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CAIRO

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CAIRO

JERUSALEM ^DAMASCUS

THREE CHIEF CITIES OF THE EGYPTIAN SULTANS. BY D. S. MARGOLIOUTH, D.Litt. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR BY W. S. S. TYRWHITT, R.B.A., AND ADDITIONAL PLATES BY REGINALD BARRATT, A.R.W.S.

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LONDON

CHATTO & WINDUS

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The design on the side of the binding is reproduced after a Syrian tile of the XVIIIth Century from a Damascus mosque.

Ccpyrigbt in the United Srares of Atmrica, 1 907, by Dodd, Mead, and Co.

DEDICATED TO HER HIGHNESS PRINCESS AL^ZL/,DAUGHTEROF MUSTAFA FADE PASHA AND GREAT-GRAND-DAUGHTER OF MOHAMMED ALI PASHA

Madame^ — 1 utilize your J(indly per- mission to dedicate a boo\ to you by offering this, in the confidence that the njDor\ of the artists will have your ap- proval, whatever may be your judg- ment on the text. The scenes which they ha'^pe painted^ and which I have attempted to describe, are familiar to your High- ness from childhood. In and about them your ancestors have played a great part, and two out of the three cities illustrated here are indissolubly con- nected with their names. It has long been your Highness* s custom to judge with leniency and sympathy 'U>hatever comes from this country to yours; may the same charity be extended to this book.

Tour Highnesses humble servant,

THE AUTHOR

PREFACE

THE task of composing the letterpress to ac- company Mr Walter Tyrwhitt's paintings of scenes at Cairo, Jerusalem and Damascuswas offered to the present writer, an occasional visitor at those cities, as a relief from the labour of editing and translating Arabic texts. The chance of being asso- ciated at any time in his life with the Fine Arts consti- tuted a temptation which he was unable to resist.

The account of Cairo has been based on the Khitat Taiijikiyyah Jaddiahoi hiA Pasha Mubarak, corrected and supplemented from various sources, especially the admirable memoirs published by the French Archsological Mission at Cairo, and bearing the names of Ravaisse, Casanova, and van Berchem. Monographs dealing with particular buildings have been used when available, especially those of Herz Bey: the author regrets that he has not been able to get access to all this eminent architect's works. Of historical treatises employed he need only mention the History of ^SModeni Egypt (Arabic) by his friend, G. Zaidan, which has been of use especially for the Turkish period.

For Chapter XI (Jerusalem) the author must ac- knowledge his obligation to the works published by the Palestine Exploration Fund, especially those by Wilson, Warren, Conder, and Lestrange. For Chapter XII (Damascus) he has derived much help from the Description de Damas^ translated, with an

IX

Preface excellent commentary, by M. Sauvaire of the In- stitut in the Journal Asiatique^ ser. ix, vols 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

The architectural paragraphs have been either revised or w^ritten by Mrs Margoliouth, who has had training in architectural drawing. The treatises on Arabic Art of Gayet, Saladin, and Lane-Poole have been studied with profit. The author has, how- ever, abstained from consulting the work of the last of these writers on Cairo: for, owing to Mr Lane-Poole's unique qualifications for dealing with this subject, the perusal of his book might have in- volved anyone else writing on the same theme in plagiarism.

Oxford^ September^ k^cj.

CONTENTS

Chap. I. Cairo before the Fatimides ^age i

II. The Fatimide Period i8

III. Buildings of the Fatimide Period 40

IV. The Ayyubid Period and its Buildings 49 V. The First Mamluke Sovereigns 65

VI. Nasir and his Sons 82

VII. The Early Circassian Mamlukes 102

VIII. The last of the Circassian Mamlukes 122

IX. The Turkish Period 136

X. The Khedivial Period 1 54

XL Jerusalem: an Historical Sketch • 175

XII. The Praises of Damascus 228

XIII. Scenes from the History of Damascus 249

Appendix. The Massacre of i860 275

Glossary 287

Index 291

X]

ILLUSTRATIONS

Coloured Plates

The Sphinx Frontispiece

The Sentinel of the Nile Faci?2g p. i

Tooloon (Tulun) Mosque, Cairo 8

In a Cairene Street 12

Midan-el-Adaoui (Maidan El-Adawi) 24 Street Scene, Bab el Sharia (Bab Al-sha'Riyyah) ,

