Amr Mosque - al Fustat

Amr Mosque

al Fustat, Cairo, Egypt

The Oldest Mosque in Africa

The mosque of Amr is the first mosque to be built in Egypt and Africa, was founded by Amr Ibn al-‘As, the commander of the conquering Arab troops who opened Egypt in 641 AD.
The mosque of Amr in its preset form doesn’t have that historical significance for the art or architecture historians ,as the mosque does not exist in its original form, the recent configuration of the mosque is the result of many successive restorations, enlargements, modifications and, reconstructions, through the 14 centuries, and no remains of the original mosque built by Amr himself still exist, The Historical importance of the Mosque comes from the fact that it still located in the same spot of land where Amr plotted the first mosque ever built in Africa.

When the first Muslims reached Egypt in April, 641 AD, they camped near the Byzantine Papillion fort and, and after their settlement the same site was chosen to set up their new capital al-Fustat. The name of the new capital was taken from the Arabic word Fustat , which means “tent” in classical Arabic, denoting the place where Amr set up his tent The new emerging capital has been grown through centuries and got its final name al-Qahira or as pronounced in English as Cairo.

The original building of Amr mosque was much smaller than the present building , as in Creswell’s the building was around 30 meters by 17 meters area, And as the main features of the early mosques to imitate the Prophet’s mosque in Madina , the mosque of Amr was so simple and primitive building, aiming only to maintaining the functional purposes of the mosque in the simplest constructions, Built with mud or mud adobes with palm tree trunks as pilasters, and simple roof .The building was a single area building with no court, no plaster, no minaret, no floor paving, nor decorations. Only were there the minimal requirements for gathering prayer room.
The mosque kiblah wall was oriented to Mecca, and the roof of the building was used as a place for the muezzin to say out the call for the prayer loudly.

In less than 3 0 years, the original building of Amr mosque was put down by the Muslims under the pressure of the need of extra area for prayers, and the growing population of the new capital of Egypt . From that time Amr's mosque witnessed many successive construction works, to enlarge or restore the magnificent trace of Amr Ibn al-"As.

The present form of the Mosque ..... (to be continued )

All Photos are original by EgyTarek