Mosque of Ibn Tulun

جامع أحمد بن طولون

9th-century courtyard, Cairo's oldest intact mosque

⚠ Closed at Friday prayers

Tickets

Free entry; a donation to the caretaker for the minaret

Address

Ibn Tulun Street in Sayyida Zeinab, right beside the Gayer-Anderson Museum

A roofless square courtyard opens out to roughly the size of a football pitch, ringed by arched arcades. Built around 877 and barely altered since, it still carries stucco patterns that have clung to the walls for over a thousand years. The spiral minaret climbs outside the building, and from the top you see rooftops and the Citadel in one sweep. Shoes come off at the door, and the courtyard floor gets hot by midday.