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Al-Hakim's mosque is just adjacent to the city's Fatimid
wall along Bab
El-Fetouh. The mosque was completed by Al-Hakim in 990.
Al-Hakim bi Amr
Allah (literally: ruler by god's command) had an eccentric
character. He was renown by odd decisions. He ordered women
to stay inside homes and enforced that by ordering shoemakers
not to make sandals for them. He poured wine and honey in the
Nile and ruined grape farms. He once had all dogs of Cairo killed
and was sentencing people to death for minor charges.
Al-Hakim, who used to wander alone at night on his donkey in
the Muqattam hills, mysteriously disappeared one night, probably
killed. A vizier
of him called Darazi fled to Syria where he preached his divinity,
founding the Druze
sect.
Al-Hakim's mosque was barely used for religious services throughout
history. It was used as a prison for crusaders, a stable by
Saladin,
a warehouse by Napoleon and a school by President Gamal
Abdel Nasser.
The mosque was recently restored by a Shi'ite
sect in the early 1980s and the interiors of the mosque was
changed by modern decorations.
The minarets
were restored in 1303 after an earthquake damaged them.
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