Fustat in the context of "Al-Mu'izz Street"

Cairo is the capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world, and the Middle East. The Greater Cairo metropolitan area is one of the largest in the world by population with over 22 million people.

The area that would become Cairo was part of ancient Egypt, as the Giza pyramid complex and the ancient cities of Memphis and Heliopolis are near-by. Located near the Nile Delta, the predecessor settlement was Fustat following the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 641 next to an existing ancient Roman fortress, Babylon. Subsequently, Cairo was founded by the Fatimid dynasty in 969. It later superseded Fustat as the main urban centre during the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods (12th–16th centuries).

Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥusayn (Arabic: أبو محمد عبد الله بن الحسين; 31 July 874 – 4 March 934), better known by his regnal name al-Mahdī biʾllāh (Arabic: المهدي بالله, "The Rightly Guided by God"), was the founder of the Isma'ili Fatimid Caliphate, the only major Shi'a caliphate in Islamic history, and the eleventh Imam of the Isma'ili branch of Shi'ism.

He was born as Saʿīd ibn al-Ḥusayn (سعيد بن الحسين) in Askar Mukram to a family that led the secret Isma'ili missionary network (da'wa), propagating on behalf of the hidden imam, Muhammad ibn Isma'il, who would return as the prophesied Islamic messiah (mahdi). Orphaned at a young age, he moved to Salamiya, the family's base of operations, where he was adopted by his uncle. In the mid-890s Sa'id succeeded to the leadership of the expanding da'wa, which had expanded and gained adherents across the then Muslim world. However, his claims of not merely being a trustee of the hidden imam, but of him and his ancestors holding the imamate itself, led in 899 to a schism in the Isma'ili movement: those who did not recognise his claims split off to become the Qarmatians. The schism was followed by uprisings of pro-Isma'ili Bedouin in Syria in 902–903, launched without his consent by over-eager supporters, who aimed to force him to come forward as the mahdi. The Bedouin uprising was suppressed by the Abbasids, but drew the attention of the Abbasid Caliphate's authorities to him, forcing him to abandon Salamiya, and flee first to Ramla, then Fustat in Egypt, and finally Sijilmasa in what is now Morocco. There he remained, living as a merchant, until one of his missionaries, Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i, at the head of the Kutama Berbers overthrew the Aghlabid dynasty of Ifriqiya in 909.

The Fatimid conquest of Egypt took place in 969 when the troops of the Fatimid Caliphate under the general Jawhar captured Egypt, then ruled by the autonomous Ikhshidid dynasty in the name of the Abbasid Caliphate.

The Fatimids launched repeated invasions of Egypt soon after coming to power in Ifriqiya (modern Tunisia and eastern Algeria) in 909, but failed against the still-strong Abbasid Caliphate. By the 960s, however, while the Fatimids had consolidated their rule and grown stronger, the Abbasid Caliphate had collapsed, and the Ikhshidid regime was facing prolonged crisis: foreign raids and a severe famine were compounded by the death in 968 of the strongman Abu al-Misk Kafur. The resulting power vacuum led to open infighting among the various factions in Fustat, the capital of Egypt. The atmosphere of crisis was deepened by the simultaneous advances of the Byzantine Empire against the Muslim states of the Eastern Mediterranean. Meanwhile, Fatimid agents operated openly in Egypt, and the local elites increasingly came to accept and even welcome the prospect of a Fatimid takeover in hopes of ending the instability and insecurity.

Amr ibn al-As ibn Wa'il al-Sahmi (c. 585 – 664) was an Arab commander and companion of Muhammad who led the Muslim conquest of Egypt and served as its governor in 640–646 and 658–664. The son of a wealthy Qurayshite, Amr embraced Islam in c. 629 and was assigned important roles in the nascent Muslim community by the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The first caliph Abu Bakr (r. 632–634) appointed Amr as a commander of what became the conquest of Syria. He conquered most of Palestine, to which he was appointed governor, and helped lead the Arabs to decisive victories over the Byzantines at the battles of Ajnadayn and the Yarmuk in 634 and 636.

