Azbakeya

Azbakeya (Arabic: أزبكية‎; also spelled al-Azbakiyya, Ezbekiyya, Azbakia, El Azbakeya, or Ezbakeya) is one of the districts of Cairo, Egypt in the centre of Cairo, and contains many historically important establishments. One of these is the Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral (Azbakeya), which was inaugurated by Pope Mark VIII in 1800 and served as the seat of the Coptic Pope in Cairo from 1800 to 1971. Azbakeya was the place where the first Cairo Opera House was established, until it was burnt in 1970.

History

By the time of Barquq, the first Circassian Mamluk Sultan (1382- 1399 AD), a lot of reconstruction needed to be done within the walls of the city in order to repair the damages incurred as a result of the plague. In 1384 AD, when Barquq started his madrassa in Bayn al-Qasrayn, markets were rebuilt, and Khan al-Khalili, the most famous touristic market in Cairo, was established.

The Maqrisi showed that the northern cemetery, founded by al-Nasir Muhammad, contained no building at all before his third reign. When al-Nasir Muhammad in 1320 abandoned the area between Bab al-Nasr cemetery and Muqattam, a small number of buildings started to be built in the northern cemetery.