The Mosque of Ibn Tulun (Arabic: مسجد إبن طولون, romanized: Masjid Ibn Ṭūlūn) is a mosque in Islamic Cairo, Egypt. Built between 876 and 879 CE by its namesake, Ahmad ibn Tulun, it is the oldest well-preserved mosque in Egypt. Its design was inspired by the 9th-century mosques of Samarra in Iraq, the Abbasid capital at the time, making it an important representative of classical Abbasid architecture. It is one of the most significant monuments of Islamic architecture in Egypt.
The mosque consists of a large open courtyard surrounded by roofed sections that are divided into aisles by rows of pointed arches. The arches are decorated with carved stucco, though not all of the original decoration has been preserved. The mosque is surrounded by an outer enclosure, the ziyada. The minaret, which has an unusual form with an external spiral staircase, stands in this enclosure. Various additions and restorations were made after the 9th century, including an important renovation by the Mamluk sultan Lajin in 1296. The present-day fountain and domed kiosk in the center of the courtyard date from this restoration. In addition to the main mihrab (niche symbolizing the direction of prayer), the prayer hall contains several flat stucco mihrabs added in different periods. After a period of severe neglect in the 19th century, during which the building was converted to other uses, the mosque was restored in the 20th century.
History
Construction and early history
The mosque was commissioned by Ahmad ibn Tulun, the Abbasid governor of Egypt from 868 to 884. He was able to establish himself as a de facto autonomous ruler over Egypt and parts of the Levant. In 870, he began construction on a new administrative capital, al-Qata'i. It was located a short distance to the northwest of Fustat (the first Muslim capital of Egypt and its main city) and al-'Askar (the second capital built nearby by the Abbasids).
The Ibn Tulun Mosque was built to serve as al-Qata'i's congregational mosque. It was the third congregational mosque to be built in what is now Cairo, after the Mosque of 'Amr and the main mosque of al-'Askar. The medieval historian al-Maqrizi states that its construction started in 876 CE, while an original inscription slab found in the mosque identifies the date of completion as Ramadan 265 AH, corresponding to April–May 879 CE. According to Balawi, a 10th-century author, the architect of the mosque was a man named al-Nasrani, a non-Muslim, possibly Christian, who had previously designed the Aqueduct of Basatin, another of Ibn Tulun's construction projects in the area.
The mosque was constructed on a small hill called Gebel Yashkur, "The Hill of Thanksgiving." One local legend says that it is here that Noah's Ark came to rest after the Deluge, rather than at Mount Ararat. Ibn Tulun's administrative palace, the Dar al-Imara, adjoined the mosque directly on its southeastern side, behind the qibla wall. Ibn Tulun was able to enter his mosque directly from the Dar al-Imara via a doorway that can still be seen to the right of the mihrab (niche symbolizing the qibla).
Al-Qata'i was eventually razed to the ground in 905 by the Abbasid general Muhammad ibn Sulayman al-Katib, who was sent to retake control of Egypt. Only the mosque and the adjoining Dar al-Imara were left standing. The mosque was spared because of its religious function while the palace was re-used by the subsequent Ikhshidid governors as an administrative center. Today, the mosque is the only surviving monument of this city.
Later history
The mosque and the palace continued to see some use during the Fatimid period (after 969) and the Fatimid caliph al-Hafiz is recorded as having ordered some construction in the mosque in 1132, though it is unclear what work was done. The original fountain (fawara) in the center of the mosque's courtyard, which had previously burned down, was rebuilt on the orders of Caliph al-'Aziz in 995. The mosque and the area around it declined further in the following century. Part of the mosque was burned during riots in 1067. Badr al-Jamali (d. 1094), the powerful Fatimid vizier, restored the mosque, as indicated by the inscription he placed above what is still the main entrance to the mosque today. Badr al-Jamali's son and successor, al-Afdal Shahinshah, added a flat stucco mihrab to one of the prayer hall's piers in 1094.
By the 12th century, the mosque was being used as a caravanserai for North African pilgrims on their way to the Hijaz. After the assassination of the Mamluk sultan Al-Ashraf Khalil (r. 1290–1293), one of the accomplices in the murder, Lajin, hid inside the mosque, by which time the building had fallen into ruin. Mamluk-era writers report that Lajin hid inside the ruins of the original minaret, spent a miserable year there, and vowed that if God saved him and allowed him to become sultan he would restore the mosque. When he later became sultan (r. 1296–1299), he fulfilled this pledge and initiated a major restoration of the mosque in 1296. Lajin's works, many of which remain today, included renovating the main mihrab's decoration, building the dome in front of it, adding a new wooden minbar (pulpit), renovating the minaret, and building the present-day fountain in the center of the courtyard and the domed structure over it.
In 1524, a zawiya (Sufi convent) and tomb were built next to the minaret and are mentioned by historical sources as associated with a founder named either Sheikh Sharaf al-Din al-Madini or Sheikh al-Bushi. Its ruined remains were demolished in 1943.
At some point during the reign of Muhammad Ali in the early 19th century, the mosque was turned into a military hospital and then a salt warehouse. A blacksmith workshop was also installed in it. In 1846, Clot Bey received permission from Muhammad Ali to convert it into a mental asylum and sometime after this it became a poorhouse. During the conversion, Clot Bey ordered some of the arches around the mosque's courtyard to be walled up, an act which was criticized as vandalism by some 19th-century writers who visited the site afterwards.
