The Art And Architecture of Islamic Cairo

Ziyada
Prayer hall
Sahn
Lajin’s fountain
Ziyada Ziyada
Minaret
top: The Ibn Tulun mosque.
above: Plan of the Ibn Tulun mosque.
Ziyada
32 The Art and Architecture of Islamic Cairo
Ibn Tulun’s mosque, built between 876 and 896, is an archi-
tectural masterpiece. It is the largest, oldest, and in terms of
grandeur, dignity and monumental simplicity, the finest in Egypt.
In contrast to Amr’s mosque it is remarkably well preserved, and
with the exception of thirteenth-century restoration work, it
retains the integrity and coherence of its original design. Its
minaret is built of stone, but the bulk of the mosque is made of red
brick faced with stucco, materials which distinguish it from most
other mosques in Cairo. The use of brick piers rather than columns
to support the arcades was not the result of Coptic influence, but a
characteristic feature of Samarran architecture. Brick and stucco are
the building materials of Mesopotamia and have ancient pre-
Islamic roots. It is a hypostyle mosque with a sahn surrounded by
four riwaqs, five aisles deep on the qibla side and two aisles deep on
each of the other three sides. The sahn is square with an arcade of
thirteen pointed arches on each of the four sides, and the arcades
of the prayer hall are made up of seventeen arches that run parallel
to the qibla wall. The central mihrab aisle in the prayer hall is
identical to the others, and the exterior façade is a continuous
arcade with no distinguishing features such as a larger central aisle,
dome or pishtaq (a lofty screen framing an arch or portal).
The mosque is surrounded by an outer perimeter wall creating
an enclosure known as a ziyada, which isolated the mosque from
the noise of everyday life. This is also a feature of the Samarran
mosques, but Creswell suggests it may have more ancient origins in
the Roman temenos (a wall containing a sacred enclosure). In
Hellenistic times the streets of cities terminated at the gates of the
temenos, and Creswell has suggested that in similar fashion the
ninth-century streets of Cairo probably converged on the doors of
the ziyada. 27 Today the space around the imposing walls of the
ziyada is clear, but originally the mosque was in a crowded urban
centre. The deep canyon of space trapped between the imposing
walls of the mosque and the ziyada produces an exaggerated depth
and scale to the architectural perspective of this area, making it a
worthy prelude to the immense space of the sahn. There were wash-
ing facilities in the ziyada, and the original fountain in the centre of
the sahn, with its gilded dome, marble columns and basin, served a
purely ornamental role. The present fountain is the work of Sultan
Lajin and dates from the thirteenth century.
The stone minaret stands slightly off centre between the
north-west wall of the mosque and the ziyada wall. It is a four-
storeyed structure with a square base and external staircase, winding