The Mosque of Aytmush al-Bagassi

Aytmush al-Bagassi Mosque

Early Mamluk period is architecturally the richest periods of archaic Islamic Cairo, many major buildings were erected during their reign.
This is due to the fact that the Mamluks began to build different styles of complex religious and educational influenced mainly by Spain, Iran and North Africa.
After the strict regulations Ayyubid, allowing to have a single main mosque congregation at one point, during the fourteenth century, the Mamluks allowed to build more complex demonstration of a wide range of styles and designs.
Many of these buildings have survived and are still in the early Islamic neighborhoods. Halfway Bab al-Wazir Street, near the Citadel Muhammad Ali, one of these examples can be found, but today it is in a rather poor state of repair.
However, the mosque of al-Aytmush Bagassi, built in 1383, is still used for daily prayer regardless of disrepair it is in. This is unusual in Cairo, and demonstrates the importance of religious buildings.

  

The mosque.

The mosque was at the time one of the most important buildings into account its location. Bab al-Wazir Street or Al Darb al-Ahmar road was a fashionable area during the reign of Sultan Al-Nasir Muhammad and later in the 19th century due to the presence of Sultan Muhammad Ali at the Citadel, which has encouraged urban. expansion

 The road was also a thorny issue because it linked the Citadel Bab Zuweila, one of the ancient gates of the city.
Noticeable while walking down the narrow street are several older residential buildings, reflecting the beautiful 19th century architecture, built in the time of Muhammed Ali.
Going further north, one can not set up on a street corner Aytmush Mosque, just before the complex Khayer Bek and the Blue Mosque "Aqsunqur" located further down the road.
The mosque was built by the great circus "Amir" Prince Seif al-Din al-Aytmush Bagassi, which for a short period of time served as regent during the reign of Sultan Barquq.

 

The interior arches mosqueHorse shoe

 Horseshoe arches

 

 The Sabil Kuttab and BASB al Wazir (Minister Gate).

The plan brings together the mosque complex, the mausoleum and Sabil-Kuttab into a single unit. The plan was unusual, plain form in both the form and decorations. It consists of a durqa'a a rectangular area covered by a flat plain foothills wooden ceiling with a central lantern and of course, the Qibla Iwan occupying about fifty square meters of a total of 250 square meters.
Qibla Iwan is a rectangular area in front of the durqa'a a sharp horseshoe arch. In the center is the mihrab with two ogival niches on its sides.
The main entrance of the mosque is located on the front of the street that leads directly to the covered courtyard. Regarding the secondary entrance, it was used for public services and services of the mosque.

 

The dome and the entrance to the mosque

The facade is richly decorated and surmounted by a ribbed dome that was common from 1360 to 1400. The recessed entrance is defined by the plain stucco, especially both sides side seats is a band of inscriptions. It is also topped with leaf motifs in the form of reverse heart. The interior of the mosque is characterized by its simplicity and the use of natural materials, the same as the exterior facades are also remarkably simple.
The minaret is located adjacent to the entrance as a landmark by emphasizing its location and the street line.
To the left, behind the mosque is the Sabil-Kuttab.
The Sabil (ablutary) is separated from the mosque, but can still be achieved both inside and outside. The trough is located behind the mosque, which can be reached by Sharia Bab al-Turba ("Gateway to the grave"), on the north side of the mosque, which was the site of an old door the city.
 

The mosque and its minaret

The adjacent building has a beautiful facade full of little details and unique.
The building is not in use today. It is connected to Bab al-Wazir "Door of the Minister" that separates Kuttab monument in front of the mausoleum of Tarabay al-Sharifi, another magnificent building with a huge dome carved.
The surrounding area is aligned with various monuments, one beside the other.
Face Tarrabay and Aytmush Kuttab remnants of Ayyubid Wall newly excavated the 12th century. This wall was planned by Salah al-Din to reach the old Fatimid city of "Al-Qahira" with the citadel and the aqueduct.

The Al-Azhar Mosque

Al-Azhar Mosque

  Located in El Hussein Square, the Al-Azhar (the most blooming), established in 972 (361 H) in an arcade style shortly after the founding of Cairo itself, was originally designed by the Fatimid general Jawhar El-Sequili (Gawhara Qunqubay, Jawhar al-Sakkaly) and built on the orders of Caliph Muezz Li-Din Allah. Located in the center of an area teaming with the most beautiful Islamic monuments from the 10th century, it was called "Al-Azhar" after Fatama al-Zahraa, daughter of Prophet Muhammad (peace and prayers be upon him). He imitates both the Amr Ibn El-As and Ibn Tulun mosques. The first Fatimid monument in Egypt, Al-Azhar was both a meeting place for Shi'a students and through the centuries, it has remained a focal point of the famous university which has grown up around it. It is under Yaqub Ibn Cals that the mosque became a teaching institute. It is the oldest university in the world, where the first lecture was delivered in 975 AD. Today, the university built around the Mosque is the most prestigious of Muslim schools, and students are highly esteemed for their traditional training. While ten thousand students once studied here, today, university courses are conducted in adjacent buildings and the Mosque is reserved for prayer. In addition to religious studies, modern language schools medicine, science and abroad have also been added.

