasty was decaying from within, its caliphs mere puppets in the hands of their viziers. At the same time, a new threat had appeared from the north: the European Crusaders, who had established kingdoms in Jerusalem and along the coast. The stage was set for another hero, another dramatic shift. He arrived not as a conqueror, but as a commander sent to help defend Egypt. His name was Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, known to the West as Saladin. A Kurdish general of impeccable skill and Sunni piety, Saladin found the Fatimid court in chaos. In 1171, he did the unthinkable: he simply deposed the last, young Fatimid caliph, ending two centuries of Shi’a rule without a major battle. He restored Egypt to the fold of Sunni Islam and established his own dynasty, the Ayyubids. Saladin's focus was on uniting the Muslim world to drive out the Crusaders. He saw Cairo not as a pleasure palace, but as a military stronghold. His most enduring legacy in the city is the colossal Citadel, a mountain of stone quarried from the Giza pyramids, built on a high spur of rock overlooking the city. It was a fortress designed to be impregnable, a seat of government that would dominate Cairo's skyline for the next 700 years. From here, he launched his legendary campaign against the Crusader states, culminating in his great victory at the Battle of Hattin in 1187 and his recapture of Jerusalem. Saladin was a builder and a warrior, a man who cemented Cairo's status as the political and cultural heart of the Islamic world, especially after the devastating Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1250. He relied on an elite corps of slave-soldiers, known as Mamluks, to form the core of his army. They were fiercely loyal and brutally effective. But the very system Saladin had perfected, the creation of a powerful, land-owning military caste, would be the one to supplant his own dynasty, paving the way for the next, and perhaps most spectacular, era of Egypt's story.