Issue Date: 6 / 2005

The Citadel: Saladin's Fortress for the Ages

Turkish Governor Yakan Pasha's private entrance to the Citadel, Bab al-Gabal and the massive Burg al-Muqattan tower. (Stephen Henkin) Click image to enlarge.        "Its land is gold, its people are sheep, and it belongs to whomever is strong enough to take it," said Gen. Amr ibn al-As in 639 to excuse the Arab conquest of Egypt. Amr set the pattern whereby a series of invading Islamic armies would rule Egypt from heavily fortified garrison cities.                While Egyptians and Arabs alike were housed in flourishing administrative and commercial centers, a series of Arab governors appointed by the caliphs ("successors" of Muhammad) from their capital, Damascus, Syria, fearing for their safety from the common people, moved to palace compounds surrounded by their armies and high walls. Succeeding Islamic forces, the Abbasids, the Fatimids, and the Sangrids, from the eighth century through the First Crusade, exercised their will from such fortified cities.                One of these rulers, an Abbasid governor, Hatim ibn Harthama, in his effort to ensure perpetual privacy, was a harbinger of greater things to come when he constructed a pleasure pavilion in 810 called the Dome of the Winds, where he spent his summer evenings delighting in the cool breeze blowing in from the north. Little did Hatim realize that his exclusive retreat, located on the Muqattam spur, a sprawling outcrop of limestone on the eastern edge of Cairo, would be the future site of one of the most impressive fortifications on earth, the Citadel, built by Saladin, an Ayyubid general from Damascus.                Al-Malik an-Nasr Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub (the Victorious King, Rectitude of the Faith, Joseph, son of Job), more easily known in the West as Saladin, was a Kurd who relinquished his position of authority in Damascus. According to his secretary, Ibn Shaddad, he "gave up forever wine and all pleasures of this world, dedicating himself to serious affairs and hard work." Such newfound determination became apparent when the young wazir crushed a Fatimid-led revolt in Cairo. After abolishing Fatimid rule in 1171 and reintroducing Sunni Islam as Egypt's official religion, Saladin began work on his most ambitious and lasting project--the Citadel (Al-Qalaa), which proved to be home to Egypt's rulers for seven hundred years.                Hatching the idea of the Citadel                Part of his overall plan for the refortification of the entire Egyptian capital against Crusader attack, Saladin in 1176 decreed the construction of a massive citadel on the Muqattam spur. The general's military advisers had suggested that the strategic rocky outcrop would overlook the deserted plain between the cities of al-Fustat and al-Qahira, which required separate garrisons for defense. But Saladin saw things differently. Like governor Hatim centuries before, Saladin was initially enticed by the Muqattam Hills site due to its enticing natural environment.                The fifteenth-century Egyptian historian, Taqi al-Din al-Maqrizii, noted a legend that the Citadel site was chosen by a healthy-air test established by Saladin. It is said that he first hung pieces of meat in various Cairo locations, and found that they went bad after a single day in the fierce Egyptian heat. When similar pieces of meat were placed on the Citadel hill, they remained fresh for more than two days. But Saladin was also wise in military matters. Raised in Syria, where every key town had its own protective citadel which served as both a stronghold and royal residence, the Muqattam spur provided the only natural site for a Syrian-style fortress. Being a Kurd, he was also familiar with citadels in Anatolia.                The Citadel's elevated, central position would dominate al-Fustat and al-Qahira while posing a significant obstacle to foreign armies invading Egypt. As a further defensive measure, the two cities were to be linked to the new fortress by a series of long enclosing walls. For the first time, the separate urban centers that made up the Egyptian capital were to be united within a single defensive system, which would set the boundaries for the future growth of Cairo (al-Qahira) into a unified city. Under Saladin's plan, Cairo's size was increased tenfold while security was increased in the area surrounding the Citadel.                Under the supervision of Saladin's palace controller, Baha al-Din Qaraqush (Black Eagle), construction of the Citadel began in 1176 with the demolition of the Fatimid mosques and tombs on the site. Then he began building the stone walls and towers that still ring the hill.                Al-Maqrizi reports that Saladin "employed fifty thousand Crusader prisoners-of-war" to build the Citadel, and that "three small pyramids at Giza, a short distance away, were dismantled and mined for a supply of ready-cut stone blocks." Stone for the encircling walls and eleven great towers came from an ancient quarry on the east side of the Muqattam itself--used thousands of years earlier by the pyramid builders--had the additional advantage of separating it from the rest of the Muqattam range.                