Historians  were confused, sometimes call  it Al Marmar Mosque, sometimes calling it the Alabaster Mosque,A masterpiece;covered with a rare type of marble,Became the most important landmark  of Al-Moez Cairo ,A destination for anyone  wants to enjoy the guarded Egypt from its highest castles, A destination for anyone cheers up to see all the kinds of the arts. It has been mixed with history, religion, politics, art, decoration and architecture.

Mosque of" Mohammed Ali Pasha "...The Egyptians mistakenly thought that it was a fortress just because its owner decided to build it obove Salah Al-Din's castle.It is prepared to celebrate its 170th anniversary. The building process began in 1830 and continued uninterrupted till the death of" Muhammad Ali"in 1849 and burying him in the cemetery he had prepared for himself.

As soon as "Muhammad Ali Pasha" managed to rule all over Egypt,He called the french architect "Pascal kost" in 1820 and asked him to build a huge mosque for him to pray in and to be a cemetery for him later, But  unfortunately he didn't make it ,so" Mohammed Ali "  assigned the task to the Turkish architect "Yusuf Bushnak" and asked him to design a mosque for him,Indeed, the Turkish architect who left as abig fan of Osmanli art began his work, This came in parts of it with the mosque of "Sultan Ahmed "in Al Asatanah, Borrowing its horizontal projection, including the nave and the fountain, with some other changes.The design spread widely according to the unique characteristic of "Mohammed Ali Pasha's Mosque" which led to increase  the Turkish engineers who accompanied the governors of Egypt before the Ottoman sultans,The first model to come to light of this fashion was "Soliman Pasha's Mosque",Or the mountain standered in the castle,This was more than three centuries before building the mosque of Muhammad Ali pasha specifically in 1527 A.D.Then "Senan pasha's  mosque" in bulaq in 1571,And "Queen Safia's Mosque" in 1610 A.D,Then the mosque of "Muhammad Bak Abu Al-Dahab" in 1773, and finally the mosque of "Mohammed Ali" in the castle in 1830.

The mosque of "Muhammad Ali" consists of a marble structure serrounded by a glided copper compartment that combines Muslim and Turkish decorations affected by" baroque and rococo",The Mosque of" Muhammad Ali Pasha" got a great care from his family which started with "Abbas Helmi Pasha"  who ordered to finish the marble apparel ,He also made a marble combination and copper compartment for the tomb of his grandfather "Muhammad Ali Pasha" and put silver candlesticks and The Gilded Holy Koran inside it.He also ordered the mosque to be furnished and lit with Chandeliers,He hired the readers and monitor its good deeds.

During the reign of "Mohamed Said Pasha" it was decided to hold five annual celebrations including the night of mirage,Night of the half of Sha'baan,13th of Ramadan when"Muhammad Ali Pasha" died in Alexandria ,14th of Ramadan, in which "Muhammad Ali"Pasha was placed in  his grave,and Al Kadr night.He also ordered to paint the copper compartment and made some changes in its writing.During Ismail Pasha's reign, the mosque was equipped with new doors and copper hangers and two glided Holy Koran written by sir Ibrahim Rushdi,He also prepared a compartment next to the tribune to pray in by "Sultan Abd El Aziz I" during his visit to Egypt.The mosque was surrounded by walls and a toilet was built inside it ,"Tawfiq Pasha" ordered to repair the marble nave in 1879 after his appointment and re-lead domes,He also provided it with  the glided Holy Koran ."King fouad" also took care of it and rebuilt the dome .

Al Marmar Mosque is cylindrical in shape,It's divided into an eastern section in which a temple of prayer,And a western section where the ablution fountain in the nave's centre is,Each section has two opposite doors, one Upper Egypt facade and the other is maritime, The length of the squared eastern section's inner side is 41 meters with a 21-metre high dome,and it is about 52 metres above the ground level of the mosque. It is carried on four large arches, with edges leaning on four square brackets serrounded  by four halves of domes and the fifth half covers the bulges of the mihrab,in addition to four small domes scattered in the mosque corners .

The walls of the mosque have been wrapped  inside and outside with the alabaster marble from  Beni Swif quarries,So did the brackets holding the dome up to 11 meters high .The western wall is occupied by the muezzin's bench, which is in the width of the mosque and is built on the pillars of marble,Over them are arches with colored ceilings and a copper fence,It is ascended to  as well as the upper passage around the mosque by the lighthouse stairs,The spinnings of the mosque at the bottom of the windows' doorsteps from the inside verses from the poem of the "Baradah" were written.The destination of Kiblah is where the mihrab built of alabaster ,Next to it there is a marble platform added during the reign of king "Farouq I",Near it there is an old wooden platform decorated with designs which is the largest platform among the Egyptian islamic monuments.

Yusuf 's well

Yusuf's well is characterized by miraculous engineering.It is one of the remains of the Ayubian era and it is also a wondrous and rare well in its architecture , It's 90 meters deep, 85 meters dug in rock,It consists of  two parts not on a straight line, but they are almost equal in depth that's why this monument is called "wells" in some historians' writings .The lower part of the well is 2.3 meters, the upper part is five  meters to provide a passageway to the well that allows the bulls needed to run the creek fixed on the lower part of the  well to bring water from its depth to the upper level of the well . Another pair of bulls run a second creek  fixed on the upper part of the well to raise water from the top of the first creek to the ground.

Some common egyptians were saying that this well was attributed to the prophet "Yusuf",But historical evidences show that the well was dug during the reign of "El Nasser Salah Al-Din Al-Ayubi" and that his full name is king "Al-Nasser Abu Al-Muzaffar Salah Al-Din and Al Donia Yusuf bin Ayoub bin Shadi bin Marwan bin Yaqoub Al-Duwaini Tikriti",By the time, salah al-din's name was forgotten and yusuf's name remained,Which paved the way to make up mythical stories from the popular imagination about the well.

In the reign of Sultan Al-Nasser Muhammad Ibn Qalawun, the pasha's courtyard were added to the castle to be used as a garden for birds and animals. And it changes its use for purposes that were once of the royal domain,Until it was given all the functions and purposes of the royal domain during the period of the slaves and the ottomans.