The Art And Architecture of Islamic Cairo

Further south in the Eastern Cemetery, in today’s more dense
residential quarter, is the religious funerary complex of Qa’it Bay
(1472–4). This architectural masterpiece was built by Sultan
al-Ashraf Qa’it Bay (r. 1468–96). He was the last effective ruler of
Mamluk Egypt and a great patron of the arts and architecture,
responsible for major building programmes across the empire. Apart
from promoting architecture, most of his reign was preoccupied with
border disputes with the Ottomans which led to an expensive and
inconclusive war. Relations between the Mamluks and the Ottoman
empire were further aggravated when Qa’it Bay supported Prince
Djem, the brother and rival of the Ottoman Sultan Beyazit II. Djem
had mounted an unsuccessful challenge to Beyazit’s succession and
during his subsequent exile Qa’it Bay gave him shelter in Egypt and
supported his attempt to fight back and start a rebellion in Anatolia.
All these events caused irreparable damage to Mamluk–Ottoman
relations and the cost of the conflict weakened Egypt’s economy.
Qa’it Bay was forced to raise taxes on trade, and a devastating plague,
which claimed up to 12,000 people, further reduced state revenues.
His expenditure on architecture did not help matters and his reign
ended with an insurrection among the Mamluks that precipitated
his abdication and death at the age of over eighty.
Despite the bankruptcy of the country, Qa’it Bay’s patronage
left Cairo with a number of architectural masterpieces, the most
important of which was his funerary complex in the Eastern
Cemetery. This is one of the most beautifully proportioned and
crafted buildings of the period, and its composition and plan
inspired the later work of Qurqumas. Qa’it Bay’s funerary
complex, like that of Qurqumas, has a portal on the north-eastern
side flanked by a minaret on the right and a sabil-kuttab on the
left. Approached by steps, the tall entrance portal has a trilobed
hood with muqarnas squinches and a groined vault filled with
kaleidoscopic patterns of ablaq inlay. The stone is terracotta- and
biscuit-coloured, and alternate courses frame the portal and line
the returns of the recess. Rising from a square-sectioned base on
the right, the minaret is made up of three shafts separated by
finely fretted balconies supported on muqarnas corbels. The first
shaft is octagonal, pierced by four windows and decorated with
keel-arched niches with colonnettes and fluted hoods. The second
has a strapwork stellar pattern and the third is an eight-columned
pavilion crowned with a fretted balcony and bulbous finial.
The design of the sabil-kuttab displays a finely proportioned
balance between solid and void. Its wall surface, enriched by ablaq
above: The entrance portal of funerary complex
of Qa’it Bay.
The Architecture of the Burji Mamluks 219