Egypt With Omar Sharif

The mosque of Ibn Tulun, the largest and second oldest in Cairo, was built between 876 and 879. It is next in age to the seventh century Amr mosque, the first mosque built in Egypt. The Amr mosque was rebuilt several times and its original plan is unknown. Ibn Tulun was, until recently, the oldest mosque in the city preserved in its original condition. Renovations begun within the last couple of years (2000-2002) have rendered that claim no longer possible. The photographs on this page were all taken in 1986.

Ibn Tulun employed a Christian architect (probably from Samarra, the new caliphal capital sixty miles north of Baghdad) and spent 120,000 gold dinars building his mosque, money he had on hand since he was no longer paying tribute to the caliph in Iraq. He told his people he had found buried treasure. This ruse would be used again by future rulers of Egypt who wished to cloud the money trail while they built their magnificent buildings.

Description

From either atop the minaret or the wall encircling the sahn (courtyard of the mosque) one has a superb vantage point from which to see the layout of the mosque, and to understand the main architectural and aesthetic feature that makes this place a truly Muslim building: the emphasis on the horizontal plane. Islam, contrary to Christianity with its lofty cathedrals and spires emphasizing the vertical dimension, stresses the horizontal plane. Islam is fundamentally a community of believers, the umma, in which all are seen as equals; all are one under the one God. The mosque appears to spread out beneath you as you look down upon it, a symbol of the vast sea of believers, all of whom, equal one with another and in unison, submit themselves to God (from the Arabic root salama from which come the words "Islam" and "Muslim"). This is what makes Ibn Tulun one of the most important mosques in the city, even though, in the opinion of most, the Mamluk period Sultan Hassan mosque remains the crowning masterpiece of Egyptian Islamic architecture.

The fountain ( fuwara) in the middle of the sahn was not originally built for ablutions (these would have been done outside the mosque), but later on it was decided to offer it for this purpose. The sahn is almost perfectly square, 302 feet on a side, surrounded on all four sides by porticoes (riwaqs), two aisles deep on three sides, five aisles deep on the mihrab side ("prayer niche" marking the qibla or "direction" toward Mecca).

If you stand in the courtyard and look at the galleries of arches, you get a sense for what an exquisite architectural masterpiece this building is. The smaller arches counter the feeling of bulkiness conveyed by the large piers. Also, no matter where you are sThe court outside the mosque on the north and east sides is called the ziyyada ("extra space"), a transitional zone separating the noise and bustle of the everyday life of Cairo from the tranquil space of the mosque proper. At least this was its original intent. The idea of such a transitional zone was borrowed from ancient Semitic religious architecture (as in Phoenician temples and the temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, for example). Ibn Tulun's cavalry may have used the vast spaces to quarter their horses. Later on, this space was used as a bazaar area. The mosque is constructed of brick, not stone, and covered with stucco. Echoes of Ibn Tulun's native Iraq permeate the structure. The stucco on the piers of the aisles was molded into pillar shapes, each surmounted with late Corinthian capitals (also in stucco) and decorated with vine leaves in the Samarran style (rather than the classic acanthus). The undersides (soffits) of the arches were decorated with friezes depicting plant life.tanding, there is never a pier obstructing your view. The crenalations on the top of the wall looked too much like human figures for orthodox tastes, and so, after this, the design was never repeated. (compare these with the those of the 10th century Mosque of al-Hakim, for example) The shell-like carvings are a carryover from Coptic art. The same carvers who worked for the Copts were employed by Ahmed Ibn Tulun in the decoration of his mosque. One walks up a slope from the street to enter the doors, then up some steps to the ziyyada, then another flight of steps to the mosque proper. The successive rise in the levels is reminiscent of the Palace of Balkuwara at Samarra.

When you stand beneath one of the domes and look up, you will see how the myriad little arches, called "squinches" (Arabic, muqarna), effect the transition from the square base to the round dome above. This symbolizes the transition from the world below to the heavens above. So, even Islam, like the Christian cathedrals mentioned above, has its vertical dimension. Each of the 128 carved stucco windows has a different design.

There are several maharib (singular mihrab ) or prayer niches in the mosque. The mihrab nearest the sahn is a newer one added by the Shiite Fatimids in 1080. In Islamic architecture, the mihrab marks the qibla, the direction of Mecca, and is always near the middle of the mosque. The mihrab appeared for the first time in Arabia fifty years after the death of the prophet (i.e. about 690), and the first one in Cairo appeared in 710. A few have suggested that it is a form borrowed from Coptic architecture. But, since the first ones appeared in Arabia, where there were no Copts, this argument does not hold up.

The location and construction of the minaret raise a number of puzzling questions that still have not been satisfactorily answered. For one thing, the minaret is detached from the mosque proper and lies out in the ziyyada. We do not know why the builders did this. Also, it is constructed of stone while brick was used to build the rest of the mosque. The top of the minaret is executed in the mobhara ("incense burner") style, a later form than those used in Ibn Tulun's time. Finally, the bridge from the minaret to the mosque cuts into a window. So, it cannot possibly have been original to the mosque. The theory is that this minaret was either added or rebuilt in the thirteenth century. The spiral staircase winding up from the outside is the only one of its kind in Cairo and recalls the ziggurats of Ibn Tulun's Iraqi homeland.

An apocryphal tale relates that the ruler, known for his impatience, was one day idly twisting some paper into spiral shapes at a conference that had ceased to hold his interest. Asked by a courtesan what he was doing, Ibn Tulun shot back, "Build me a minaret like that!" And, so it came to be. Ibn Tulun used to reside in a palace (since destroyed) abutting the southeast wall of the mosque where he would bathe before entering the mosque to lead the Friday prayers.