Despite the passage of 140 years since the construction of Abdeen Palace, it is still lofty as an eyewitness to all the significant historical and political events that affected the course of things and turned the tide of history, starting with the demands of the nation at the hands of Ahmed Orabi in 1881 until the March 1954 crisis between Presidents Muhammad Najib and Gamal Abdel Nasser and it was used as a headquarters until the year
1984. Six kings succeeded the palace, from Khedive Ismail to King Farouk, the last son of the Muhammad Ali family. The first official seat of government in Egypt was in central Cairo, after the Citadel of Al-Nasir Salah El-Din.
The narrations say that Khedive Ismail decided to build the palace on the ruins of a house owned by “Abedin Bey”, one of the Turkish princes, who bought it from him and confiscated the hundreds of buildings and paths surrounding it in a circle of 24 acres. Its construction took ten years, from 1863 to 1873 and was officially inhabited in 1874. The engineer designed it. De Corel Rousseau and a large number of Egyptian, Italian, French and Turkish engravers. The costs of building the palace amounted to 700,000 pounds, except for the furniture, which cost two million pounds.
Abdeen Palace was considered the official seat of government since its establishment until the outbreak of the July Revolution, and among the palace administrations was the “King’s Court”. It consists of the Arab administration, which was named in 1974 the Frankish General Administration, the “City of the Chief Secretaries”, which is concerned with ceremonies and parties, and the “Diwan of the Chief of the Yawran”, which includes the guards and police department and the guarded yacht designated for the king’s transfers on the seas and Nile ships. In addition to these departments, private business departments had nothing to do with the state, such as the Royal Private Office that managed the affairs of private palaces, pharmacies, vehicles, passengers, and all the king’s needs.
The palace includes 500 rooms and a hall other than the corridors, and each room has a large number of antiques. The ground is made of carved coloured alabaster, and the doors and windows are made of glass, on which colourful paintings of trees, seas, angels and birds are painted. The ceiling has delicate and prominent gilded geometric inscriptions with Arabic and Islamic decoration, including Italian decoration.
A wanderer in the palace notices the grandeur of the ceremonial staircases leading inside the palace. As we ascend the red-carpeted staircase as pedestrians in luxurious clothes, we are faced with a huge collection of magnificent crystal mirrors.
On the first floor, we find two salons on the left, the second of which leads to the Suez Canal Salon, which did not witness the celebrations of the Canal – which leads to the balcony leading to Abdeen Square “Al-Gomhoria Nowadays.” As soon as we wander for a while, we enter the small dining room overlooking the winter garden.
If we leave these halls next to the “Muhammad Ali” salon, which is one of the largest salons in the palace, we will see in front of it a theatre that is a masterpiece, on its door is a group of musical instruments of Queen Nazli. We move to the Throne Hall (a spacious square) from the parquet, an Arab-style hall. There is a chapter that separates this part. The other part is called “Al Haramlek”, and only those who bear distinctive signs can enter. This long corridor leads us to the King’s Suite, which is furnished with the finest types of carpets. It consists of several rooms, one of which is an office and the other is a reception hall, the bedroom, the bathroom, the wings of the Queen and the Queen Mother “Nazli” and the suite for foreign guests. All of these suites are located on the upper floor of the palace.

In contrast, the ground floor includes the palace garden on an area of ​​19 acres. There were stores and a pharmacy that monopolized rare medicines. In front of them were the former royal kitchens and offices for the management of these kitchens.
There is an office where the king used to eat the most famous hot foods instead of waiting for the trip.
Despite all the palace’s artistic, architectural and historical components, it was assassinated by neglect in some years, and some palaces in an era – including the Abidin Palace – were neglected. Large parts of this palace were carved out, some of them to governmental institutions such as the Cairo governorate and some to the Socialist Union, which later became the headquarters of the National Party. The biggest evidence of the failure to take care of this palace is the random “building of a school” inside the palace garden, and the allocation of part of the palace as a museum to the public from the year 53 until 1959 without adequate study, which greatly affected the condition of the palace and led to its closure after that.
