Mosque of Ibn Tulun (for real, this time)

On Friday, I walked out of the dorm and it was sprinkling. It was the first time I had experienced rain in Egypt. There was another time when I came out of a class and it appeared to have rained, but I did not get to see it actually . As I was waiting for a cab to drive by, I was shocked to see everyone in panic-mode. People were running into the church across the street (I think there was a service happening around that time). Others were driving noticeably sloppy. The dorm staff were hurrying to get the mats inside the building. All of this for a very light sprinkle. That is what happens when you live in the desert, I thought. Out of nowhere it started pouring, then quickly turned into hail. There were not any cabs in sight so I ran back to the dorm. It then occurred to me that the people in the street probably knew what was about to happen- that is what happens when you live in the desert.

My weather-update which normally looks like this:

Looked like this:


Friday was spent working on a research paper, but Saturday was I-am-sorry-for-making-us-miss-the-field-trip-to-the-Mosque-of-Ibn-Tulun Day for Jessica and me. We took a cab over to Islamic Cairo and had our own mini-field trip (there was not a scheduled field trip this weekend).

We did not find the entrance right away to the mosque. In fact, we went into another mosque by accident, thanks to the urging of the mosque's doorman. From the second we stepped inside it was clear that this was not the largest mosque in Cairo (Ibn Tulun). It was very small, but the man who got us to come in insisted on showing us around. By showing us around, I mean he took us to a room where he told us to each pay twenty pounds to "go up in the tower". We declined, he lowered the price, and then we told him we just wanted to look around the mosque. Forty-Five seconds later we were outside trying to figure out how to get into Ibn Tulun. We ended up walking around the walls of the mosque, going through the surrounding neighborhood. It was a classic Cairo neighborhood- narrow streets filled with young men driving young women on Vespas, blasting music, old men sitting outside shops, smoking and drinking tea watching middle-aged men work on cars as groups of women walk by, all complete with variety of smells ranging from fresh pita to the meat shops that are making me inch closer and closer to vegetarianism.

Reminder: all of the pictures can be viewed larger if you click on them

A couple of tour buses came in sight- we figured they must be near the entrance of the mosque!

Approaching the mosque:

There is an outer wall that surrounds the actual walls of the mosque. It was meant to separate the outside-world from the mosque:
(To the right is the mosque, to the left is the barrier-wall

The mosque's minaret is very unique for Cairo. If you notice, its steps are on the outside and spiral up. Although this minaret is not thought to be the original, it is believed that it is based on the design of the original minaret. It looks this way because Ibn Tulun, founder of the Tulunid Dynasty which briefly ruled over Egypt and Syria (868-905 AD), grew up in Samarra (in modern day Iraq) when it was the place to be, causing him to be influenced by the design of the mosque in Samarra (it also had a spiral minaret - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malwiya).

Another view, from on top of the wall of the mosque:
From the wall, looking into the mosque:
(This fountain is gigantic, but the walls are, too, so you cannot get a feel for the size of everything)

None of the decorations on the sides of the smaller arches are identical- they go all around the mosque. Also, notice the decorative script that outlines the arches:

The view from the minaret was incredible:
(That is the Citadel to the right. The dome and minarets to the left may also be a part of the Citadel's complex, but I am not sure.)

Close-up of the Citadel:

A series of me trying to get a picture with the Citadel in the background (it was windy):

Looking down at the mosque:
(Those are people- you can start to get a feel of the size of everything)

More of the panaroma:(Up on the mountain, to the left, you will notice a lighly colored building. I think I have learned about this in my architecute class. I believe it is the Mashhad al-Juyushi. There are differing opinions on the roots of the name and what the purpose of the building was. It may have served as a watch tower over Cairo- it is on a mountain. However, it has all of the features of a mosque: minaret, mahrab, etc. Then again, it is very small and would be difficult to fit an entire congregation in it. Of course, this may not even be the right building.)


I think that yellow and green structure is a pigeon coup (if that is the proper term). When I ride back from school in the evenings, I have noticed people standing on top of them waving flags with a large flock of pigeons circling it in the air.
A look down on the mosque we went in by accident:


In the mosque:
(those are grown-adults standing next to it)

The arcades:
and for a size comparison:

This is called a dikka. It is used for the prayer recitations and sermons when there is a large crowd.

The mihrab:
I was trying to get a picture of the kufic, decorative-script, that outlines the arches and accidentally ended up with an example of old meets new (I did not see the lightbulb when I took the picture):

Inside the fountain:

Qur'anic script outlining the dome:

Islamic Cairo (Fieldtrip Edition)

On Saturday, I had a field trip with my architecture class- Jessica and I had agreed that she would do the talking with the cab driver. We made it on time! The field trip was scheduled to go to Islamic Cairo and look at Bab al-Futuh, Bab al-Nasr (not named after the Egyptian leader), and the Mosque of al-Hakim. Yes, exactly what a few friends and I stumbled upon while wandering around a few weeks ago. At least I would have someone explaining what everything is!

