Editing Fortifications of Cairo (section)

=== Ayyubid walls ===
[[File:Ayyubid wall Cairo DSCF1591.jpg|thumb|Part of the eastern city wall, dating from the [[Ayyubid dynasty|Ayyubid]] period (12th–13th centuries) and excavated in the last few decades (as seen from [[al-Azhar Park]])]]
[[Saladin|Salah ad-Din]], the founder of the [[Ayyubid dynasty]], restored the Fatimid walls and gates in 1170<ref name=":11" /> or 1171.<ref name=":8" /> He reconstructed parts of the walls, including the eastern wall.<ref name=":11" /> In 1176, he then embarked on a project to radically expand the city's fortifications. This project included the construction of the [[Citadel of Cairo]] and of a 20 kilometer-long wall to connect and protect both Cairo (referring to the former royal city of the Fatimids) and [[Fustat]] (the main city and earlier capital of Egypt a short distance to the southwest). The entirety of the envisioned course of the wall was never quite completed, but long stretches of the wall were built, including the section to the north of the Citadel and a section near Fustat in south. Work continued under subsequent Ayyubid sultans.<ref name=":03">{{Cite book |last=Raymond |first=André |url=https://archive.org/details/cairo0000raym |title=Cairo |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-674-00316-3 |language=en |translator-last=Wood |translator-first=Willard |orig-date=1993}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=90–91}}<ref name=":322" />

[[Al-Maqrizi]], a writer from the later Mamluk period, reports several details about the construction. In 1185–6, the wall around Fustat was being built. In 1192, a trench was being built for the eastern fortifications,<ref name=":03" />{{Rp|pages=|page=91}} by which time some of the eastern wall and its towers were probably in place.<ref name=":8" /> Work continued after Salah ad-Din's death (1193) under his successors, [[Al-Adil I|al-'Adil]] and [[al-Kamil]]. In 1200, orders went out to dig the remaining course of the wall.<ref name=":03" />{{Rp|pages=|page=91}} More sections of the wall were completed by 1218,<ref name=":8" /> but by 1238 work was apparently still ongoing.<ref name=":03" />{{Rp|pages=|page=91}}

The new Ayyubid extensions also added several new gates, of which eight have been identified.<ref name=":03" />{{Rp|pages=|page=96}} The northern extension of the wall, running west from Bab al-Futuh, added two new gates in this area: ''Bāb al-Sharī'ah'' ("Gate of the Law [<nowiki/>[[Sharia]]]"), located close to the Fatimid walls, and ''Bāb al-Baḥr'' ("Gate of the Sea/Water"), located further west and close to the Nile River. The eastern walls near Cairo (north of the Citadel) included, from north to south: ''Bāb al-Jadīd'' ("New Gate"), ''Bāb al-Barqiyya'', and ''Bāb al-Mahrūq'' ("Burned Gate"). The new section of walls near Fustat (south of the Citadel) included, from north to south: ''Bāb al-Qarāfa'' ("Gate of the Cemetery [<nowiki/>[[al-Qarafa]]]") and ''Bāb al-Safā''.<ref name=":03" />{{Rp|pages=87, 96}}