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The Madrasa of Sultan Hasan and Bab al-Wazir

Madrasa of Sultan Hasan ***

Mosque of al-Rifa‘i **

Gate of Mangak al-Silahdar

Mosque of Gawhar al-Lala **

Mosque of Amir Akhur *

Mosque of Mahmud Pasha **

Bab al-‘Azab

Palace of Qawsun or Yashbak min Mahdi *

Maristan of Sultan al-Mu’ayyad Shaykh *

Mosque of Mangak al-Yusufi *

Mausoleum of Yunus al-Dawadar *

See maps 2 and 4

The monuments in this chapter are primarily those that ring the great square below the Citadel known variously as Maydan al-Qal‘a (Citadel Square), Maydan Muhammad ‘Ali, or Maydan Rumayla. The square, which today seems no more than a busy traffic roundabout, was once the setting for elaborate court ceremonies, equestrian games, military exercises, and religious processions. It was a defined and very prestigious area of urban space, and to emphasize this fact, the Egyptian Antiquities Organization (now the SCA) included these buildings in a major restoration program of the Citadel completed in 1988. This initiative consisted of structural repairs, cleaning, floor plans posted on plaques, and new furnishings, and as a result Sharia Muhammad ‘Ali, or Sharia al-Qal‘a, now stops at the triple-arched portal to the Sultan Hasan-Rifa‘i compound. The canyon-like street that once ran between these monuments was converted into a breezy marble walkway, whose broad lateral railings provide a bench upon which to sit and observe the flowing crowd. Between the compound entrance and the elevated porch entrance of Sultan Hasan is an open garden area, which in medieval times was a large commercial annex that financed the upkeep of Sultan Hasan’s complex. Today it features an open-air museum.

A view from the Citadel of the Madrasa of Sultan Hasan and the Mosque of al-Rifa‘i

Madrasa of Sultan Hasan *** (No. 133) 1356–63/757–64 (see map 4). This is unquestionably one of Cairo’s masterpieces of Mamluk architecture, which even contemporary chronicles cited as an extraordinary monument. It is an excellent example of both the massive monumental style of the Bahri period (1250–1382) and the cruciform madrasa plan.

Sultan al-Nasir Hasan was one of the sons of Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad, son of Sultan Qalawun, whose descendants dominated the Bahri period. Hasan came to the throne at the age of thirteen and reigned for a total of twelve years, from 1347 to 1351 and from 1354 to 1361. The mosque was begun in 1356, but when Sultan Hasan was assassinated in 1361 it was still not finished. He was not a glorious and impressive sultan, but rather a puppet in the hands of powerful and manipulative amirs such as Taz, Shaykhu, Mangak, and Sarghatmish. He was able to build such an imposing monument because the estates of victims of the Black Death, the plague of 1348, had swelled the coffers of the treasury with money to be used for royal endowments. In order to build on such a favorable site (almost eight thousand square meters), two palaces built by the amirs Maridani and Yalbugha were torn down, and architects and craftsmen from Iran, Iraq, and Syria worked on the new construction.

The Madrasa of Sultan Hasan is best seen in the morning, when the sun lights up the mausoleum and the western iwan. The entrance is from the maydan and from the walkway. The porch is a convenient place to pause and notice several points about Mamluk architecture in general and about this building in particular. The view, looking back at the length of the façade as it stretches toward the Citadel, exemplifies how Bahri Mamluk architecture was intended to dominate the urban setting. The dimensions of the building are colossal: the façade is seventy-six meters long and thirty-six meters high. The horizontal mass of the façade is given extra emphasis by its division into thin vertical bays that end in the bold honeycomb cornice running along the top of its walls. Originally there was a fleur-de-lis cresting along the length of the wall, but it remains today only around the tomb–chamber.

