Pigeons feed and gather across the wide open courtyard (Sahn) of Ahmad Ibn Tulun Mosque in the Al-Sayyida Zeinab district of Cairo. Built between 876 and 879 CE by Ahmad Ibn Tulun, the Abbasid governor of Egypt, the mosque is one of the oldest surviving mosques in Cairo and is renowned for its distinctive spiral minaret inspired by the Great Mosque of Samarra in Iraq. The courtyard is enclosed by arcaded porticoes (Riwaq) featuring pointed arches and is centered around a domed ablution fountain (Sabil), representing one of the finest examples of Abbasid Islamic architecture in Egypt.