The Art And Architecture of Islamic Cairo

ight: Stucco over the entrance to
the mausoleum of Sultan Qala’un.
134 The Art and Architecture of Islamic Cairo
The minaret has a sturdy appearance characteristic of early
Mamluk architecture. It consists of two rectangular shafts built of
stone, supporting a brick cylinder capped with a domed helmet. The
first two storeys of the minaret were restored by Sultan Lajin, and the
third was rebuilt by Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad after the earthquake
of 1303. Each side of the first shaft has a horseshoe-arched recess
flanked with colonnettes and pierced by an oculus. Above this is a
horizontal band of Naskhi under a cornice of muqarnas supporting
the first balcony. The second shaft is similarly decorated with horseshoe-arched
recesses, but these have no colonnettes and the arches
have cushion voussoirs. The horseshoe arches indicate the influence
of North African and Andalusian architecture similar to that already
observed in Lajin’s other restoration work on the minaret of the
mosque of Ibn Tulun. The third shaft displays a delicate tracery of
blind arcades which link together to form a complex interlace under
a fluted cornice that curves out like the open papyrus flower of a
Pharaonic capital.
The entrance in the façade leads into a long passageway
separating the mausoleum from the rest of the complex. At the end
of this passage a doorway on the right leads into a small open courtyard
surrounded on three sides by single-aisled riwaqs. Above the
mashrabiyya entrance to the mausoleum the façade is covered with
some of the finest stucco of the period. The sharp interlacing stellar