The portal is offset at the end of the façade, and projects at a thirty-degree angle. It could thus be seen from the Citadel. Originally, the entrance was to be given additional drama by surmounting it with two minarets, a characteristic feature of the thirteenth-century madrasa in Anatolia and of mosques in fourteenth-century Mongol Persia, but in February 1360 one of the minarets toppled. Three hundred people were killed when it fell, and the construction of the other was abandoned. Nonetheless, the portal appears tremendously high due to the spiral-cut pilasters, as well as the vertical panels on each side of the porch. These panels are uncarved and therefore unfinished. Further evidence that the madrasa was unfinished in 1363 lies in the oval medallions just above the stone benches. The first one, on the left, was completed, while on the others the design has been sketched in but not carved out. Presumably a master craftsman pointed the way for completion by apprentices. The black basalt embedded in the façade appears in other buildings of the period and perhaps symbolizes the black stone at the Ka‘ba in Mecca. The panels of square Kufic attest: “There is no god but God, Muhammad is His Messenger.” The original metal doors were appropriated by Sultan al-Mu’ayyad Shaykh for his mosque. Just before stepping over the threshold, look up and note the effect produced by the stalactites over the entrance. It is like entering a magical cave, or passing through to an otherworldly experience.

From the richly decorated vestibule, with its inlaid panel of interlacing marble and its stalactite-covered dome, a long, double-bending passageway empties into a magnificent marble-paved courtyard surrounded by four enormous vaulted iwans. The sense of transition, from entrance to courtyard and from darkness to light, in which one leaves behind the urban secular scene for the peaceful grandeur of the interior, is dramatic and impressive.

Although the exterior of the building is stone, the interior is brick covered with stucco, except for finishing details made of stonework. The clever manipulation of voids and solids gives the courtyard its soaring thrust toward the sky. There are also some fine details to be noted. The little gazebo in the middle of the courtyard was originally designed as a decorative fountain and not for ablutions, its present function. Much altered and repaired, its present shape dates from the Ottoman period. (A second fountain pavilion is in the Mosque of al-Maridani.) On great occasions, the fountain dispensed sherbet. The hundreds of chains hanging down from the great arches once held enameled glass oil lamps, beautiful examples of which can be seen in the Museum of Islamic Art. When lit at night they must have made a splendid spectacle. The marble paving of the courtyard dates back to the Comité restoration of 1912. The scattered panels, with their patterns of red, black, and white marble, provide an attractive and cool substitute for woven rugs. Because the paving is not covered by carpets, this courtyard is one of the few places the lovely inlay can be fully appreciated.

This was a functioning mosque with four madrasas, or colleges. Each of the vaulted recesses was dedicated to one of the legal rites of Sunni Islam. The shaykh, or teacher, sat on a stool or platform while his students sat cross-legged around him. The four doors that lead off from the courtyard belong to the internal areas of each madrasa. Here in the corners of the building, between the arms of the iwans, were lodgings for students and teachers. Each madrasa had its own courtyard and four or five stories of rooms. Collectively they had 174 living units. The endowment provided for 506 students and 340 staff members. The Hanafi madrasa is the largest and is particularly worth visiting. As one faces the qibla, the entrance is to the right, in the south corner. The entrance to the Hanbali madrasa, the smallest, is in the west corner. The Shafi‘i madrasa and the Maliki madrasa are on the left side of the court, in the east and north corners respectively.

Look with care at the decoration on the courtyard door. The ablaq courses of black and white marble, the colored mosaic decoration, the joggled voussoirs on arches and lintels, and the dripping stalactites on the cornice are standard elements of doorway decoration in this period. The skill of inlay is very high: here the voussoirs interlock from both the sides and the bottom, forming a three-dimensional puzzle.

The eastern iwan was also the mosque sanctuary. The use of marble paneling is one of the most characteristic features of Mamluk decoration, and here the mixture of soft colors in flat rectangles contrasts strikingly with both the dusty plaster of the walls and the deep relief carving of the Qur’anic inscription. Circumscribing the iwan are the first six verses of Sura 48, which begins:

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Surely We have given you a resplendent victory, that God may forgive you of all your blame past and to come, and may perfect His favor upon you, and guide you on a straight path; that God may help you with a mighty help.

This inscription is in monumental Kufic script. It has been suggested that this verse celebrated Sultan Hasan’s release from prison. The combination of the forward motion of the plain letters against the circular patterns of the arabesque background scrolls is both complementary and dramatic. The decorator, ‘Abd Allah Muhammad al-Yamani, has left his name. In the Hanafi iwan, in the same Kufic style, the supervisor of the construction work, Muhammad ibn Bylik al-Muhsini, has inscribed his name. He was a veteran engineer and administrator.

The stone minbar was originally decorated with an inlaid pattern like that in the Mosque of Aqsunqur (Chapter 6), but today it is plain. The platform, or dikka al-muballigh, in front of the mihrab was where readers or chanters of the Qur’an would sit so that their voices could project out into the courtyard.

