Malak sets up his new clothing store but faces hostility from the building’s residents. Zaki Bey’s one-legged servant, Abaskharon, schemes with his brother, Malak, to open a clothing store on the roof, bribing the building agent to win the lease. Taha becomes increasingly religious under the tutelage of Sheikh Shakir. He goes to university and makes friends with religious students who introduce him to Sheikh Shakir, who preaches gihad. Taha fails his police interview and is inconsolable. She becomes bitter and wants to leave Taha. Taha’s girlfriend, Busayna, who is also poor, finds work in a clothing store where the owner pays her to endure sexual harassment. One of the Yacoubian’s poor residents, the teenage Taha, is preparing for an interview to enter the police academy, a lifelong dream. Dalwat, infuriated, kicks Zaki out of the house. Zaki Bey awakens after his evening with Rabab to discover that she has robbed him. As the story opens, he is anticipating a date with a woman named Rabab. Zaki Bey el Dessouki, a man with a reputation as an aging womanizer, has an office in the Yacoubian Building. It follows the stories of several characters who live in the Yacoubian Building, a once-luxurious building that houses rich residents inside and a shanty town on its roof, creating a clear divide between the building’s rich and poor. The Yacoubian Building is set in Cairo around 1990, the time of the Gulf War.

The yacoubian building