Muhammad Ali Mosque

Muhammad Ali Pasha built this mosque inside Cairo Citadel during the nineteenth century, completing it in 1848 on the site of earlier Mamluk palace structures. Its architecture follows an Ottoman imperial model, with a large square prayer hall covered by a central dome surrounded by semi-domes and smaller corner domes. The mosque is widely known as the Alabaster Mosque because of the extensive marble paneling used on its interior and exterior surfaces. Two slender minarets rise to about 84 metres and make the building one of Cairo’s most recognizable landmarks. The open courtyard contains a clock tower given to Muhammad Ali by King Louis Philippe of France. Muhammad Ali’s white-marble tomb stands inside the mosque. The monument is therefore both a major religious building and a symbol of the political transformation of Egypt under the Muhammad Ali dynasty. The Ministry also confirms that the mosque's two minarets rise to roughly eighty-four metres and that its courtyard contains the clock tower presented by Louis Philippe of France. The building therefore links Ottoman-inspired religious architecture with the diplomatic culture of Muhammad Ali's reign. Its position inside the Citadel also means the mosque should be understood as part of a larger governmental and military landscape rather than as an isolated monument.