The pictures I am going to put up or going to be of things that I learned about- there are more pictures of these structures a couple of posts ago..

This is Bab al-Nasr (Bab can mean either door or gate and Nasr means Victory- Gate of Victory):

..a few weeks ago, this was the first structure that came into sight- I believe I described it like a castle/fortress.

This gate is very simply decorated- it has military shields on it that resembles the shields of the rival empires/armies, like the Byzantines.

Now onto Bab al-Futuh (Gate of Conquest):
This gate has many more decorations on it:
..there is a ram's head on the first support-thing (have not yet learned the term) from the right. Cairo in Arabic is pronounced al-Qahira. Al-Qahira was the final city built of the four that make up what is today Cairo (I touched on this in the Coptic Cairo post). It was named after the planet Mars (Qahir in Arabic) which was the most dominant sign in the sky at the time of construction. When all of the cities were combined, it took the name al-Qahira. Rams represent Mars (that is where I was going with all of that!).

There are many more examples of the decorations in the other post..

Oh my! Is that a pendentive!? Why yes, yes it is:

Pendentives (the part that comes to a tringle in the picture) are one of the ways that square-shaped structures can support domes or other special designs. This is under the Bab al-Futuh.

Last time I went to the mosque of al-Hakim, one of the afternoon prayers were going on so I did not get to see the mihrab. I got to see it this time:
..I know what you are wondering right now, what kind of structure is that holding up the dome over the mihrab? Those are certainly not pendentives!
You are right, those are not pendentives. They are squinches- the other option for angular buildings to support domes without sacrificing looks. The idea behind squinches is to round the corners so the circuluar-dome is able to be supported by the square building (imagine putting a circle on top of a square, this provides more support)

This staircase-like structure is called a 'minbar'. They are quite common in mosques. They act as a pulpit where the Imam (the leader of the prayer) delivers sermons.
If you have not noticed, mosques tend to have high ceilings. How do they keep it so clean?

and

An interesting fact about the Mosque of al-Hakim is that upon completion, the minarets were ordered by the ruler, al-Hakim, to be covered up. No reason was given- al-Hakim was quite an eccentric person. He wanted to ban women from wearing shoes so they would not be able to leave the home. He also just kind of disappeared- nobody knows for certain what happened to him. Last time I was in the mosque, I did not know we could go up in the minarets- I did it this time!

When you enter the base of the minaret, you actually walk into the space between the minaret and the cover that was built around it:

The stairs leading to the top of the minaret are similar to the stairs in a lighthouse (a long spiral). They are actually similar structures now that I think about it.. The view from the top was incredible! You could see all of Islamic Cairo which meant a lot domes and minarets!

You can see the Citadel of Salah ad-Din (Saladin) in the background. When Saladin built this after taking the area from the Fatimids, he ordered that a wall be built combining al-Fustat and al-Qahira so that it can be defended easier. The Citadel the center of Egypt's government activity up until the late 19th century. I am pretty sure I have a field trip that goes to it in May.. It is the rising domed structure to the right.

In this picture, you can see the other minaret of the mosque. Notice how it is a sqaure structure with a circular part on top. The square part is the cover that al-Hakim had built. More Cairo!

The top of the minaret- this is not the original, though.
This was taken from the walls of the mosque/Bab al-Futuh. You can get another view of the cover that was built around the minaret.

This is the shoe rack in al-Hakim. I found this funny because it reminded me of an old job I had at a family fun center (mini-golf, go-karts kind of place). There was a kidsgym (a 'playplace', if you will- it had a ballpit) and kids had to take their shoes off to go in. We had a shoe rack similar to this for their shoes (it was plastic and more colorful). There has been a shoe rack at all of the mosques I have been to (just 2 now that I think about it) and they have had a shoe-rack attendant. I have equated this job to my old job making sure kids take off their shoes before they go in the kidsgym. "Hey, gotta take your shoes off before you go to the ballpit.. Hey, gotta take your shoes off before you go to the pulpit". Although, I am sure he finds his job much more rewarding than I did.
After we left al-Hakim, we still had some time until we needed to be back. Our teacher took us down the street to the Mosque of al-Aqmar. It was the first mosque to be built to the street plan of Cairo, rather than being a perfect sqaure.

