Bayt al-Sihaymi

About Bayt al-Sihaymi

Building in Egypt

Bayt al-Suhaymi, also known as the house of Sheikh Abd al-Wahhab al-Tablawi, is one of the finest and best-preserved traditional houses in Cairo. It stands in Darb al-Asfar, a lane off al-Muizz Street in the Gamaliya quarter at the heart of Historic Cairo. The house has two parts: the southern section built by Sheikh Abd al-Wahhab al-Tablawi in 1648, a date carved on a wooden frieze on one of its walls, and the northern section added by Hajj Ismail ibn Ismail Shalabi in 1797, who joined the two into a single residence. It takes its name from its last occupant, Sheikh Muhammad Amin al-Suhaymi, head of the Turkish students' hall at Al-Azhar. In 1931 the Committee for the Conservation of Arab Monuments bought it from his heirs for six thousand pounds; it was comprehensively restored in the 1990s and is now a museum under the North Cairo antiquities district. The house is a model of an Ottoman-era merchant's residence: an inner courtyard surrounded by rooms, delicate wooden mashrabiya screens overlooking it, reception halls decorated with marble and painted wood, a malqaf wind-catcher that draws in cool air, and a small garden. It is one of the quietest, least-visited stops on al-Muizz Street and occasionally hosts folk-arts performances.

Where:

Cairo, Egypt