Bab-Zuweila Cairo Egypt

Bab-Zuweila is one of the gates of the Fatimid Cairo's walls, located on the southern side. It was built by the Fatimid Vizier Badr al-Gamali during the reign of the Fatimid Caliph al-Mustansir in 485 AH/1092 AD, about five years after the construction of the Bab al-Nasr and Bab al-Futuh on the northern side. Together, these gates stand as enduring evidence of the grandeur of military architecture in Egypt during the Fatimid era.

The gate consists of two semi-circular towers and the entrance lies between them. it measures approximately 4.82 meters wide. 300 years later, the Mamluk Sultan al-Mu’ayyad Shaykh used the bases of these two towers to build the two minarets of his mosque adjacent to the gate in 818–824 AH / 1415–1421 AD.

The gate was named Zuwayla after the tribe of Zuwayla, that came from North Africa with Jawhar al-Siqilli and quartered near the gate.  Bab Zuwayla was also known as Bawabat al-Mitwalli (the gate of al-Mitwalli), after the Mitwalli al-Hesba, the official in charge of finances and tax collection based here.

Bab Zuwayla witnessed the end of Mamluk rule when the Ottoman Sultan Selim I, hanged the last Mamluk Sultan Tumanbay, in 923 AH/1517 AD.

In the 1990s, the gate underwent its first restoration by the Committee for the Conservation of Arab Monuments. Later, the Supreme Council of Antiquities, in collaboration with the American Research Center in Egypt, successfully restored the gate as part of a five-year conservation project between 1998 and 2003.

Its name comes from Bab, meaning "gate", and Zuwayla, a Berber tribe originally from the Fezzan. This name was given because Fatimid soldiers from this tribe were lodged in this area when the gate was first created in 969 during the Fatimid founding of Cairo. In Coptic tradition the name was associated with Biblical Zebulun (Coptic: ⲍⲉⲃⲩⲗⲱⲛ).

The gate later acquired the popular name Bab al-Mitwali or Bawabbat al-Mitwali. According to art historian Caroline Williams, this name dates from the Ottoman period, while according to Nairy Hampikian the name dates from the 15th century around the time of the construction of the nearby al-Muayyad Mosque, by which time the original association with the Zuwayla tribe in the Fatimid period had faded. The name Mitwali comes from Mitwali al-Qutub, a Muslim saint (wali), possibly fictional, who became associated with the area of the gate.

Cairo was founded in 969 to serve as the new capital of the Fatimids right after their successful conquest of Egypt. The original walls of the city and their gates were built in mudbrick. The southern gate was called Bab Zuwayla, also known as Bab al-Qus, and it was originally located at a site about 100 metres (330 ft) north of the current gate, close to the present-day mosque of Sam Ibn Nuh.

  In 1092, the Fatimid vizier Badr al-Jamali refortified the city with slightly expanded city walls. The southern gate was rebuilt in stone at its current location and today's structure dates from this time.

 The upper gate was accessed via an L-shaped staircase on its northeast side.