during the medieval arabic-islamic period, the egyptian capital of fustat (old cairo) housed many high-rise residential buildings, some seven stories tall that could reportedly accommodate hundreds of people. in the 10th century, al-muqaddasi described them as resembling minarets, and stated that the majority of fustat's population lived in these multi-storey apartment buildings, each one housing more than 200 people. in the 11th century, nasir khusraw described some of these apartment buildings rising up to fourteen stories, with roof gardens on the top storey complete with ox-drawn water wheels for irrigating them.