This mosque outlived the city that was built around it. It is Jami Ibn Tulun, the Mosque of Ibn Tulun, in Cairo, Egypt.
In 868, a governor named Ahmad ibn Tulun arrived in Egypt for the Abbasid caliph. He had grown up in Samarra, in Iraq, and soon ruled almost like an independent king. He founded a new capital, al-Qata'i, just north of the old city of Fustat.
Between 876 and 879, he built this mosque at its centre, on a small hill. It is made of red brick covered in carved stucco, in the style of the Abbasid mosques of Samarra, and it covers about twenty-six thousand square metres with its outer courtyards.
In 905, the Abbasids retook Egypt and razed al-Qata'i. The mosque was spared, and it is almost all that survives of the city.
In 1296, Sultan Lajin restored it, reportedly after taking refuge there. Many scholars think he also rebuilt the spiral minaret, so today's tower may be younger than the mosque, though not everyone agrees.
In the 1800s, sources say, it served at times as a military hospital, a warehouse and a poorhouse. It has since been restored several times, most recently in the early 2000s.
UNESCO added Historic Cairo to its World Heritage List in 1979, and calls this mosque an outstanding example of early Islamic architecture. It is widely described as the oldest mosque in Cairo that still keeps much of its original form.
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.
Architecture and design
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.
The History, Architecture and later sections are adapted from the Wikipedia article “Mosque of Ibn Tulun”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read the full article. Text has been shortened.
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