Bab Al-Azab

This place is connected in history with the massacre of the Citadel plotted by Mohammed Ali Pasha, ruler of Egypt, to get rid of the Mamelukes in 1811 AD where only very few fled away.

The story goes that M. Ali invited the Mamelukes to attend a celebration. When the ceremony was over they headed for Bab Al-Azab, looking over Saladin Square, so as to go out, but they found it tightly closed.

Soon, the soldiers of M. Ali mounting high on upper rocks, shot bullets that rained over the unarmed Mamelukes. The passage of Bab Al-Azab and the whole of the Citadel courtyard were filled with the dead bodies.

The area of Bab Al-Azab is that western part of the Citadel building. It has been so called after Ahmed Katakhda Al-Azab, commander of an Ottoman regiment who camped in that location from 1517 up to 1805 AD. A.K. Al-Azab re-arranged the area by establishing a magnificent Turkish styled mosque there.