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Middle East and Egypt (14th – mid-15th c.)Culture and art

Building of the Mosque-Madrasa of Sultan Hasan

In 1356 Sultan al-Nasir Hasan began, below the Citadel of Cairo, a vast complex of a congregational mosque, four madrasas for the four Sunni schools of law and his own mausoleum. Built for seven years — the work went on after the sultan’s murder in 1361 — it became one of the largest and most admired monuments of medieval Cairo.

Date
1356–1363year known · duration: ≈ 7 years
Place
Mosque-Madrasa of Sultan Hasan, Cairotoday: Salah al-Din Square, Cairo, Egypt · Middle East and Egypt
Participants
al-Nasir Hasan (Sultan Hasan), Mamluk Sultanate
Threads
Middle East and Egypt (14th – mid-15th c.)
Also known as
Sultan Hasan Mosque; Madrasa of Sultan Hasan; Мечеть султана Хасана; Медресе султана Хасана

Work began in 757 AH (1356) and went on without a break for three years, at a cost of 20,000 dirhams — about 1,000 mithqals of gold — a day according to al-Maqrizi; it continued until 1363, two years after al-Nasir Hasan had been killed by his mamluk Yalbugha al-Umari, and parts of the decoration seem to have been left unfinished. How such a project could be paid for in the years after the Black Death has been explained in different ways: the Mamluk historian Ibn Iyas told of a treasure found under the site, whereas the historian Howayda al-Harithy argues that the money came largely from the property of plague victims who had left no heirs; the fortunes of amirs who had died of the plague also passed to the treasury. Craftsmen came from all over the Mamluk realm, including Anatolia.

Four iwans open onto a vast courtyard; the largest, on the side facing Mecca, so impressed contemporaries that al-Maqrizi claimed it was bigger than the great arch of Ctesiphon, which it is not. The domed mausoleum behind it is flanked by two minarets; the surviving southern one, about 84 m high, is the tallest of Mamluk architecture. Two more minarets were planned above the portal, but in 1361 one of them collapsed, killing some 300 people, and the plan was abandoned. Facing the Citadel across a square, the building served as a fortress in later struggles — rebels against Sultan Barquq bombarded the Citadel from its roof in 1391 — and it is part of the World Heritage Site of Historic Cairo.

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The same period

135614th century

Sources

  1. Wikipedia (English): Mosque-Madrasa of Sultan Hasan
  2. Wikipedia (English): Al-Nasir Hasan
  3. Wikipedia (Russian): Мечеть султана Хасана
  4. Wikipedia (Russian): Ан-Насир Хасан
  5. Al-Harithy H. The Complex of Sultan Hasan in Cairo: Reading between the Lines // Muqarnas. — 1996. — Vol. 13. — P. 68–79.
  6. Behrens-Abouseif D. Cairo of the Mamluks: A History of the Architecture and its Culture. — London: I. B. Tauris, 2007.