These miraculous gardens sit in the heart of Islamic Cairo offering the chance to enjoy the most magical and majestic Islamic attractions. This magical attraction is able to shed light on the blessed nature of Cairo and cast your eyes on the most marvelous creations of botany. It is renowned for being the biggest green space found at the core of Cairo that came be over a century filled with different kinds of green plants. The part is considered by all as the lung of Cairo and the vital key to the clarity and serenity of the entire capital.
This national park offers a magical gate leading to the many precious historical wonders of the capital of Cairo dating to different time eras showcasing the cultural magnitude and importance of this golden city to the entire world. This green slice of heaven is able to provide a different and more natural aspect of Egypt that embraces the power of nature. In this article, we will discover the many magical wonders of Egypt.
Al Azhar park is the 6th largest public space as declared by Project for Public Spaces located on Salah Salem Street, El-Darb El-Ahmar in the Cairo Governorate. From Al Azhar park everyone can explore all the golden Islamic gems of Egypt which are able to shed a great deal about the history of this magnificent wonder. It is the largest green space ever created in the golden capital of Cairo for over a century.
The Fatimid city of Cairo is found with an incredible collection of mosques, madrasas, minarets, and mausoleums. Found on the eastern side is the city of the dead in Cairo which contain many tombs belonging to Mamluk Sultans & high-ranking officials, the southern part of the park is the Sultan Hassan Mosque plus its surroundings which are found near the Ayyubid Citadel.
The history of Al Azhar park is very amazing as it was created in the modern era by the Historic Cities Support Programme of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture which is an entity part of the Aga Khan Development Network in 1984. The entire park took about 30$ million dollars to create which was part of a gift granted by Aga Khan IV who was a descendant of the Fatimid Caliphs of Cairo. The Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) opened Al Azhar Park in 2005 which hosts more than two million people each year. The entire project was basically an urbanism initiative with a number of goals in mind which include:
The Full Development of the Entire Park
The restoration of the 12th-century Ayyubid wall and towers was a forgotten historical gem that was awakened due to the creation of the park after it was asleep for a number of centuries underground. The ongoing excavations lead to the discovery of Bab Al Bargiya one of the main eastern city gates and bab Al Mahruq one of the western entrances of Al Azhar park which feature many marvelous and hypnotic decorations and is marked by a number of crenellations, stairwells, arrow slits, and chambers.
The rehabilitation of a number of historical buildings the 13th-century Khayrbek complex, the 14th Century Umm Sultan Shaban Mosque, and the Darb Shoughlan School.
This project led to the creation of a number of improvements in life quality which demanded area rehabilitation, skills training, microfinance, and established support in health and education.
The 30-hectare (74-acre) Al-Azhar Park was a gift from the aga khan who donate the park after its completion to the people of Egypt due to the Islamic belief in the trustees of god’s creation and that every man should leave this world as a better place with a positive impact than it was before. Al-Azhar Park is part of the sixty of the World’s Great Places by “Project for Public Spaces”. 500 years of wreckage and ruins descended on the Al Darassa hill which was then cleaned by the project. the creation of the park led to the movement of 1.5 million cubic meters of rubble, debris, and soil.
Sasaki design company began working in 1994 with Sites International from the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) on the Al Azher park project which was finished in 2004. The designers depended on traditional Islamic traditions of landscape design and the picking of the greenery. The styles used in the park have been influenced by different time periods which include the shaded sitting areas (Takhtaboush), Bustan-like orchard spaces, and the Fatimid archways plus Persian fountains and water channels.
All the gardens of al Azhar park were opened to the public in 2005 exhibiting a number of Islamic gardens that offer a mixture of modern and traditional elements with powerful usage of fountains, central terraced formal gardens, Mamluk multicolored stonework, intersecting waterways, sunken gardens, and strong Islamic geometry across all the cafes, playgrounds, and all the beautiful sceneries.
