ned in 1 Peter v. 13 has been thought by some
writers to refer to this town--an improbable supposition. Amr, the
conqueror of Egypt for the caliph Omar, after taking the town besieged the
fortress for the greater part of a year, the garrison surrendering in April
A.D. 641. The town of Babylon disappeared, but the strong walls of the
fortress in part remain, and the name survived, "Babylon of Egypt," or
"Babylon" simply, being frequently used in medieval writings as synonymous
with Cairo or as denoting the successive Mahommedan dynasties of Egypt.

Cairo itself is the fourth Moslem capital of Egypt; the site of one of
those that had preceded it is, for the most part, included within its
walls, while the other two were a little to the south. Amr founded
El-Fostat, the oldest of these, close to the fortress which he had
besieged. Fostat signifies "the tent," the town being built where Amr had
pitched his tent. The new town speedily became a place of importance, and
was the residence of the naibs, or lieutenants, appointed by the orthodox
and Omayyad caliphs. It received the name of Masr, properly Misr, which was
also applied by the Arabs to Memphis and to Cairo, and is to-day, with the
Roman town which preceded it, represented by Masr el-Atika, or "Old Cairo."
Shortly after the overthrow of the Omayyad dynasty, and the establishment
of the Abbasids, the city of El-'Askar was founded (A.D. 750) by Suleiman,
the general who subjugated the country, and became the capital and the
residence of the successive lieutenants of the Abbasid caliphs. El-'Askar
was a small town N.E. of and adjacent to El-Fostat, of which it was a kind
of suburb. Its site is now entirely desolate. The third capital, El-Katai,
was founded about A.D. 873 by Ahmed Ibn Tulun, as his capital. It continued
the royal residence of his successors; but was sacked not long after the
fall of the dynasty and rapidly decayed. A part of the present Cairo
occupies its site and contains its great mosque, that of Ahmed Ibn Tulun.

Jauhar (Gohar) el-Kaid, the conqueror of Egypt for the Fatimite caliph
El-Moizz, founded a new capital, A.D. 968, which [v.04 p.0957] was named
El-K[=a]hira, that is, "the Victorious," a name corrupted into Cairo. The
new city, like that founded by Amr, was originally the camp of the
conqueror. This town occupied about a fourth part, the north-eastern, of
the present metropolis. By degrees it became greater than El-Fost[=a]t, and
took from it th