As a result of these different uses, the building deteriorated severely in the 19th century Some of the arches of the prayer hall along the courtyard façade collapsed in 1877. The mosque continued to be neglected in this manner until 1880, when architect Julius Franz Pasha, the head of the government's Comité de Conservation des Monuments de l'Art Arabe ('Committee for the Conservation of the Monuments of Arab Art'), closed the building and evicted its inhabitants. After this, it was examined by the Comité and assessed for repairs. Damage to the ceiling, arches, and minbar were all reported, among other problems. Recommendations were made to remove the walls blocking the arches and demolish the ad hoc structures that had been constructed inside the mosque by its poor inhabitants.
After another examination in 1890, the Comité began restoration work. Various works were undertaken over the following years, though not enough to resolve all problems. The ceiling over the prayer hall continued to progressively fall apart, along with its arches facing the courtyard. A major event was the visit of King Fuad I, who attended Friday prayers in the mosque on 3 May 1918, the first ruler of Egypt to do so since Sultan Lajin. He subsequently took an interest in the mosque's maintenance and ordered the expropriation and removal of structures encroaching on it. In the following decade, efforts continued to remove encroaching structures and clear rubble. The Comité finally reconstructed the mosque's ceiling in 1927 and in the following two years it reconstructed the damaged arches of the prayer hall. Repair works continued intermittently after this, including the reconstruction of the westernmost walls of the ziyada (outer enclosure) from 1947 to 1948.
The Comité was dissolved in 1961 and the mosque, like other Islamic-era monuments in Cairo, was neglected for a time after this. Restoration efforts were resumed in 1978 by the government's Egyptian Antiquities Organization. While the mosque did not suffer greatly from the 1992 Cairo earthquake, the top of the minaret was damaged and its integrity compromised, which elicited the installation of scaffolding to support it.
The mosque underwent a full restoration from 2002 to 2004, which cost 2.5 million US dollars. One of the significant changes to the mosque's appearance was the paving of the entire courtyard with stone, as it had previously been largely unpaved. This had the negative side effect of causing humidity to accumulate along the walls, which were then injected with a consolidant. This action and other aspects of the restoration project were questioned and criticized by some scholars of Islamic architecture, including Caroline Williams.
Architecture
The Ibn Tulun Mosque is the oldest mosque in Egypt to largely retain its original form. Its architectural style is closely modeled on that of the Abbasid capital of the time, Samarra, where Ibn Tulun had spent much of his early career before being sent to Egypt. As a result, the mosque is one of the best surviving examples of the Abbasid architectural style of this period, which was dominated by the influence of Samarra. The mosque is one of the largest in Egypt by area: including its outer enclosure (ziyada), it occupies 26,318 square metres (283,280 sq ft). It is built primarily out of brick, except for the minaret, which is built of stone.
Exterior
An outer enclosure, the ziyada, surrounds the mosque on three sides and provided a buffer between the prayer space and the surrounding urban environment. The mosque's minaret stands in this enclosure on the northwest side. Originally, the mosque's ziyada contained ablutions facilities, latrines, and a medical clinic. The outer walls of the ziyada were likely adjoined by shops and neighbourhood markets. In the early 20th century, any market structures that were still adjoining the outer walls were removed.
The mosque had a total of twenty-two entrances: nineteen entrances through the ziyada (with doorways in the outer wall corresponding to doorways into the mosque proper) and another three doorways in the qibla (southeastern) wall. Only one entrance is used by visitors today. Unlike in later Egyptian mosques, none of the entrances are given architectural prominence, as this was not a feature of mosque architecture in Egypt until the later Fatimid period. The outer wall of the ziyada and the outer wall of the mosque are both topped by decorative crenellations consisting of brick openwork whose form, vaguely reminiscent of linked human figures, is likely derived from the decorative motifs inside the mosque.
Interior
On the inside, the mosque consists of a spacious central courtyard (sahn) surrounded on four sides by roofed halls or galleries (riwaqs) divided into aisles by rows of pointed arches supported on piers. On the qibla side, this roofed area forms the main prayer hall and is five aisles deep, while the other three wings around the courtyard are two aisles deep. The arches and piers are built of brick and uphold a wooden roof built with palm. The corners of the piers are rounded by engaged columns. The upper parts of the piers, between the arches, are pierced with pointed windows that have their own colonettes.
A dikka (raised platform for muezzins and Qur'an reciters) is located between two piers in the center of the prayer hall. It most likely dates to the Mamluk period. Next to the main mihrab (the concave niche in the qibla wall) is a wooden minbar, a pulpit for the imam, consisting of a wooden staircase leading to small kiosk-like structure topped by a curving finial. The inscription on the minbar attributes it to Sultan Lajin and dates it to 1296. It is an excellent example of early Mamluk-period woodwork.
Decoration and inscriptions
The outlines of the arches, their intrados (undersides), and the capitals of the engaged columns are covered with carved stucco decoration, although only the arches of the southwestern side still preserve most of their intrados decoration. This decoration features geometric and floral patterns. They are derived from the Abbasid style associated with Samarra in this period, particularly those known to scholars as the "Samarra B" and "Samarra C" styles. Originally, this stucco decoration would have been painted in vivid colours, but the paint has since faded away. On the courtyard façades, the windows between the arches are also flanked by decorative rosettes.
The 128 windows of the mosque are also outlined with similar stucco decoration and are covered by stucco grilles. The window grilles seen today have a variety of geometric designs and date from different periods and restorations. Three or four of them are still original, from Ibn Tulun's time, and feature the simplest designs. The rest, with more complex designs, are from later restorations, including at least six from the Mamluk restoration of 1296.