The Spanish Muslim traveler, Ibn Jubayr, visiting Cairo in 1183, the year the Citadel was completed, told of Crusader prisoners hard at work on the fortress: "We looked upon the building of the Citadel, an impregnable fortress adjoining Cairo, which the sultan thinks to take as his residence…The forced laborers on this construction and those executing all the skilled services and vast preparations--such as sizing the marble, cutting the huge stones, and digging the moat that girdles the walls, hollowed out with pick-axes from the rock--are all foreign prisoners whose numbers are beyond computation."                Awesomely impenetrable                While today's Citadel may appear as a genteel collection of different-style mosques, several palaces housing some forgettable museums, and impressive fortifications offering superb panoramas of the city, in its time Saladin's impregnable fortress was a supremely discouraging factor to Egypt's would-be conquerors.                Utilizing castle-building technology that had developed out of nearly one hundred years of warfare against the Crusaders, its dressed stone walls are thirty-three-feet high and ten feet thick. Built on solid rock wherever possible, they are above ground level to prevent undermining, an often successful method of breaching fortifications during a medieval siege.                In those days, Middle Eastern military architecture was much the same as European. Indeed, the Crusader prisoners employed by Saladin may have helped build Crusader castles of their own in Syria and Palestine. Whether in the East or West, a citadel is meant to be a self-contained fortress, capable of withstanding a long siege by armies equipped with slings and catapults, scaling ladders, and ramming devices, while at the same time being able to rain down flaming arrows, boiling pitch, and rocks on the attackers.                Along the Citadel's intimidating exterior, small, half-round towers with inner chambers project from the outer facade every 333 feet, permitting the defending garrison to direct flanking fire toward enemy soldiers trying to scale the walls. The towers are connected by ramparts, once protected by crenelation and by interior corridors, which ran the entire length of the Citadel's original 6,993-foot circumference. The corridors contain small rooms every thirty-three feet with window slits to admit light and allow hidden archers to shoot at enemies from the safety of the inner walls.                Even accessing the Citadel peacefully proved a quite a task. The new fortress initially had three major entrances. Visitors arriving on foot at the main public entrance on its northwestern side had to climb a steep, winding flight of steps cut out of sheer rock in order to enter the Bab Al-Mudarrag (Gate of the Steps). On entering, one could see the Citadel's founding inscription, which read in part: "Our master, al-Malik al-Nasir Salah al-Dunya wa al-Din Abu al-Muzaffar Yusuf ibn Ayyub, restorer of the caliph, has ordered the construction of this magnificent citadel close to the God-protected city of al-Qahirah, on the strong hill of al-Armah, which combines utility and beauty and gives sanctuary to whoever seeks shelter in the shadow of his kingdom."                The other gates are on the east and south sides of the enclosure, with both protected by twin towers and bent entranceways for maximum defense. Their names are now unknown, but the southern entrance was probably the Bab al-Qarafa (Cemetery Gate), named for the burial grounds located near the fortress. Today, the eastern gate is known by its eighteenth-century name, the Burg al-Imam. Facing the Muqattam Hills, it was the entrance most exposed to enemy attack. In order to discourage battering rams, it was built above ground level and could only be reached by crossing a raised bridge over a fifty-three-foot-wide moat. If enemy soldiers had penetrated either of these gates, they would have met a death trap of inner walls lined with archers, ninety-degree turns into a tunnel, all ending with yet another gate.                In order to survive protracted sieges, the remarkable Bir Yusuf (Well of Joseph, referring to Saladin) was cut straight down through 287 feet of solid limestone, to the level of the Nile River, supplying the fortress with its own impregnable source of drinking water, albeit brackish. A platform at the top and another halfway down the shaft were constructed for ox-powered pumps that raised the water to the to the Citadel above. An enclosed spiral staircase surrounds the well, with windows providing light opening onto the inner shaft. The stairs descend to the lower level, thus giving the well its second name, the Bir Al-Halazun (Well of the Snail.)                