Cairo ^6 Old Gateway near Bab-al-Wazir, Cairo 42 Sharia el Azhar (Shari-al-Azhar), Cairo 44 Courtyard of the Mosque of El Azhar, Uni- versity of Cairo 46 A Mosque in the Saida Zeineb (Sayyidah

Zainab) Quarter, Cairo 48

The Citadel of Cairo ro

An Old Palace, Cairo 58

Door of a Mosque, Cairo 64

Mosque of Sultan Baibars, Cairo 70

The Khan El Gamaliyeh (Jamaliyyah), Cairo 84

A Street near El Gamaliyeh (Jamaliyyah) , Cairo 8 6

Mosque of Almas; Interior, Cairo 88

Minaret of Ibrahim Agha's Mosque, Cairo 90

Outside the Mosque of Ibrahim Agha, Cairo 92

Ibrahim Agha's Mosque: the Interior 94

The Washing-place, Ibrahim Agha's Mosque 96 Interior of the Mosque of Shakhoun (Shaik-

hun), Cairo 98

The Tentmakers' Bazaar, Cairo 102

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Cairo

An Old House near the Tentmakers' Bazaar,

Cairo Facing p. io6

Tombs of the CaHphs, Cairo io8

The Dome of El Moaiyad (Muayyad) from

Bab Zuweyleh (Zuwailah), Cairo iio

A Courtyard near the Tentmakers' Bazaar, Cairo 1 20 Palace of Kait Bey (Kaietbai), Cairo 130

The Mosque el Choree (Ghuri), Cairo 132

Mosques in the Sharia Bab al Wazir, Cairo 138 A Side Street in Cairo 142

A Street Scene in Cairo 148

Sharia el Kirabiyeh or Street of the Water- Carriers, Cairo 154 The Khan el Dobabiyeh (Dubabiyyah), Cairo 160 Cairo: Shari Darb el Gamamiz (Jamamiz) 164 Souk Silah, the Armourers' Bazaar, Cairo 172 The Fair, Moolid el Ahmadee (Maulid

Ahmadi), Cairo 174

Morning in Jerusalem : The Dome of the

Rock on the Shaded Side 176

Jerusalem: The Dome of Kait Bey (Kaietbai)

Haram-es-Shereef (Sharif) 204

The Gate of the Cotton Merchants, Jerusalem 208 South Porch of Mosque and Summer Pulpit,

Jerusalem 210

Dome of the Rock from Al Aksa, Jerusalem 214 Haram es Shereef (Sharif), Jerusalem 216

Damascus from the Salahiyeh (Salihiyyah) :

Sunset over the City 222

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Cairo

House of Naaman, Damascus Facing p. 224

Tomb of Sheik (Shaikh) Arslan, Damascus 226 Walls of the City and Barada River, Damascus 228 The Hamareh (Suk Ali Pasha), Damascus 230 A Khan in Damascus 234

(i) Syrian Tile of the XVIIIth Century, from a Damascus Mosque, (2) Syrian Tile, XVIth or XVIIth Century, from a Damascus Mosque 236

Minaret of the Bride, Damascus 238

Damascus, Minaret of Jesus 240

General View of Damascus in Early Spring 242 Traditional Site where St Paul was let down

in a Basket, Damascus 246

Domes of Damascus 252

The Moslem Cemetery and View of Mount

Hermon, Damascus 258

The Maidan, Damascus 262

Near the Maidan, Damascus 266

Line Drawings

Hezekiah's Pool 181

Tower Antonia, Jerusalem 209

Dome of the Rock, Interior 217

Summer Pulpit, Haram Area 223

THE following illustrations have been reproduced by the courtesy of their owners :

Tooloon Mosque ; In a Cairene Street ; A Street Scene, Cairo ; The Mosque El Ghoree, Cairo ; and Door of a Mosque, Cairo, by kind permission of the owner, T. M. Kitchin, Esq.: and the Sentinel of the Nile, by kind permission of the owner, M. le Vicomte R, d'Humieres.