View outside the Al-Azhar Mosque

 Architecturally, the mosque is a palimpsest of all styles and influences that went through Egypt, with much of it having been renovated by Abderrahmane Khesheda. There are five very fine minarets with small balconies and intricately carved columns. It has six entrances, with the main entrance being the 18th Century Bab el-Muzayini (the door of the salon), where students were once shaved. This door opens onto a small courtyard and the Aqbaughawiya Medersa to the left, which was built in 1340 and serves as a library. On the right is the Taybarsiya Medersa built in 1310 which has a very beautiful mihrab. The Quaitbay entrance was built in 1469 and has a minaret built atop. Inside is a large courtyard that is 275 by 112 feet, which is surrounded by porticos supported by over three hundred columns of marble of ancient origin. To the east, the prayer hall which is larger than the courtyard and has several rows of columns. The Kufic inscription inside the mihrab is original, though the mihrab has been amended several times, and behind is a hall added in 1753 by Abd el-Rahman Katkhuda. At the northern end is the tomb of Jawhar El-Madrasa Sequili.

The Mosque of Amir Baha' al-Din Aslam al-Silhdar

The Mosque of Silhdar

(Amir Baha' al-Din Aslam)

 A general view of the Mosque of Amir Baha 'al-Din al-Aslam Silhdar

The mosque of Amir Baha 'al-Din al-Silhdar Aslam was built by the emir in 1344 to 5 (745-756). Baha al-Din Aslam was a Mamluk who rose to the rank of Silahdar (sword bearer), during the reign of Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad, who was an important patron of the Mamluk period (120-1517) for his significant interest and efforts in architecture and construction, a reflection on the political status and power.

Although al-Silhdar is described by the historian al-Maqrizi as a man of good deeds and kindness, he was the victim of slander that led to his imprisonment for eight and a half years. Al-Silhdar has not been released, but at the end of the reign of al-Nasir, which lasted nearly half a century and was later given his rank.

The area in which Aslam Mosque al-Silhdar is remarkable both for its turn-of-the-century architecture and location. The mosque faces a relatively spacious place that is just inside the walls of the Ayyubid city is overlooking al-Azhar Park. The mosque is located in Abu Hereba street about 300m to the east.
 

A view of the Al-Azhar Park mosque

Although this mosque shows proof that it was built in several stages, a unified and coherent structure allowed each new section followed consistent patterns of existing parts. It is also likely the arrangement of the building that Aslam has built his mausoleum first and then added it to the mosque.
The mosque-madrasa complex follows the mausoleum of Ahmad al-mehmandar as a prototype and has a cross-shaped plan, however, several new variants of traditional plans are rated one of which is the design of entrance that leads directly into Iwan the mosque and the absence of traditional or transitional space entry, called in Arabic, "Magaz. 
Another entrance opens directly onto the courtyard with a curved path. While it was probably just a second, the old entry on the south side was the main entrance used by the Emir.
  

Northwestern Iwan Mosque

The cruciform plan of Alam al-Silhdar mosque has several other differences from the traditional four iwan plan.
 The east-west and north-south iwans are of different heights and have enough features aliens, both horizontally and vertically. The north and south arcades iwans have two columns each, east and west iwans are arched, the qibla iwan contains a relatively unknown small mihrab and minbar.
 The side walls are impressive large medallions carved stucco. During the main mihrab of the qibla iwan is a roundel decorated with red hearts and blue glass hidden in the pattern arabesque sheet.
 The north and south iwans that open onto the courtyard by a tripartite portico have flat ceilings on which are located the rooms already occupied by the users and residents of the complex.

 

The north side of the court

 

A view of the Qibla wall

The room on the south iwan was probably a reception for the amir, who was also a shaykh in the madrasa, given its location on the main facade account and above the main entrance. The front room was probably the location of the Kuttab as he had a separate staircase.

 

A view of the Dome Mosque

 

A view of the entrance Mosque

The inner facade of the rooms consists of a triple windows registry with screens carved medallions in stucco, pellets and arched keel panels. On the East Iwan has an upper arched opening there is only one row Medallion / diamond decoration panel.
 

