We are still inside the Citadel. This visit was to the Mohammed Ali Mosque. (yea – who knew what he did before he became heavyweight champ?) The Ali Mosque was built between 1828 and 1848, so it’s relatively new compared to most of what we have seen so far. The Ali Mosque was built in the Ottoman Baroque style of architecture, like the great mosques of Istanbul, Turkey. It was built by the Ottoman Mohammed Ali Pasha.

The Citadel is on a high hilltop in Cairo and the Ali Mosque is the dominant structure in the Citadel, so the Ali Mosque is really a dominant structure in the skyline of Cairo. You can see it in the first photo though I couldn’t fit the whole mosque in the picture.

The second photo is just to give you an idea of the richness of some of the stone work. The third photo is taken in the courtyard which was a really large area. I think the whole courtyard and the area around it was all marble. It was very impressive.

We have now gone inside the mosque. The next photo is just a general shot of the inside area. You can see that it was very richly done in terms of materials, workmanship, and design. The inside area is also very large and could fit several thousand people.

The next photo is one that I took looking up at the roof from inside the mosque. It was designed to look much like the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.

The last photo, I just couldn’t pass up. On all our trips to this part of the world, people are always trying to sell us rugs. They always tell us how great the rugs are and that they last forever and you can leave them to your kids. I’ve always had my doubts about that. But our guide told us that the rug in this mosque has been here since the 1800s. So I took a picture of it, and I have to admit, it looks pretty good. Of course, we had to take our shoes off – the same as whenever we entered a mosque.