Q. & A. 711 to 1707 with solved Papers css 1971 to date

56
ARCHITECTURE UNDER THE FATIMIDS
The origins and early histor jf the Fatimids have already been treated in the previous chapter. It remains here to chronicle the apogee of their glory as rulers of Egypt and their swift decline. Like all Shi’ite Muslims, the Fatimids were strongly inclined to mysticism, which often led to a deep dependence on astrology. When al-Muizz began his preparations in 967 for the conquest of Egypt he was probably inspired by the propitious conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in the sign of the Ram that took place that year. In 969 his SicilianByzantine general Jawhar, having defeated the Ikshidids and taken al-Fustat, camped on unoccupied land to the north and immediately began an enclosure of very large unbaked bricks about 1,435 square yards to house a palace, barracks, and administrative buildings. Apparently its original name was to have been al-Mansuriya, ”the Victorious,” after the suburb outside Kayrawan founded for the same purpose in 945-49.
A propitious moment chosen for the filling of the foundation trenches was to have been signaled by a string of bells, but a crow landed prematurely inside the enclosure before work began. This happened in the ascendancy of the planet Mars (Qahir al-Falak). When four years later al-Muiz/ arrived from Kayrawan he deemed this horoscope propitious and the site was renamed al-Qahira, ”the Triumphant”.
This story of the founding of present-day Cairo, as Creswell points out, may well be legendary since twenty-six years before a similar account had been given of the foundation of Alexandria, a but it is worth recounting for what it reveals of the very real non-
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practical basis of some Islamic city foundings. Essentially the first enclosure was not intended as a true city any more than the circular city of Baghdad. Rather it was a palatial residence and administrative quarter like Mahdiya or even the Forbidden City of Peking; the walled compounds of the city palaces of the present Moroccan dynasty in Marrakesh, Meknes, and Fez are its direct descendants.
A major north-south street linked the old Bab al-Futuh are its direct descendants. Bab Zuwayla, both named for gates at alMansuriya. Part of this street survives in the modern Sharia al-Muizz li-din-Illah. On either side of this, north of the Mosque of al-Azhar, stood the eastern palace laid our by Jawhar and the western palace first built by al- Aziz (975-96). Between them was a very large open square, the Bayn al-Kasrayn (”between the two palaces”). No trace remains of the eastern palace, but literary sources summarized by Creswell inform us that it consisted of a walled enclosure with nine gates of stone and burnt brick. At least one of these, probably the Bab al-Dahab or Golden Gate, had a window from which on occasion the Caliph appeared to his people. Within the enclosure were ten or twelve square oavilions The most important of these was the Kasr al-Dahab within which was the Qa’at al-Dahab, one of the two principal throne rooms. The other was in a pavilion called the I wan al-Kabir or Great Iwan, built by al-Aziz. This was domed and occupied the center of the enclosure. Probably the arrangement as whole was complex and symmetrical, as at Medina al-Zahra. In this it must have differed notably from the more symmetrical Abbasid palaces or those at Mahdiya and Ashir. The Mosque of al-Azhar
The modern Sharia al-Azhar may mark a former west- east axis of Jawhar’s enclosure. Directly south of this, near the Bab alBarqiya gate, Jawhar began the great Mosque of al-Azhar in April of

970. The Khutba (Friday prayer) was first read from its minbar in June of 972 and a university was founded in it in 988. Salvaged shafts and capitals support pointed four-centered arches of burnt bricks, which are also used for the othei ualls and much resemble those of the Mosque of Ibn Tulun. No idea at all is possible of the original appearance of the mosquc’v exterior, but Creswell has reconstructed the original plan Tli \^s a building which in its

doubling and trebling of column- ^ i> of stress^resembles Ubayd Allah’s first mosque at Mahdiya

778 Political and Cultural History of Islam

There is the same strong emphasis on the mihrab axis, but the corner domes of al-Azhar seem not to have been present at Mahdiya. Furthermore, the aisles of al-Azhar run parallel to the qibla wall. The ultimate origin of the fine overall pattern may be the spandrel of some of the arches of the sixth-century Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, but the more immediate influence is that of the stuccoes in Ibn Tulun’s mosque. The facade of the prayer hall results from a twelfth-century reconstruction of the sahn and is discussed later.
Reigns of the Caliph-al-Aziz (972-96 and al-Hakim 996-