On either side of the mihrab, doors lead into the mausoleum. The door on the right, of bronze inlaid with silver and gold, is original and shows exceptional workmanship. When cleaned it is dazzling. The design of the door combines central star shapes with small polygonal satellites, a design also popular in woodwork. The inscription in silver at the base is in Thuluth script, much favored in the Mamluk period. Thuluth means ‘one-third,’ and in this script the letters are three times as high as they are wide.

Inside the mausoleum the chamber is lofty and somber. One corner of it has been restored to give some idea of its original richness. Above the marble paneling the chamber is circumscribed by a carved and painted inscription from the Throne Verse (2:255):

God—there is no god but He, the Living, the Self-subsisting. Slumber seizes Him not, neither sleep; His is all that is in the heavens and on earth. Who is there that shall intercede with Him, except by His leave? He knows what lies before them and behind them, and they comprehend nothing of His knowledge, except as He wills. His throne comprises the heavens and the earth; the preservation of them wearies Him not; He is the Sublime, the Almighty.

Mosque lamps hanging from the octagonal support supplied the lighting. In the corners, stalactite pendentives with niches of lavishly gilded and painted decoration support the dome. Below the windows, a band of S-curved arches filled with arabesque designs anchors the base of the dome. In the mihrab, at the base and center of the niche hood is the word ‘Allah,’ from which interlocking rays radiate as bursts of lightning energy. The straight multicolored marble paneling combines and contrasts well with the rich polychrome surface of the wooden stand of the Qur’an kursi, or lectern. The royal Qur’ans were so large they required special stands: the front and back of the book rested on inclined planes, while the reciter sat cross-legged in front of it. The geometric star pattern exactly encloses its four sides, and is outlined and given emphasis by the use of ivory. The overall effect, both of pattern and technique, is similar to that of the bronze door to the chamber.

Sultan Hasan’s mausoleum has been given great prominence. The engineer or master planner has ingeniously maximized urban visibility and religious blessing, or baraka. The tomb faces the maydan below the Citadel, overlooking the sites of the parades and feasts that had taken place there since the time of al-Nasir Muhammad. Within the mosque complex, the tomb is located behind the qibla wall, toward which all Muslims face when saying their prayers. Sultan Hasan is not buried here, however. After his assassination his body was not recovered; behind the wooden lattice screen lie his two young sons.

The architectural conception of the mausoleum is also very dramatic. The chamber, flanked by two minarets, was conceived as projecting in full mass onto the maydan. In 1616 an Italian traveler described the dome as unique, “in that it commences narrow, then swells out, and then contracts to a point like the egg of a hen.” In 1660 it was described as being full of holes made by cannonballs fired at the building from the Citadel. Twice the Madrasa of Sultan Hasan was used as a fortress. In 1391, during the reign of Sultan Barquq, dissident amirs mounted the terrace and hurled projectiles at the Citadel until the sultan ordered the steps and platform of the entrance destroyed and the entrance boarded up. Again in 1517 the madrasa was bombarded by cannonballs when it served as a refuge for the fugitive Tumanbay, the last Mamluk sultan. The northeast minaret fell in 1659; it was restored, along with the present dome, in 1671–72.

To the west of the museum-garden are the buildings which housed the oxen that turned the very large saqiya (waterwheel) which raised the water from the cistern to provide for this enormous establishment.

Mosque of al-Rifa‘i ** 1869–80/1286–98 and 1905–1912/1324–31 (see map 4). This enormous structure lies opposite the Madrasa of Sultan Hasan, on the site of a zawiya acquired and demolished by the princess Khushyar, consort of Ibrahim Pasha and mother of Khedive Isma‘il (1863–79). The architect Husayn Pasha Fahmi was empowered to build a mosque with tombs for Shaykh ‘Ali al-Rifa‘i, a saint formerly buried in the zawiya, and Shaykh ‘Abd Allah al-Ansari, a companion of the Prophet, as well as mausoleums for the founder and her descendants. The result is one of the earliest revival monuments in Cairo. Its neo-Mamluk architectural style and decoration establishes a visual relationship with its neighbor built five hundred years earlier, even though the plan—with its overall symmetry and frontal axiality as well as the large number of funerary chambers around the central prayer chamber—is quite novel.