For those able to peacefully visit the Citadel, it was a magnificent visual experience in terms of the fortress' sheer scale and the assorted usage of the vast area contained within. The new Citadel was divided into two parts: the Northern Enclosure, consisting of barracks and administrative quarters, and the Southern Enclosure, separated from the northern half by a curtain wall and towers and which gradually developed into a heavily protected royal residence.                A city within a fortress                The immense size of the Citadel--sixty-five acres--afforded room for growth and diversification of societal functions. Under the Mamluk rulers of Egypt (1250-1517), life within the fortress became a highly organized process for some twenty thousand residents, who spent much time witnessing spectacular and solemn processions, along with attending the daily prayers. Having evolved into a completely self-contained royal city, the Citadel was complete with workshops, market, royal mint, a farmyard for two thousand head of cattle, and stables for about ten thousand horses, while the elite Southern Enclosure was brimming with opulent mosques, bathhouses, and regal palace pavilions. Mosque of Muhammad Ali, constructed in the grand Ottoman style by the founder of modern Egypt at the Citadel. (Stephen Henkin) Click image to enlarge.                In the ensuing centuries, various structures of assorted purposes sprang up in the Citadel. In the Southern Enclosure, which has become the main tourist area, is the Mosque of Mohammed Ali. The mosque, modeled along the lines of classic Turkish architecture, took eighteen years to build (1830-1848) and boasts two minarets, each 271 feet high; a 172-foot-high central dome; and a prayer hall of more than 2,178 square yards. Despite its impressive size and European-inspired embellishments, purists claim it is an unimaginative copy of the great mosques of Istanbul.                Within this enclosure is the Citadel's sole surviving Mamluk structure, the Mosque of an-Nasir Mohammed (1318), best distinguished by minarets covered with glazed tiles, something seldom seen in Egyptian mosques. Other structures include the National Police Museum, which replaced the Military Prison in 1984, and the Gawhara Palace and Museum, located where the pasha Mohammed Ali (1805-1849) resided and received guests.                The Northern Enclosure is accessed through the sixteenth-century Bab al-Qulla gate. Within is Egypt's National Military Museum, located in Mohammed Ali's onetime Harem Palace, once home to his two thousand concubines. Further testifying to the impact of tourism on the Citadel as well as recalling the Egyptian royal family, is the Carriage Museum, displaying nineteenth-century horse-drawn carriages. Even more esoteric is the Seized Antiquities Museum that showcases assorted antiquities taken from would-be smugglers.                The architectural jewel of the Northern Enclosure is the Mosque of Suleyman Pasha (1528), a magnificent structure from the Ottoman era (1517-1798) that follows the Islamic architectural conventions of Istanbul rather than those of Cairo. Set within a garden enclosure, it has a dome-covered prayer hall; a domed outer arcade; and a pencil-shaped minaret. Painted Qur'anic inscriptions and arabesque designs cover the interior walls, while inlaid marble, the work of Egyptian craftsmen in the Mamluk tradition, graces the prayer hall and outer court.                To Cairenes, the Citadel is Qal'at al-Jabal, the Fortress on the Mountain, or simply al-Qal'ah, the Fortress. The structure's massive towers and walls, rivaling any in the medieval world, remain as strong as when they were built. So great a deterrence over eight centuries, Saladin's foreboding Citadel was never once attacked. (The fortress did strike back, however, when Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion force fired cannonballs onto Cairo from the Citadel in retaliation for a rebellion.)                Major battles were fought far from its walls, while Saladin led forces that drove the Crusader armies out of Syria and triumphantly recaptured Jerusalem. Crusader armies were later repulsed at Damietta at the mouth of the Nile, long before they could reach Cairo.                In its prime, Saladin's empire extended from Cairo and Aleppo in northern Syria to the borders of Mesopotamia and southward along the Nile into Nubia, and included Yemen and parts of western Arabia. Yet, despite his vast conquests, Saladin never lived in the Citadel, which was completed soon after his death.                The fortress played a military role until1952, when the British Army, which had barracked in the fortress since World War II, was replaced by Egyptian soldiers. Today, except for a small army presence, the Citadel is a major tourist spot in Cairo, with hordes of visitors admiring Saladin's mighty legacy. Surely this would have greatly pleased the great conqueror.                 Stephen Henkin is a contributing editor to The World & I Online.