The Mosque of Ibn Tulun is the oldest mosque in Cairo still in its original form — built in 879 CE and surviving largely intact for over a thousand years. It is also the largest mosque in Cairo by area, with an enormous courtyard surrounded by arcades of brick arches decorated with stucco carvings.
The design is distinctive: the mosque is built on a raised platform, entered through an outer courtyard that once separated it from the surrounding city. The spiral external staircase of the minaret is unique in Egypt. The Gayer-Anderson Museum, housed in two 16th-century houses attached to the mosque, contains a remarkable private collection of Islamic art and furnishings assembled by a British officer in the early 20th century. Both can be visited together.