Background
Egypt was conquered by Arab Muslims under in Amr ibn al-A'as in 641. Alexandria was then the capital of Egypt. However, even though the Arabs admired Alexandria's glamor and wealth, they chose to establish a new capital on the east bank of the Nile. That site would not be separated by water from Medina, then the residence of the Caliph. Here, the Amr ibn al-A'as Mosque was built, the first mosque in Africa. Later rulers added many additional mosques and palaces in the area around Amr Mosque.
Today, Islamic Cairo includes the Mosque of Ibn Tulun (the oldest and largest in Cairo), Al-Azhar University, the oldest university in the world, the Al-Hakim Mosque, and many other famous mosques and buildings.
Read more about this topic: Islamic Cairo
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“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)