The Art And Architecture of Islamic Cairo

46 The Art and Architecture of Islamic Cairo
five to seven storeys high. Nasir i Khusraw describes houses of seven
to fourteen storeys accommodating up to 350 people, but this was
almost certainly an exaggeration. Some houses had terraced roof
gardens with shrubs, orange trees and bananas, and he describes one
which was irrigated by a bull turning a contraption lifting water.
Nasir i Khusraw’s view of al-Qahira and Fustat was highly flattering,
which may be due to a Shi’ite bias on his part (he became an Isma’ili
missionary on his return to Balkh). Other contemporary writers are
less favourable, commenting on the pestilential nature of both cities,
the squalor, the poor quality of the water and lack of hygiene. The
northern location and higher elevation of al-Qahira was, however,
slightly more salubrious.
The original mud-brick walls of al-Qahira had crumbled
by 1046 and a major reconstruction in brick and stone took
place between 1087 and 1092 under the direction of Badr al-Jamali,
vizier to the caliph al-Mustansir. Badr al-Jamali was originally
an Armenian slave who had risen through the ranks to become
governor of Damascus and Acre. In 1073 the caliph secretly invited
him to Cairo to help restore order, following a period of plague and
famine during which the country had fallen into a state of anarchy
and destitution. By that time al-Mustansir had become a puppet
ruler in the hands of his insubordinate Turkish and Berber troops
and he needed outside help. When Badr al-Jamali arrived with his
Armenian and Syrian bodyguard he ruthlessly rounded up and
executed in one night all the leading palace officials and Turkish
commanders. He was then given complete authority over the army,
the missionaries and the bureaucracy, and became the de facto ruler
of Egypt. The building programme of al-Jamali, which involved
extending and strengthening al-Qahira’s walls, was synonymous
with his reconstruction of the country.
According to al-Maqrizi the gates of Bab al-Futuh, Bab al-Nasr
(Gate of Conquest) and Bab Zuwaila were built by three Armenian
Christians from Edessa in eastern Anatolia. This is plausible,
because after the Seljuk conquest of that region many Armenians
settled in Cairo and al-Jamali might have felt some obligation to
find employment for his kinsmen. It also explains some of their
Byzantine features, although the precise origins of its design
cannot be located in the Edessa region. Edessa’s Byzantine towers
and gates were once renowned, but the surviving fragments of
octagonal construction provide no obvious pointer to Cairo’s gates.
Byzantine fortifications were regarded as the model for the
development of western Islamic military architecture and the