The Qasaba of Radwan Bey is a souq and covered market in Cairo, Egypt, located directly south of the Bab Zuweila gate and just outside the historic walled city.
[1] The market was built in the context of one of several urbanization enterprises carried out by powerful and wealthy officials in the 17th century which sought to develop the southern districts of Cairo between Bab Zuweila and the Citadel.
Radwan Bey's construction thus helped to extend the main commercial axis of Cairo further south beyond Bab Zuweila as the city developed in this direction.
[1][5]: 196 Radwan established not only a new covered market but also a wikala (caravanserai), a rab' (rental apartment building), one or two zawiyas, a sabil (public water dispensary) and maktab (primary school), two minor mosques, and his own palace.
[3] According to historian André Raymond, the market was originally built to house shoemakers in Radwan Bey's time.
These upper floors provided apartments where the artisans or others could live (a type of building referred to in documents as a rab').
[3] Parts of Radwan's mansion also still remain at the southern end of the covered market, on the western side of the street.
Here one can see some mashrabiya (wooden screen) windows and, on the southern side, a maq'ad or second-story loggia that once overlooked the house's courtyard.