It was also the first mosque to have a fully decorated facade (it has be restored):

View into the doorwayWe could not go inside because a prayer was starting. Being in Islamic Cairo for the call to prayer was a really interesting experience. The minarets of the mosques are used to broadcast the call to prayer (A church tower and bells might be a proper comparison). In Islamic Cairo, there are so many mosques and so many minarets that one mosque might have a call to prayer that is spoken faster than the others. It was kind of a mess to listen to, but I really enjoyed hearing them all be out of sync with eachother.

After the field trip, Jessica and I went to Pizza Hut (Bitza Hut in Arabic). I felt very American, but it was delicious. I think it may have been cheaper than in America, too (usually the American fast food places are the same price in Egypt as they would be in America). It will now be a post-fieldtrip tradition.

Coptic Cairo

On Friday, the gang and I decided to go to Coptic Cairo. We had an uneventful walk to the Metro Station and then an uneventful ride on the Metro to Coptic Cairo. Just before getting out of the train, I heard someone's phone ring- the ringtone was 'Yeah!' by User featuring Lil Jon and Ludacris. I found it funny, if not sad.

Coptic Cairo is one of the centers of Christianity in Egypt. The Copts are an Egyptian sect of Christianity that has roots all the way back into the First Century AD with the founder being Mark of Bible-fame. He went to Alexandria and from there Christianity spread throughout Egypt and then throughout Africa, thus Mark is considered to have introduced Christianity to Africa.

Coptic Cairo is also apart of the oldest section of the city, conveniently called Old Cairo. Modern day Cairo is the product of four old cities. The first of which was called 'al-Fustat', built in 642AD. At the time, it was a fortress city that overlooked the Nile. Over time, other cities were built near by to serve different purposes and eventually they were all combined into one, but al-Fustat is what Old Cairo is today.

Our travel books told us that to get into the Coptic Museum, we must find the ruins of the Roman towers. The Romans had built up a fortress in the city of Babylon (not the Babylon) which was right on the delta of the Nile. These are the remains:

We then went into the Coptic Museum...

...where we then had our cameras taken from us by security. The museum contains the largest collection of Egyptian Christian artifacts in the world, while also the most important examples of Coptic art..according to Wikipedia. What I find amusing from the Wikipedia article is that it appears whoever wrote the article was not allowed to bring in cameras either, thus I have the same picture that Wikipedia has.

The woodwork of the museum was amazing, alone. Too bad I could not take a picture to show everyone. The museum had an amazing collection of fragments of old stone artwork that was apart of buildings (I am sure there is a term for this)- most of which dated back to the 5th and 6th Centuries AD. There were thousand-year-old Bibles in Arabic, Copt, and Greek. Old paintings of Jesus, Mary, and a number of Saints. It had what you would expect it to have (I don't mean that in a negative way, either).

After the museum, we walked over to the Hanging Church. It is built over a gatehouse from the Roman fortress, giving it its name. Although the street level has risen significantly since the 3rd Century AD, reducing the awe of its height. It is the most famous Coptic Church in Cairo, presumably because of its height.

Those columns on the left represent the twelve disciples- the black one (in the opening) is for Judas:

As nice as all of that is, when you first walk in, you must go through an even nicer gift shop.

Yes, that is Strawberry Shortcake. No, I do not know why.

I was incredibly confused by this, at first. Why was this in the giftshop?

This was my favorite. Also, notice the icon-calculator in the background (it is a video).

After the Hanging Church, we went to the Greek Church of St. George.

Must be this St. George fellow that is slaying the dragon

Confirmed.

Outside of St George's:

After St. George's we walked through a very old part of the district and to the Coptic Church of St. Barbara. It is another old Coptic church dating back to the 5th/6th Centuries.

According to legend (and the sign), when Joseph, Mary, and Jesus fled to Egypt, they stayed in this area.

Very narrow streets.

After St. George's we left Coptic Cairo and went to the Mosque of Amr ibn al-As, just outside of the district, but still apart of Old Cairo.

I am guessing this a mausoleum.. it was on the way out of Coptic Cairo:

When the Arabs would go on their conquests, where ever they would set up camp, the commander would lay out his tent and then everyone would set their tents around him. The commander's tent was also used as a mosque for the army. So, the Mosque of Amr is thought to be built on the site where the Arab commander laid his tent when they first conquered and settled al-Fustat (Cairo). This makes the Mosque of Amr ibn al-As not only the first mosque in Egypt, but also the first mosque in Africa. However, it has been rebuilt and renovated so many times that it does not resemble its original form.



This is the mosque's 'mihrab'- it is the gathering point for the prayers. This is generally decorated very elaborately. It is on the 'qiblah' which is the wall of the mosque that faces the direction of Mecca.

We did not get to see everything in Coptic Cairo, a lot of it closed before we had a chance to see it. We will return.