Saladin Citadel

This guide to the Saladin Citadel in Cairo returns to March 1, 1811, when Egypt's new strongman Muhammad Ali invited some four hundred seventy Mamluk commanders here for a ceremonial send-off and a morning of coffee inside these walls. It follows the column as it rode in finery through a narrow stone passage below the fortress, toward gates waiting at both ends. Stand at that gate and picture the parade filing through, this same fortress Saladin himself had raised centuries earlier against the Crusaders.