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Immediately east of the 6th October flyover lies the oldest of the northern suburbs, Bulaq , whose name derives from the Coptic word for "marsh". During medieval times, the westward shift of the Nile turned a sandbank into an island, which merged with the east bank as the intervening channel silted up. As the Fatimid port of Al-Maks was left high and dry, Bulaq became the new anchorage in the 1350s, rapidly developing into an entrepot after Sultan Barsbey re-routed the spice trade and encouraged manufacturing. When Mohammed Ali set about establishing a foundry, textiles factory and modern shipyards here in the 1820s, Bulaq was the obvious site. Unfortunately, the Ottomans permitted free trade, enabling British manufacturers to undersell local industries and force Egypt back into its dependency on cotton exports to the Lancashire mills. Since then, small workshops and apartment buildings have taken over Bulaq, while world affairs are handled in two towering landmarks along the Corniche: the Television Building and the Cairo Plaza . Inland of the latter is a one-time hostel for members of the Rifai order, next to the Mosque of Sinan Pasha , a sixteenth-century hybrid of Mamluke and Ottoman styles, attached to a still-working hammam . More revered by locals for its namesake's baraka is the fifteenth-century Mosque of Abu'l'lla , on 26th July Street just west of the Corniche. Nearby stand the former royal stables of Mohammed Ali, due to open soon as the Royal Carriage Museum . An annexe to the Carriage Museum at the Citadel, equestrian follies from the royal collection will be displayed here.
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