Composite Squinch in the mausoleum complex

The second balcony above the iwan is a rare feature in the Mamluk mosques and only became popular in the Ottoman mosques. It was probably used by students, Sufi sheikhs, or in the absence of a separate her by women other than the stairs through the living units access. This roof of the courtyard was made in the 1990s to protect the interior.
The burial chamber which is extremely high in the southeast corner is now used as a storeroom. The walls are empty pocket and pitted, which is usually an indication that some kind of decoration from the previous surface (usually stucco) exist. There is a mihrab, carved stucco which is unusual for this time, when the marble panels were in vogue.
The mosque has two facades. The most interesting feature is the main southern one showing a large rectangular marble panel with red, black and white interlaced trefoil shapes. Brick ribbed dome of the mausoleum is decorated with stucco ribs and a strip of white, blue mosaic tiles and green around the base. However, most of the ornaments are gone. The slots in the base of the dome are unusual for Mamluk times. Around the drum of the dome there is an inscription band, also mosaic tiles which is the Throne verse of the Quran (2:255).
 

A good view of the minaret of the mosque

The complex represents the Bahri Mamluk architecture in constant evolution, and its rejection schemes and fixed modules. This is evident from the new configuration and arrangement of iwans, portals, and advanced courses, changing patterns of decoration, while taking into account the limits of available plots and necessary functions of the structure.
The fourteenth-century mosque is still in use by local residents today and given the fact that it is in a leading position at the crossroads linking the Darb al-Ahmar district in downtown Cairo to on one side and extends to the south towards the Citadel from the end is one of the most widely used and most public green spaces in the area.

Al-Burdayni Mosquee

Al-Burdayni Mosquee 

Cairo is often called the city of minarets in 1000, but it can actually be more than many small mosques and even more who really do not need, and were built without minarets. Cario everywhere, there are many small mosques and even today, a number of relatively wealthy members of the Muslim mosques or private funds in small populated Cairo. This is a tradition that has carried out since ancient times. Al-Burdayni mosque is a gem of a structure traditionally dated between 1616 and 1629. However, it was completed in 1694 by a wealthy merchant. It was started by a religious scholar named Karim al-Din al-Burdayni who lived in the Ottoman period, but that was not a Turk, or even a member of the ruling class, but an Egyptian sheikh rite Shafi ' i. Therefore, there was no real royal support for this facility primarily funded by the private sector. Perhaps because of this, the minaret is not characteristic of the Ottoman style, and in fact the entire facade is totally Mamluk a renewal period Qaytbay. 

It is a very small mosque, in fact no larger than a square room with a raised gallery at the north-west end, though richly decorated. The walls are completely covered in marble panels, marble arches and mosaic and marble roundels, while the reflections of soft golden ceiling and the windows burst of color. Located in the Dawudiyya area not far from the much darker Malika Safiyya Mosque, it is an architectural jewel.

The mosque has two facades. Western provides the input to the minaret on the right side gate. The history of the fist is octagonal minaret, while the second part is carved. The final upper consists of a bulb sitting on a balcony stalactites, and is an imitation of the late Mamluk minarets with a first story ornate carved keel semicircular niches framed by moldings. The two balconies on the rest of the minaret stalactites of different models. Therefore, the only real difference between this and old Mamluk minaret structures is that the bulb is not centered on an octagonal pavilion, but located directly above the upper balcony. However, the quality of the sculpture is less refined than the period Qaytbay. This is the only period Ottoman minaret with an inscription band, here placed on the octagonal section dating from 1623, much later than the mosque itself.

 The mosque is L-shaped, with the qibla wall completely covered with polychrome marble panels. Other w3alls have a strong marble dada. The windows have both stucco decorations and stained glass color. The prayer niche, richly decorated with inlaid marble and blue glass paste, is one of the finest examples of decoration in the Mamluk tradition, while the ceiling is richly painted.

Detail, Windows and Doorway of the Mosque of al-Burdayni

More Details, including (right) the minarets

Sultan al-Ashraf Qaytbay Mosque

 Sultan al-Ashraf Qaytbay Mosque

Qaytbay was a Mamluk of Barsbay. A Mamluk was a slave and Qaytbay was purchased for fifty dinars. However, in this strange culture, often we had to start his life as a slave for greatness, and therefore Qaytbay made his way through the ranks to become commander in chief of the army, and finally Sultan. reigns from 1468 through 1496, beaten only by al-Nasir Muhammad record. He was noted for his martial prowess and physical energy, and his relentless financial taxation of his subjects. The two main efforts of his reign were developing relationships with the rise of the Ottomans and the promotion of trade, especially with the Italians.
Sultan Qaytbay was a prolific manufacturer of various institutions in Egypt during his reign, as al-Nasir Muhammad in the fourteenth century. In fact, some eighty-five structures were attributed to him in Syria, Palestine, Mecca, Alexandria and Cairo. His reign was long enough to allow specific styles to develop in a number of important monuments he sponsored. It was a period of consolidation, however, rather than innovation, where national architectural ideas have played a more important role than were foreign ideas. It was a golden age of stone carving where the architecture, rather than being huge, stretched towards refinement. Especially on facades, marble work also played an important role in decorating.
 

the minbar

The monument Qaytbay is a fine example of architecture during a period when the decorative arts reached their zenith. There was once a vast desert complex that included a shopping center on the main north-south trade route with Syria and the road east-west trade with the Red Sea. The complex, built between 1472 and 1474 AD and now presented in Egyptian One Pound Note, well worth a visit.

