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Cairo (Arabic: al-Qahira; Misr al-Qahira;

or Misr)

The capital of egypt, Cairo is a global metropolis

of about 16.8 million residents (est. 2008), the

largest Muslim city in the world. It straddles the

Nile River near the ancient pyramids of Giza and

occupies an area of 82.6 square miles (214 square

kilometers) at the southern tip of the Nile Delta in

northern Egypt. Most Cairenes (Cairo residents)

are Sunni Muslims who follow the shaFii legal

school, but it is also home to a sizeable Coptic

Orthodox Christian population of several million

as well as immigrant communities from the wider

region of the Mediterranean basin, Africa, and the

Middle East. It hosts international businessmen,

diplomats, reFUgees, scholars, and technical per-

sonnel working for foreign companies. al-azhar,

the foremost Sunni university, is located there, as

are dozens of remarkable mosques, churches, and

other monuments that date back to as early as the

seventh century. It is also the seat of the patriarch-

ate of the Coptic Orthodox Church and has cathe-

drals belonging to several other Eastern Orthodox

churches. A thriving Jewish community once lived

there, but most Egyptian Jews emigrated to israel

after its creation in 1948. Cairo has played such an

important role in the cultural, social, economic,

and political life of the country and the region

that the nation itself is officially known as Misr,

one of the Arabic names for Cairo. In colloquial

Arabic, Egyptians like to boast, “Masr (colloquial

for Misr) is the mother of the world”—the center

of civilized life. Despite its prestige and the influ-

ence it holds in Arab and Muslim countries, Cairo

is beset by the same problems faced by many other

large, crowded modern cities—urban crowding,

housing shortages, pollution, unemployment and

underemployment, and a stressed infrastructure.

The history of Cairo begins with a garrison

town named Fustat that was built on the east

bank of the Nile by the Muslim army of about

10,000 soldiers that invaded Egypt in 641. Fus-

tat was situated next to an old Roman fortress

known as Babylon. At the town’s center was the

governor’s residence and a small congregational

mosqUe, called the Mosque of Amr after the Mus-

lim commander Amr ibn al-As (d. ca. 663). This

mosque-government complex was surrounded by

markets and residential quarters for the different

Arab tribal groups that had formed the core of the

invading Muslim army. Fustat served as the first

capital of Egypt during the Umayyad caliphate

(661–750), based in damascUs, and the abbasid

caliphate (750–1258), based in baghdad. By

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