Before he retired in 1907, the British representative in Egypt, Lord Cromer, remained opposed to establishing of higher education in the country for fear that it would foment unrest.

[citation needed] The university was founded on 21 December 1908, as the result of an effort to establish a national center for higher education.

[6] On 27 January 2020, Egypt's High Administrative Court approved Cairo University's decision to ban its professors from wearing the niqab or face veil which was introduced in 2015.

[12] Syrian journalist Jurji Zaydan called for an "Egyptian college school" (madrasa kulliya misriyya) in 1900 in his monthly magazine Al-Hilal.

A collection of large landowners, bureaucrats, members of the royal family, and journalists, lawyers, and school teachers including Mustafa Kamil, disciples of Muhammad Abduh such as Qasim Amin and Saad Zaghlul, and eventually Khedive Abbas II and Prince Ahmad Fu’ad I became involved.

As Donald M. Reid writes, "Royalist partisans stressed Fu'ad's founding role, Watanists (supporters of the National Party) pointed out Mustafa Kamil's call for a university, and Wafdists emphasized the contributions of Saad Zaghlul, Muhammad Abduh, and Qasim Amin."

[15] Following the Denshawai incident, Mustafa Kamil al-Ghamrawi, a wealthy notable from Beni Suef, pledged 500 Egyptian pounds towards a university in September 1906.

Mustafa Kamil published a call for supplementary funds, while Saad Zaghlul and Qasim Amin arranged a meeting attended by Muhammad Farid and 23 other prominent Egyptians.

The members of the meeting founded a committee with Zaghlul as vice-president and Amin as secretary, and all but three pledged at least 100 Egyptian pounds towards the university.

[18] Donald M. Reid speculates that this was due to fear that European-style education would foment political unrest or nationalistic sentiments.

Cromer also opposed providing financial aid to the university after the private committee began to pursue the matter independently of the colonial government.

After a grand opening ceremony in 1908, it remained on financial insecure footing for a number of years, nearly collapsing during World War I.

There were simply no Egyptians with doctoral degrees, the ability to teach in Arabic and a familiarity with Western literature in their fields with whom to fill professorial posts.

First, the university hired Italians Carlo Nallino, David Santillana and Ignazio Guidi, due to King Fuad I's connections with Italy.

Following the departure of the Italians after the invasion of Libya, French orientalists Gaston Wiet and Louis Massignon took up posts on the faculty.