This chapter traces the evolution of conservation in Egypt, comparing medieval Islamic practices with modern European colonial intervention. Medieval restorations of al-Jāmiʿ al-Anwar prioritized functionality and religious values, often involving demolition and reconstruction to ‘renew’ the sacred space. The nineteenth-century Comité de Conservation des Monuments de l’Art Arabe, however, introduced secular, Eurocentric methods that often privileged a building’s historical and artistic value over its spiritual function. This “monumentalization” converted active places of worship into museum objects, exemplified by al-Jāmiʿ al-Anwar’s transformation into a museum for Arab art, and created the ideological framework that would later be used to criticize the Bohra community’s approach to restoration.