The Art And Architecture of Islamic Cairo

marble dado 5 metres high, was removed to Istanbul by Sultan
Selim soon after the Ottoman conquest.
Compared to other contemporary buildings this mosque is
noteworthy for its conservatism, restraint and discipline. In decorative
terms it is a minimalist building, with no keel-arched windows,
panels, arabesques, sunbursts, rosettes or lozenges. Its only articulation
consists of the controlled manipulation of ablaq voussoirs, and
richness and diversity of material are achieved principally through the
use of recycled antique columns. It forms a sacred intermediary
between two secular domains, the court and the barracks, and it
appears to draw its ethos from the presence of the military, rather than
the luxury of the court. Nevertheless, court architecture was a significant
preoccupation for al-Nasir Muhammad, and his other major
architectural contribution to the Citadel was the palace complex
(1313–15). The remains of this were destroyed during Muhammad
Ali’s rebuilding of the Citadel in the nineteenth century, but we have
some vivid illustrations of it in Description de l’Egypte.
One is tempted to question the accuracy of scale in these
intensely Romantic, Piranesi-like engravings, but the ruins were
awesome, and one French scholar described them as more impressive
than the mosques of Ibn Tulun and Sultan Hasan. 14 Like the Citadel
mosque, huge red Aswan granite columns were used in the palace,
most notably in the domed cubic pavilion of the Dar al-Adl, or Hall
of Justice (called the Divan of Joseph in Description de l’Egypte). This
formed the ceremonial heart of the palace where the sultan received
ambassadors and held public audience. Nearby was the Ablaq palace,
so called because of the yellow and black stone used in its construction.
It consisted of two iwans facing a courtyard and is described by
the fourteenth-century historian Umari as follows:
From the entrance one passes through corridors
to a lofty palace of splendid construction with
two iwans, the largest being the northern, which
overlooks the stables of the sultan and from which
one can see the horse market, Cairo and its suburbs
as far as the Nile and beyond to Giza. The second
iwan has a special door for the exit of the sultan
and the court to the Hall of Justice. This palace
connects with three other palaces, which are
reached by a staircase with windows containing
iron grills, overlooking the city. The inner palaces
communicate with the harim and the private
The Architecture of the Bahri Mamluks 143