Khedive Ismail built this palace to transfer the seat of government to it from the Jewel Palace in the Citadel to Abdeen Palace. One of his most important motives for building this palace was ceremonial work for the opening of the Canal. Still, the palace was not finished yet, which forced him to hold the ceremony at Al Jazeera Palace (currently the Marriott Hotel). The Suez Canal Hall is one of the most important halls of the palace and has three wonderful and very beautiful paintings that embody the opening of the Suez Canal.
The palace was built on an area of ​​15 acres out of a total of 24 acres. The garden area was 19 acres. The palace was ruled by six kings, the first of whom was Khedive Ismail from its establishment in 1863 until 1879, then Tawfiq until 1892, then Abbas Helmy until 1914, then Sultan Hussein Kamel until 1917, then Fuad until 1936, and finally King Farouk until the year
1952. The palace rooms have been reduced to about 300 rooms now. The palace was the official seat of government until the days of the late leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, and official events were held there. During the era of President Mubarak, the palace was transformed into a guesthouse. The headquarters of the Presidency of the Republic became the place of the former Federal Ministry building in Heliopolis.
There is no doubt that Abdeen Palace is the first nucleus of the emergence of modern Cairo. When the palace was being built, Khedive Ismail ordered Cairo to be planned in the European style, with palaces, luxurious buildings, spacious squares, wide streets, bridges, and roads. Cairo became a masterpiece of civilization that emits the enchanting scent of the East.
Historians confirm this. Dr Assem El-Desouky, professor of modern history in the literature of Helwan, says that Abdeen Palace, in particular, has gained great importance in the hearts of Egyptians, especially since it is the first time that the ruler leaves his tower in the castle for the heart of The capital. The public is in contact with the public after the fall of the rule of the Pharaohs, which is a serious turning point and a major shift in the lives of the Egyptians, and history is the best witness to this. After he was Ahmed bin Tulun, who took the city of Qata’i as the seat of his rule. As for the city of Cairo, the Fatimids thought about it and made it the seat of the caliphate, and when Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi eliminated them, he transferred the rule to the Citadel.
The palace witnessed several influential events in the history of Egypt, which were a turning point that ended with the July Revolution of 1952, and among these events was the demonstration of September 9, 1881, led by the leader Ahmed Orabi, in which he presented the demands of the nation and the army. My godfather refused and said the old saying, “God created us free and did not create a heritage” or real estate.
Among the important events that Abdeen Palace witnessed was the incident of February 4, 1942, when the British ambassador insisted that Mustafa al-Nahhas take over as prime minister, to the extent that he gave a warning to King Farouk if he did not allow al-Nahhas to take over the ministry before 6 p.m. on the same day. Britain would interfere in the affairs of the palace!
Indeed, the British tanks advanced. He met Lord Farouk in his office and told him that you have one of two options: to summon Al-Nahhas or sign a document of renunciation of Egypt, forcing Farouk to meet his request and Al-Nahhas assumed the prime ministership. Among the important events in the history of Egypt that the palace witnessed was the crisis that broke out between Muhammad Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser, known as the March crisis of 1954, after the outbreak of the revolution.
Dr Assem El-Desouki says: “This year witnessed Muhammad Najib’s resignation on February 25, and when he retracted his resignation, he returned to the palace and stood on the balcony, and the demonstrators gathered around him in slogans opposing him at the time, then he indicated to Abdel-Qader Taha to stand next to him in a clear gesture of the Brotherhood’s support for him in the crisis.
After the revolution, the palace witnessed nothing but the crisis of March, when Muhammad Naguib assumed power and carried out his duties from the palace, while Gamal Abdel Nasser transferred the seat of government to Manshiyat al-Bakri, where the Revolutionary Command Council was located. Not from Abdeen Palace, and therefore, the walls removed from the royal palaces were reconstructed.