Al-Gawhara Palace is a palace and a museum that is one of the palaces located in the Citadel of Saladin. It was ordered for construction by Muhammed Ali in 1814, with the intention for this palace to be home to his wife. Muhammed Ali was keen on making the palace a very luxurious one, and he contracted architects and artisans from Turkey, Albania, Greece and Bulgaria to design and supervise the construction of the palace.

The palace consists of two levels and the complex includes, aside from luxurious halls and rooms that were for the purpose of receiving guests and holding events, several rooms for other services, such as schools, barracks, a gun-powder factory and a mint. The palace’s ceilings and walls are luxuriously decorated with floral patterns and some decorations are drawn with gold. The palace is also known for having western style windows, which some of them used to have a beautiful view on the Nile and the Pyramids, since the Citadel was much higher than the rest of Cairo. There still remains a 1000 kg chandelier in the palace that was gifted to Muhamad Ali by Louis-Philippe I, the French King, and the throne of Muhammed Ali that was gifted to him by the King of Italy.