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Cairo

ERRATA. The titles of the two plates " Morning in Jerusalem: The Dome of the Rock on the Shaded Side," and " Minaret of Ibrahim Agha's Mosque," are incorrectly given on the plates themselves as " Morning in Jerusalem: the Mosque of Omar on the Shaded Side," and "Mosques in the Sharia Bab-el- Wazir." Where the phonetic spell- ing of other titles differs in text and illustrations, the alternative titles are given in brackets in the list of illustrations and on the tissues.

XVJ

Addendum

OF the Plates in this Volume the Frontispiece and those facing Pages 2, 8, 12,50,64, 132, 148, 174 are after Mr Reginald Barratt, a.r.w.s. ; the remainder after Mr Walter S. S. Tyrwhitt, r.b.a. ; the line drawings by Mr P. B. Whelpley.

CAIRO

CHAPTER I

Cairo before the Fatimides

IF modern Egypt is a doubly dependent country, tribu- tary to one empire, and protected by another, a few centuries ago it claimed to be not only independent but imperial. Its capital, Cairo, was founded when the power of Baghdad was already declining, and for two centuries it maintained a Caliph who contested with his Eastern rival the possession of Syria, Palestine and Arabia. And when in the thirteenth century the IMongol storm wrecked the great metropolis of Islam on the Tigris, it was at Cairo that sovereigns arose capable of rebuilding an Islamic empire, and repelling the j\Iongols beyond the Euphrates. For two- and-a-half centuries Cairo remained the capital of western Islam, and the seat of the most powerful INIohammedan state, sending out governors to many provinces, and recog- nized as suzerain even where it did not appoint the ruler : being itself the laboratory of a political experiment perhaps f never tried elsewhere. Its monarchs bore the title Slaves ' {Mamluke)^ not in mock humility like the Serviis servorum Dei, but in the plain and literal sense of the term. The oc-. cupant of the throne was ordinarily a Turk, Circassian or( Greek, who had been purchased in the market, and then \ climbed step by step, or at times by leaps and bounds, a ladder of honours at the top of which was the Sultan's throne. A slave with slaves for ministers constituted the*/

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Qairo

court, and men of the same origin officered the army. The talents which had raised the first sovereign to the first place were rarely, if ever, handed on to his offspring; the natural heir to the throne could seldom maintain himself on it for more than a few months or years. To have passed through the slave-dealer's hands seemed to be a necessary qualification for royalty.

In the country which gave them their title these rulers housed as strangers. To its religion they indeed conformed, but with its language they were usually unfamiliar. The life of the nation was affected by their justice or injustice, and the wisdom or unwisdom of their policy internal and exter- nal ; but in the nation they took no root. Hence one battle displaced them for the Ottomans, just as one battle in our day put the country under the power of Great Britain.

Cairo then eclipsed Baghdad, to be eclipsed after two-and- a-half centuries by Constantinople; but to the dynasty under which it reached the zenith of its fame and power it did not owe its foundation. That took place in the tenth century A.D., when an army was sent to invade Egypt by the descendant of a successful adventurer, who, claiming to be of the Prophet Mohammed's line, had founded a dynasty in North Africa. The place where this army had encamped, after capturing the older metropolis, was chosen to be the site of the new one. And it was called Victoria (Kahirah) in commemoration of the conquest already achieved, and as an augury of others to be won.

j Those who found cities to inaugurate new dynasties ordi- narily keep near the beaten track. Cairo is but two miles to the north of Fostat, which had been the capital of the coun-

[ try from the time of the Mohammedan conquest. Its name is the Latin word Fossatii?ii ** an entrenchment " — and it was the camp of the conquering army which, under Amr son of

' al-As, had wrested Egypt from the Byzantine empire, and

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Qairo before the Fatwiides

which was made the seat of government because the Caliph of the time would have no water between his capital, Medinah, and any Islamic city. This is why the capital of Greek and Roman times, Alexandria, lost its pre-eminence. Fostat itself was not far from the remains of the ancient Memphis, and a city called Babylon, supposed to date from Persian times.

