Al-Fustat

Fustat: a city in Egypt. al-Baladhuri reports that it used to be called Yunah, and that the Muslims named it Fustat because they said, "This is the tent (fustat) of the people and their gathering place." Others say it was because Amr pitched a tent there. ¹

Amr ibn al-As (may God be pleased with him) came down at the gardens of Janan al-Rayhan, where its people had dug a trench. al-Zubayr climbed its fortress by a ladder with his sword drawn, and it was taken by force. al-Zubayr laid out plots and built his well-known house there. ¹

Its poll-tax was set at two dinars for every adult male except the poor, and its land was made kharaj land. ¹

It is a site in the events of the conquest of Egypt and the kharaj of Egypt.

Al-Maqrizi, quoting al-Jawhari, says that fustat was originally a tent of hair, and that the city of Egypt took its name from it. ²

When the Muslims laid out Fustat, the seat of the kingdom moved from Alexandria, which had been the residence of the king and the seat of government for more than nine hundred years, and Fustat became the seat of government where the amirs of Egypt lived. ²

The amirs then built al-Askar outside Fustat, and Ahmad ibn Tulun built al-Qata'i beside it. The amirs moved to these, the common people stayed in Fustat, and its building reached a density that exceeded that of most cities of the inhabited world, Baghdad excepted. ²

Al-Maqrizi also says that the Muslims laid out Fustat around the mosque of Amr ibn al-As and the Qasr al-Sham'. ³

When Shawar could not hold Fustat and Cairo together, he ordered the people to leave Fustat and join Cairo, and then had the fire set in Fustat, so that most of its houses burned, so that the Franks would not take it. After Mirrai left Cairo, the people went back to Fustat. ²

al-Mas'udi reports that some of the pyramids can be seen from Fustat, several miles away. ⁴

al-Maqdisi arrived there around the year 375 AH. He called it Misr, the copier of Baghdad and the pride of Islam. He reports that a single house was home to about two hundred souls, and that about ten thousand people prayed behind the imam on Friday. ⁵