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The Tulunid Dynasty in Egypt dates from 868 to 905 and was founded by Ahmed Ibn Tulun. Ibn Tulun, the dashing and athletic thirty-three year old son of a Turkish slave, arrived in al-Fustat in the year 868, sent by the caliph in Baghdad to govern Egypt. He quickly became powerful enough to declare himself independent from the caliph and established a dynasty that ruled Egypt until Baghdad invaded in 905 and reestablished control.
Ibn Tulun extended and enlarged the city, and built for himself a palace, the "Dome of the Air," on a spur of the Muqqatim hills. He also built an aqueduct (the first on record in Cairo) to conduct water from fresh springs south of the city to his palace. Ibn Tulun called his new city "al Qatai"" ("the wards") as it was subdivided into a series of districts corresponding to the divisions of his troops. Something of the flavor of the capital can be sensed in the report of a citizen from that time:
The Meydan, where Ahmed and his captains played mall or polo, became the favorite resort of the town, and if one asked somebody where he was going the answer was sure to be, 'to the Meydan.' It was entered by a number of gates, restricted to special classes, such as the Gate of the Nobles, the Gate of the Harim ("women"), or named after some peculiarity, as the Gate of the Lions, which was surmounted by two lions in plaster, the Sag Gate, made of teak, the Gate of al-Darmun, so called because a huge black chamberlain of that name mounted guard there. Only Ahmed himself could ride through the central arch of the great triple gate: his 30,000 troops passed through the side arches. (Desmond Stewart, Great Cairo: Mother of the World (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 1981), 57)
The mosque of Ahmed Ibn Tulun, built between 876 and 879, is the second oldest in Cairo. Amr had built the first one, but Ibn Tulun's was until recently the oldest mosque remaining in its original condition. Adding to its importance is the fact that it was regarded as the boundary between Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt.