She was extremely rich and funded this charitable building (also called as Sabil as explained before) in 1796, lovely looking place. This entrance is to a men’s bath.
The building also has lovely mashrabiyas on top, although a bit dusty. Here is a good article on this building and the lady herself. But then you turn right and this beautiful Sultan al Mu'ayyad Mosque appears.
I loved these marble stairs, they are worn away on the sides, and you can see that they are very old, the centre of the stairs are worn away as well. Countless feet have ascended and descended these stairs over the centuries. The history of this mosque goes back much more than when this building itself was finished in 1421. It previously was a prison where the Sultan al Muayyad was himself imprisoned. Now at that time, you really didn't have any good facilities and the poor old sultan was severely beset with lice and fleas. So, very creditably, the chap vowed that if he ever became the Sultan, he will convert this place into an educational institution for scholars. The place is full of marble and apparently he cleaned out Egypt of marble to make this mosque. Vast numbers of donkeys were also employed to empty out the prison which was apparently full of dead bodies and bones.
The entrance is very high and imposing. The top of the gateway is carved to show a resemblance of clouds, and the striped stones provide a fascinating counterpoint. But I did feel like washing the dirt off the stones, I am sure it would have looked even better. Perhaps the clouds would rain down?
These are huge doors made of bronze.
Here is a close view of one of the sunburst patterns on the door. You can just imagine this being made painstakingly out of one solid piece of bronze. Must be about 30-40 feet high. What craftsmanship and how much pain it would have taken to make and then put up. Also, as it so happens, the set of doors seems to have been brought over from the Sultan Hassan Mosque.
The mosque was full of these lovely hanging lamps, they are quite colourful and inscribed with quranic verses.
The ceiling of the vestibule is most beautifully carved, it almost looks like a view of heaven separated by two banks of clouds. The striped stone also gives a sense of perspective disappearing into the heavens. Beautiful. There are two panels of inscribed Quranic verses and a heavily barred window on the left.
After you enter into the vestibule, I gave up my shoes to the caretaker and thank God I was wearing socks. But as the day went on, I started to get really tired of constantly taking off and putting on my shoes, I am no longer built for all this bending down business. Anyway, the vestibule has two doors, one to the left and another to the right. The door on the left is a wooden door with this extraordinary bronze plaque on it. Top and bottom are inscribed patterns and in the middle, there is a band with more Quranic Suras running through..
As one moves into the left, you see something very poignant. This is a room with the grave of Sultan al Mu'ayyad and his son. It was quite emotional to me for some reason. No man should die after his kids die, but if they have to, then I guess being together in the afterlife in the same room is the next best choice, no? And here is the caretaker who was taking me around.
A very tall ceiling with a very interesting dome, tall windows which let in a diffuse light so that the entire room was lit up softly. Very calm, very quiet and very peaceful.
Lower down, there were these stained glass colourful windows, the first I have ever seen in a building in Egypt. Looked beautiful.
Then from the room with the graves, you move into the mosque proper via these lovely carved, ivory inlaid doors.
And this is the business end of the mosque, lovely marble columns, with one of those little raised balcony like structures in the middle where the Quran reciter sits so that his voice carries across to the faithful who are performing their prayers.
Now you can see the visual power of the striped stones. Fantabulously carved alcoves with multi-coloured stones.
The layers are extraordinary. On first sight, they don't match up. You have rows of tall columns, then the rounded tops of the doorways and then the window and earth coloured tops, covered with golden Quranic suras.
This is the minbar. Can you see the top of the minbar on the left? It represents a turban and is an ottoman style of notification that the mosque builder / sponsor was a sultan. Very nicely carved with ivory inlaid all over it.
The roof is very richly decorated with gilt painted Quranic Sura’s. And even though we are talking about 30 odd feet in height, the size of the lettering means that it would be perfectly legible to anybody who can read Arabic. Not me unfortunately.
The door on the other side of the hall which leads into the school proper. You can see the door also is richly carved with ivory inlay topped with another wooden plaque with more Arabic writing.
Looking out over the courtyard, one sees a covered marble fountain. Quite richly carved with solid marble blocks where one can sit and do wudu (ablutions). Also, the place was sprinkled with wooden slip on shoes, presumably so that when you walk across the courtyard after washing, you dont get your feet dirty.
Then I went back to the vestibule and the caretaker, after a suitable honorarium was handed over, decided to take me to a rather less visited place in the mosque, the roof.
This is the top of the room where the Sultan is buried. You can see the windows which I remarked on earlier.
Looking around, it;s a great sight. That’s the Cairo Citadel which was constructed by Saladin. Beautiful sight.
Cairo, a city with a 1000 minarets indeed. The skyline makes it look wonderful.
Old style communication towers, well, that’s what these minarets were, no? And then you have microwave towers on the right and more military communication towers right up on the ridge.
Looking down at the courtyard with the two minarets on top of the Bab Zuwayla gate.
The roof has stone railings which look like the French fluer-de-lis. The back of the stonework has not been finished, just left with a rough surface.
Another view of the skyline with lovely minarets.
Heading down the stairs, you can just imagine the antiquity of this place by looking at the stone flagstones, they are so ancient that they are flaking off and seriously worn away.
Heading out and I liked this shot. A lit lamp but still illuminated by dim rays of the sun coming through.
I came back out in the brilliant sunshine blinking around. This highly carved door decoration was on my right as I came out. A lovely marble frieze. In the next essay, I will be talking about my walk down the Sharia al Mugharablin. The full slideshow is here with many more photographs and higher resolution.
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