1021). The Friday mosque now known by the name of al-Hakim was begun by ai-Aziz outside the north wall of Jawhar’s enclosure between the old Bab al-Futuh and the old Bab al-Nasr late in the year

990. Al-Aziz held the first Friday prayer there in November of 991. His successor. al-Hakim, ordered the entrance facade finished in

1002/3, including the two minarets and the monumental entrance between them. In late 1010 al-Hakim, rather inexplicably, ordeied the minarets surrounded by two square slants, concealing them to a height equal to that of the walls of the mosque. In March of 1013, after gifts of curtains and rich furniture were made, the first Friday prayer was conducted in the refurnished building.’

The prototype for the structure begun under al-Aziz was clearly Ibn Tulun’s mosque, though here the brick piers are slenderer, while the transept or mihrab aisle with its (restored) destroy and the three domes of the qibla aisle recall the Mosque of al-Azhar. The latter may also have inspired al-Hakim’s facade, but this is less certain since the facade of al-Azhar no longer exists. We now, however, know much more about Ubayd Allah’s mosque at Mahdiya, and Hakim’s strange salients of 1010 appropriate the square cisterns with cylindrical interiors of that structure. Though it is not known if Mallows cisterns were even intended to support minarets, they now end at’*g»e height of the walls of the mosque as do Hakim’s salients. The’ cen’tral portal at Mahidya certainly provided Hakim’s architect with his model, and even the placement of the secondary portals close to the center than to the ends of the facade is similar.
Hakim’s mosque originally had no less than thirteen entrances, all symmetrically arranged and three of them monumental. The two side portals provided a cross-axis at the center line of the
lalbot Rice, Islamic Ait. P I
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sahn. The porch and the minarets of Hakim’s facade of 1003/3 are of superb masonry construction richly adorned with crisp and elegant ornament reminiscent of Medina al-Zahra’s of a half century earlier. The frequent occurrence of the pentagram or Solomon’s seal may attest to Hakim’s known interest in black magic, through it must be remembered he was only eighteen when this work was in progress.
The rapid decline of the Fatimid Caliphate became accelerated under Mustansir, reaching a climax in 1073 when, after years of plagues and famines, an army revolt threatened to erupt into full-scale anarchy. The Caliph then ordered Badr al-Gamali, the Armenian governor of Acre, to restore order. Badr succeeded after may executions and was rewarded with the title of Amir al-Juyushi (”army commander’’), by which he is best known he was also made wazir and chief of the Shi’ite missionary organization. After he returned from a campaign in the Sudan in 1085, Badr ordered work begun on a mosque, in which he may have intended to be bunted, and new walls for Cairo. The Mosque of al-Juyshi
The Mosque of al-Juyshi is a small mashad or oratory of
rubble masonry and brick, situated on an exposed hill side
dominating Cairo from the east and overlooking its southern
approaches. It has recently been pointed out be Farid Shaf i that the
prominent minaret would hardly have been necessary in a
neighbourhood with very few residents to call to prayer. However,
the minaret and four small domed structures on the roof, too small
for knelling in prayer, would have provided excellent observation
posts for those interested in preventing civil unrest or attack from the
south, both real possibilities in view of the disturbances within the
Caliphate. The elegant interior, reached through a small door at the
base of the minaret on axis with the mihrab, seems to have been
arranged for residential purposes as well as for worship, since the
barrel-vaulted chambers flanking the minute sahn have no
connection with the prayer hall.
Symmetry is broken only by the tomb chamber, its dome supported on the usual squinches, opening from the first bay of the prayer hall through the northeast wall. The cornice terminating the square base of the minaret is formed of large-scale muqarnas, the earlier extant example in Egypt. The superb carved stucco mihrab so closely recalls Seljuke work in Iran, though admittedly the surviving examples there are somewhat later, that one wonders if these designs

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Political and Cultural History of Islam

and the muqarnas were not transmitted from Iran or even further east at the same time.