Beit el-Suhaymi

Lonely Planet review

Islamic Cairo's finest example of the traditional family mansions built throughout the city from Mamluk times to the 19th century has a typically plain facade, but once through the tunnel-like entrance you emerge into a beautiful inner courtyard. If you only shell out for one Islamic monument, this should be it.

Guests were received in an impressive qa'a (reception room) off the courtyard, graced with a polychrome marble fountain inset in the floor and a high, painted wooden ceiling. Upstairs are the family quarters: wooden lattice windows, known as mashrabiyya , allowed the women to observe the goings on below without being seen. The rooms were kept cool by malqaf (angled wind catchers on the roof) that direct the prevailing northerly breezes down into the building