For some time the new city kept growing by the side of the old city without the latter losing much of its importance or its populousness, of which fabulous accounts are given by persons professing to be eyewitnesses. At one time it was supposed to contain 36,000 mosques and 1,270 public baths. A description of the fourteenth century, when it had long been on the decline, still gives it 480 small and 14 large mosques, 70 public baths and 30 Christian churches or mo- nasteries. Fostat was celebrated not only for its size, its populousness and the wealth of its stores, but also for the foulness of its air — for the mountains screened it from the fresh breezes of the desert — and the carelessness of its inhabi- tants with regard to the most elementary precautions of cleanliness. Dead animals were flung into the streets and left there; the gutters discharged into the same Nile whence water for drinking was raised in myriads of buckets. The cause, however, of the eventual desolation of Fostat was not its unhealthiness, but the act of a ruler of Egypt. Shawar, nominally vizier but really sovereign, in the year 1 163 hav- ing to defend the country at once against the Franks and against a rival from Syria, despaired of saving the double city ; so he committed the older capital to the flames. Twenty thousand bottles of naphtha and ten thousand lighted torches were distributed by his orders in Fostat, whence all the population had been cleared, to be harboured in the mos- ques, baths and wherever else there was space in Cairo. For fifty days the ancient city blazed; when at last the flames

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were exting"uished, all that remained of the capital of the first Moslem conqueror of Egypt was a pile of ashes.

The history of Cairo falls into five main periods: the Fati- mide, the Ayyubid, the Mamluke, the Turkish, and the Khedivial. The Fatimides, though the first independent Moslem dynasty both in fact and in name that governed Egypt, had been preceded by some rulers only nominally dependent on Baghdad. The first of these was Ahmad Ibn Tulun, whose mosque still remains. The example of gover- ning Egypt for its own good with the aid of a foreign gar- rison was set by this predecessor of Mohammed Ali, and has been repeatedly followed.

The materials for his biography are fairly copious, and the figure which emerges is like those of many Oriental states- men— a combination of piety, benevolence, shrewdness and unscrupulousness. His father, Tulun, was a Turk, who had been sent by the governor of Bokhara in the tribute to Baghdad, to the Caliph Mamun, son of the famous Harun al- Rashid, early in the ninth century; for at that time part of the tribute of those Eastern dependencies was paid in slaves. Ere long he was manumitted, and rose to a post of some importance at the Caliph's court, which was beginning to depend on Turkish praetorians. His son, Ahmad, the future ruler of Egypt, was born September 20, 835. At the age of twenty-two, after his father's death, he obtained leave to migrate to Tarsus, a frontier city, exposed to attacks from the Byzantines, on the chance of seeing active service and obtaining regular pay. But his taste for theology was no less keen than that for the profession of arms, and at Tar- sus he found opportunities for the profoundest study. At last, however, an earnest summons from his mother decided him to return, and he started for Samarra, where at the time the Eastern Caliph had fixed his residence. On this journey he got the first chance of displaying his military

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Qairo before the Fati^nules

capacity. The caravan, five hundred strong, to which he had attached himself was conveying' a great collection of con- traband treasures from Constantinople to Samarra. After passing Edessa, and having reached what was supposed to be safe ground, it was attacked by Arab banditti, whom Ahmad succeeded in defeating, thereby rescuing the Ca- liph's treasure from their hands. This act placed him high in his sovereign's favour. Ere long a palace revolution led to this sovereign's deposition, and Ahmad Ibn Tulun ac- companied him to exile at Wasit, in the capacity of guar- dian, in which he conducted himself with modesty and gentleness. A command from Samarra to dispatch his pri- soner was disobeyed by him ; but he made no difficulty about handing his former sovereign over to another executioner. In the year 868 Ahmad's stepfather was appointed gover- nor of Egypt, and sent his stepson thitherto represent him. On September 15 he entered Fostat, the then capital of the country, at the head of an army. His authority did not stretch over the whole land, and the financial department, chiefly connected with the collection of the tribute to be sent to Baghdad, was under another official, independent of the governor and inclined to thwart him. This finance minister, like many of his successors, had rendered himself unpopular by a variety of ingenious extortions, and in order to protect his life had surrounded himself with a bodyguard of a hundred armed pages. Ahmad excited this man's sus- picion by refusing a handsome present of money, and de- manding of him instead his bodyguard, which he was com- pelled to hand over. In spite of the finance minister's con- sequent endeavours to blacken Ahmad's character at court, fortune continued to favour the deputy governor persistently. In 869 his stepfather was executed, but the government of Egypt was conferred upon his father-in-law, who not only retained Ahmad in office, but placed under him those Egyp-

