Al Azhar Park Cairo, Egypt

Citadel

Tour Egypt: 

"The creation of the 30 hectare (74 acre) Al-Azhar Park on Al-Darassa, by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, came when his highness the Aga Khan decided to donate a park to the citizens of  Cairo in 1984, out of the Islamic belief that we are all trustees of God’s creation and therefore must seek to leave the world a better place than it was before us. This decision was made during the 1984 conference “The Expanding Metropolis: Coping with Cairo’s Urban Growth.”

"Before work started, Al Darassa was a municipal rubbish dump. The builders had to clear a 500-year-old accumulation of fill and debris, the equivalent of more than 80,000 truckloads of Part of the ancient wall of Salah el-Din restored in the Al-Azhar Park material which built up here over the centuries. While the sit was being prepared major discoveries were made. 

These included the discovery of the 12th century Ayyubid city wall of Cairo that was built during the reign of Salah el-Din, as well as some valuable stones with hieroglyphic texts."