Al-Askar

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Al-Askar (العسكر) was the capital of Egypt from 750-868 AD, when the Abbasid caliphate was in power in Egypt.

History

The previous Umayyad empire, the first Arab conquerors of Egypt, had wrested the capital from thousand-year-old Alexandria in 641, and then established their own capital, al-Fustat, on the eastern side of the Nile. The reach of the Umayyads was extensive, stretching from western Spain all the way to eastern China. However, they were invaded by the Abbasids, who moved the capital of the Umayyad empire itself to Baghdad. In Egypt, this shift in power involved moving control from the Umayyad city of Fustat, slightly north to the Abbasid city of al-Askar. Its full name was Medinat al-Askar, which meant "City of Canonments" or "City of Sections".

Intended primarily as a city large enough to house an army, it was laid out in a grid pattern that could be easily subdivided into separate sections for various groups such as merchants and officers.

The peak of the Abbasid dynasty occurred during the reign of Haroon al Rashid, along with increased taxes on the Egyptians, who rose up in a peasant revolt in 832, during the time of caliph Maamoon. Local Egyptian governors gained more and more autonomy, and in 870, governor Ahmad Ibn-Tulun declared Egypt's independence (though still under the rule of the Abbasid Caliph). As a symbol of this independence, in 868 Tulun founded yet another capital, Al-Qatta'i, slightly further north of al Askar. The capital remained there until 905, until the city was destroyed, and the administrative capital of Egypt then returned to al-Fustat.

Fustat itself was destroyed by fire a vizier-ordered fire that burned from 1168 to 1169, at which time the capital moved to nearly al Qahira (Cairo), where it has remained to this day. Cairo's bounds grew to eventually encompass the three earlier capitals of Fustat, Qatta'i and Askar, the remnants of which can today be seen in "Old Cairo" in the southern part of the city.

References

• http://ce.eng.usf.edu/pharos/cairo/history/arab.html
• http://menic.utexas.edu/cairo/history/qattai/qattai.html

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Last updated on Tuesday September 18, 2007 at 03:53:40 PDT (GMT -0700)
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