Amr launched the expedition that conquered Egypt on his own initiative in late 639, defeating the Byzantines in a string of victories ending with the surrender of Alexandria in 641 or 642. It was the swiftest of the early Muslim conquests. This was followed by westward advances by Amr as far as Tripoli in present-day Libya. In a treaty signed with the Byzantine governor Cyrus, Amr guaranteed the security of Egypt's population and imposed a poll tax on non-Muslim adult men. He maintained the Coptic-dominated bureaucracy and cordial ties with the Coptic patriarch Benjamin. He founded Fustat as the provincial capital with the mosque later called after him at its center. Amr ruled relatively independently, acquired significant wealth, and upheld the interests of the Arab conquerors who formed Fustat's garrison in relation to the central authorities in Medina. After gradually diluting Amr's authority, Caliph Uthman (r. 644–656) dismissed him in 646 after accusations of incompetence from his successor Abd Allah ibn Sa'd.

The Ikhshidid dynasty (Arabic: الإخشيديون, ALA-LC: al-Ikhshīdīyūn) was a Turkic dynasty of governors of mamluk origin, who governed Egypt and parts of the Levant from 935 to 969 on behalf of the Abbasid Caliphate. The dynasty carried the Arabic title "Wāli" reflecting their position as governors on behalf of the Abbasids. The Ikhshidids came to an end when the Fatimid army conquered Fustat in 969. Muhammad ibn Tughj al-Ikhshid, a Turkic mamluk soldier, was appointed governor by the Abbasid Caliph al-Radi.

The Ikhshidid family tomb was in Jerusalem.

Moses ben Maimon, commonly known as Maimonides and also referred to by the Hebrew acronym Rambam, was a Sephardic Jewish rabbi who is widely acknowledged as one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars of the Middle Ages. Originally from Córdoba, where he was born on Passover Eve of 1135 or 1138, his family was exiled from Muslim-ruled Spain when they refused to convert to Islam shortly after the Almohad Caliphate conquered the Almoravid Caliphate in 1148. Over the course of the next two decades, Maimonides resided in Fez, Acre, Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Cairo before finally settling in Fustat between 1168 and 1171. During this period, he advanced his vocations and became renowned for his achievements as an astronomer, philosopher, and physician—even being appointed to serve as personal physician to Saladin of the Ayyubid Sultanate.

Most contemporary Jews as far as Iraq and Yemen greeted Maimonides' writings on halakha and Jewish ethics with acclaim and gratitude. Yet, while he rose to lead the Jewish community in Egypt, he also had vociferous critics, particularly in Spain. He continued to live in Fustat until his death in 1204 and is said to have been buried in Tiberias. Accordingly, the Tomb of Maimonides in Tiberias holds importance as a Jewish pilgrimage site.

Shawar ibn Mujir al-Sa'di (Arabic: شاور بن مجير السعدي, romanized: Shāwar ibn Mujīr al-Saʿdī; died 18 January 1169) was the de facto ruler of Fatimid Egypt, as its vizier, from December 1162 until his assassination in 1169 by the general Shirkuh, the uncle of the future Ayyubid leader Saladin, with whom he was engaged in a three-way power struggle against the Crusader Amalric I of Jerusalem. Shawar was notorious for continually switching alliances, allying first with one side, and then the other, and even ordering the burning of his own capital city, Fustat, just so that the enemy could not have it.

Old Cairo (Arabic: مصر القديمة, romanized: Miṣr al-Qadīma, Egyptian pronunciation: Maṣr El-ʾAdīma) is a historic area in Cairo, Egypt, which includes the site of a Roman-era fortress, the Christian settlement of Coptic Cairo, and the Muslim-era settlement of Fustat that pre-dates the founding of Cairo proper in 969 AD. It is part of what is referred to as Historic Cairo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Miṣr al-Qadīma is also a modern administrative district in the Southern Area of Cairo, encompassing the area from the Cairo Aqueduct to the north, to the Ring Road in the south, and from the Khalifa cemetery to the east, to the Nile Corniche in the west, as well as Roda Island, or Manial al-Roda. It had 250,313 residents according to the 2017 census.