al-Qata'i

Al-Qata'i was the government suburb to which Ahmad ibn Tulun moved the seat of government from al-Askar after he came to Egypt, at the foot of the present Citadel below the "Dome of the Air". ¹ He laid it out on the model of Samarra, the Abbasid capital where he had grown up: it covered over 1.6 square kilometres and held a mosque, government buildings and a palace complex beside a hippodrome. ^{3 1}

When the caliphate passed to the Abbasids in 750 the governors left Fustat and set up a new centre in the suburb of al-Askar to the north-east, formerly the district of al-Hamra al-Quswa; it became their army's camp, and there for the first time they built a palace as the official seat of government. ⁴ They also built a palace known as the Dome of the Air on a spur of the Muqattam hills, where the Citadel now stands. ⁴

The palace comprised several buildings, among them a separate harem, extensive gardens and a menagerie; palace and hippodrome together were called al-Maydan, the city's recreational centre for military parades, horse races and polo. ¹ Gates served different classes: a triple gate, the Bab al-Maydan, was reserved for the army, who rode through its outer arches leaving the central arch for Ibn Tulun; others were the Gate of the Nobles, the Gate of the Harem, the Gate of al-Darmun, the Saj Gate and the Gate of the Lions, crowned by a gallery and two stucco lions. ¹

The city had a hospital, many markets and bath-houses supplied by the Aqueduct of Basatin, which brought water from a spring in the southern desert and was built by a Copt. ¹ Its greatest building was the Mosque of Ibn Tulun. ⁵

Khumarawayh son of Ahmad enlarged the palace and turned the Maydan into a garden; Yeomans quotes al-Maqrizi's description of its trees sheathed in gilt copper and of the lake of quicksilver laid out before the palace. ^{6 2}

After the Tulunids weakened, the caliph sent his army to Syria and then against Egypt by land and sea; it took Fustat in 905, and the commander Muhammad ibn Sulayman let his troops loose, so that al-Qata'i with all its palaces was destroyed and only the Mosque of Ibn Tulun was left. ²