 The mosque

 

The groin vaulted trilobed portal

 Not all the various structures that make up the complex Qaytbay survived, but the best preserved is the mosque, which also included a madrasa with the mausoleum of the founder. It has two freestanding walls, and is actually a fairly small structure compared to many other complex. On the south side is an arched portal groin lobed decorated ablaq marquetry and some stalactites.
    
 

Another view of dome

 

View ourt, and takhtaboush moucharabieh

To the left of the gate is a Sabil-Kuttab, and on the right is a minaret. The rise of the structure on the south side is a small but beautiful dome of the mausoleum. Its surface is decorated with a pattern carved straight star superimposed on another network carved undulating arabesques.
 

Interior view of the Mihrab and Minbar

 

A historical perspective of the qibla wall

 The minaret of stone carved with the stars in high relief, is slim and sleek. On the surface, there are two clearly distinct but complex designs. The first is a plain, raised pattern straight star and the other an undulating lace floral arabesques which is grooved and indented. The bulb at the top has a twisted ribbon carved on his neck. This is one of the most beautiful minarets of Cairo, and his turn is provided with an excellent view of the dome. The Sabil, or a fountain, has a gilded wooden ceiling and the hall is a stone bench and cupboard with inlaid wood and ivory doors.

 

Historically design Geometeric detail

 

Detail of geometric design

The interior plan of the structure is that of a modified Cairo, urban Phillips madrasa. The umbrella style groin vault above the passageway leading to the interior of the mosque is particularly beautiful. Here there are also doors wooden trellis, where water jugs were kept cool. In two unequal iwans east and west and two recesses. The floor is marble, and is richly decorated with polychrome marble paneling and stucco with colored glass windows. Restoration here included the painted wooden ceiling is alive and wooden lantern above the central area. This limit is a good example of a composite design using the three primary ornamental forms of Islamic art, which include calligraphic designs, geometric and arabesque. Here, the star is important because it is also in Islamic art as a symbol of guidance often mentioned in the Qur'an. The richness of the decoration is amazing, and yet the overall effect is well proportioned and controlled.

 

Inside the dome of the mausoleum

The prayer niche is stone, inlaid with albaq models is not unlike those of the conch portal (a niche with an oval tray). Around the covered courtyard, corner recesses are decorated with arched niches Keel Windows. There, on the upper space and a band of inscription. The mausoleum is available from the court and the burial chamber is one of the most impressive in Cairo. In his prayer niche is paneled, carved and painted stone. The stone pendants are intricately carved stalactites and large dome seems infinite in its height booming.

 

Another view of the Dome

Although the foundation deed records various apartments for the Sufis and other attached to the foundation, none of these living units survived. This act also provides for the structure of a madrasa, but it does not specify a systematic program of education in Islamic law. He also noted that the Sufis are required to attend the mosque, but no reference is being made to their residents and there was no known structure in the kitchen. Thus, it was probably a mosque congregation rather ordinary Friday, and these mosques normally held sessions for the Sufis. The use of the term madrasa probably now used by tradition, rather than referring to a specific function. The waqf deed refers to this structure as a Jami '.
  

Interior view of the northern Iwan

A second small mausoleum built by arabesques sculptures Qaytbay before he became a Sultan is located on the western side of the mosque (some say it was built for his son). It has a small dome, but also flowers and now houses the tomb of Gulshani, a holy man who lived in the mosque during the Turkish period. Other structures include a funeral maq'ad or loggia. It is decorated with a row of windows in the blind arches opening onto the outside of the complex. The maq'ad, a term used for a reception area, is built on site. In addition, there are also the remains of trough for animals decorated with niches carved keel semicircular on the north side of the mosque. It is covered, and the right rear is a saqiya or a wheel that provided water.

 
The Rab'

Further north is the facade of the rab ', essentially an apartment complex built by Qaytbay. A rab 'can be built above stores or shops in a complex called wakala, qaysariyya, or khan. This particular rab 'has been used to finance part of the waqf income which was used to support the complex and personal. Here, the level of the portal provides evidence of the antiquity of this structure for the rab is buried more than two meters below the current street level. The trefoil arched portal flanked by the arms of the sultan's beautiful. The stores are now buried, but you can get an idea of ​​the architecture of apartments, with their wooden painted ceilings.

 

Another image of the dome of the main mausoleum

  Qaytbay built another wakala and rab 'above near Bab al-Nasr, and another which is now in ruins near the Al-Azhar mosque.