Ahmed Ibn Tulun, son of a Turkish Mongol slave origins and whom the Abbasid Caliph Al-Ma’mu owned. Ibn Tulun rose from slave origin to become a man of great power and the founder of the Tulunid dynasty that started in 868 till 905 AD in Egypt. He was sent from Samara, the Abbasid capital to govern Fustat, but within two years he had been made governor of the whole country where he soon established himself as an independent ruler of the state by refusing to send the annual tribute to the Abbasid court. The Tulunid family ruled Egypt for 135 years. In order to instate an empire a city must be present to reflect the caliphate’s wealth as well as power, the city Ahmed Ibn Tulun built was called al-Qata’i “the wards” that is between Cairo and Fustat, amidst the capital on a hill called Jabal Yashkur a mosque was built to represent that new congregational type of plan mosque that replaced the one before it by Amr Ibn Al ‘As, which was too small to accommodate the Tulunid troops. Today this mosque is considered the oldest mosque in Egypt in its true form and also as the third largest mosque in the world. The Ibn Tulun Mosque is a rare architectural expression of the cultural Samaran realm, the home of Ibn Tulun, reflecting all the characteristic features of Samara. …show more content…
The mosque’s location that is the hill had many biblical legends revolving around it, with the mention of Noah, Moses, Abraham and Isaac and their stories, which gives the place a feel of diversity of