The Art And Architecture of Islamic Cairo

66 The Art and Architecture of Islamic Cairo
A later tomb of another female saint is that of Umm Kulthum (d. 868),
a descendant of Ali through his son al-Husain. Her tomb also includes
the graves of the al-Tabatati family – a family of Alid descent who
played a prominent part in receiving the imam-caliph al-Mu’izz, in
971. Today’s structure is mainly modern, but the original mihrab, with
its fluted conch-like hood and delicate patterned recess containing the
names of Muhammad and Ali, has survived. Umm Kulthum was the
sister of Yahya al-Shabih whose mashhad, built nearby (c. 1145), also
contains the tomb of his brother Abd Allah. This has a ribbed dome,
similar to Sayyida Ruqayya’s, placed over a central space connected to
an ambulatory on three sides. The qibla wall has three mihrabs, of
which the central, with its ribbed hood framed with muqarnas, is
surmounted by a small dome. 21
Undoubtedly the most sacred of the mashhads is that of
Sayyidna al-Husain (Ali’s son), which contains the relic of al-Husain’s
head. Tradition has it that after his martyrdom at the battle of Karbala
in 680, his severed head was taken to Ascalon in Palestine and
buried. 22 It was later discovered by either the vizier Badr al-Jamali or
his son al-Afdal. According to the scholar Ibn Muyassar (d. 1122), it
was al-Afdal, following his capture of Jerusalem in 1098, who
discovered the head and built a mashhad to house it. Ascalon was by
that time the last significant Fatimid possession in Palestine. It was
later captured in 1153 by the Crusaders led by Baldwin III of
Jerusalem, but before the city capitulated the relic was rescued and
taken to Cairo for safekeeping. The relic, like the bodies of the
Fatimid imam-caliphs, was buried in the the royal palace, but according
to al-Maqrizi, the vizier al-Salih Tala’i later requested permission
to house it in his new mosque situated outside the Fatimid walls
opposite the Bab Zuwaila. His request, which was fiercely opposed by
the women of the court, was refused by the child imam-caliph,
al-Fa’iz, and a mashhad was built for it in the palace precincts. It was
here that it remained sacred to both Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims, even
during the reign of Salah al-Din who so resolutely tried to eradicate
all traces of Isma’ili culture and influence. One of Salah al-Din’s
contemporaries, the traveller Ibn Jubayr (1144–1217), records the
veneration and lamentations at the mashhad during his visit to Cairo
between 1182 and 1185.
We observed men kissing the blessed tomb,
surrounding it, throwing themselves upon it,
smoothing with their hands the kiswa that was
over it, moving round in a surging throng, calling