The Mosque of Amr Ibn El Ass, the commander of the Muslim army that conquered Egypt, is the first mosque in Egypt. For several centuries, this Mosque had been the religious and social center of the cosmopolitan city and the old capital El Fustat .
In 641, Amr entered Egypt after the surrender of Alexandria. When the whole country became under Muslim rule, Amr chose El Fustat as the capital of Islamic Egypt. He initiated the construction of that mosque that can be regarded as Cairo's oldest mosque in his life time, though it had been completed several years after his death.
The Mosque had been enlarged and restored several times, since it suffered from various earthquakes and from the destruction of Fustat during the Crusades. Thus, only few remains form the original Mosque can be seen no...
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