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tian districts which had previously been independent of him. By the suppression of various risings he won such a reputation for ability and loyalty that when in 872 the governor of Syria rebelled against the Caliph and appro- priated the Egyptian tribute, Ahmad was summoned to Syria and authorized to gather forces sufficient to quell the rebellion. These forces were not actually employed for this purpose, but they were not disbanded, and Ahmad on his return to Kgypt ordered a new suburb north of Fostat to be built for their accommodation. This suburb, which covered a site previously occupied by Jewish and Christian burial grounds, was called Kata'i " the fiefs," and was divided into streets assigned to the different classes of which the army was formed; its area was about a square mile. It has been remarked that each epoch in the development of the IMoslem capital of Egypt was marked by the fresh location of a per- manent camp ; and the origin of Fostat and Kata'i will be reproduced in the cases of Cairo and its citadel.

The next years were spent by Ahmad in consolidating his power, and by various devices, not unscrupulous for an Oriental, getting free from his enemies. Agents were main- tained by him in Baghdad to intercept communications from Egypt directed against himself, and summary punishment metedout to thosefrom whom the communications emanated. By bribes wisely administered at court he contrived that all to whom the governorship of Egypt was offered should decline it; and by lending money through agents on easy terms he gained a hold on many a potential enemy. The finance minister who had stood in his way was after a time induced to resign his post, and Ahmad, who took it over, released his subjects from the onerous imposts to which they had been subjected; an act of piety for which he is supposed to have been rewarded by luck in thediscovery of treasures; but whetlier tliese discoveries actually took place or were

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Qah'o before the Fati??iides

fictions of Ahmad himself or his biographers is unknown. In 876, owing to exorbitant demands made by the Caliph's brother then occupied in fighting with a pretender who had raised the standard of revolt in the marshes of the Euphrates, Ahmad definitely threw off his allegiance; an army was equipped against him, but owing to mutiny it never came near the Egyptian frontier. In the following year Ahmad seized Syria, and advanced as far as Tarsus, whence he withdrew after establishing peaceful relations with the Byzantine emperor.

To Ahmad Ibn Tulun three buildings were ascribed, of which only one remains intact. In 873 he founded the first hospital of Moslem Egypt: its site, in a quarter called As- kar, south west of the new quarter Kata'i, is accurately de- scribed by the great mediaeval topographer of Cairo, by whose time it was already ruined. According to custom, the rents of a number of buildings were given it by way of en- dowment. Patients, during their stay in it, were to be fed and clothed at the expense of the hospital; when by eating a chicken and a roll one of them had given evidence of being restored to health, his garments and any money that he had brought were returned to him, and he was dismissed. Ahmad Ibn Tulun was a diligent visitor at his hospital until a prac- tical joke played by a lunatic under treatment there gave the founder a distaste for further visits.

Another work ascribed to the same ruler is an aqueduct, by which water raised at a well on a spur of Mount Mo- kattam was brought northwards. The aqueduct, at its com- mencement not more than six metres high, gradually be- comes level with the ground. The ruins of this engineering work were identified by Corbet-Bey (to whose article in the Journal of the Asiatic Society for 1891 we shall be indebted for part of the description of Ahmad's Mosque), with an aqueduct known as Migret al-Imam, commencing opposite

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the village of Basatin. According- to this writer the structure of the aqueduct confirms the legend which makes it the work of the same architect who afterwards built the Alosque, and who, for having allowed some fresh mortar to remain on which one day Ahmad's horse stumbled, was rewarded for his services with five hundred blows and imprisonment. The immediate purpose of the aqueduct was to furnish water to a mosque called the Mosque of the Feet, which, though renewed after Ahmad's time, seems to have disappeared. It served, however, for a much larger community than the keepers of the mosque, and like the rest of this ruler's insti- tutions was well endowed. The excellence of the construc- tion of the aqueduct caused it to be imitated afterwards, it is said, without success. In 1894 a small sum was devoted by the Committee for the Preservation of the ]\Ionuments of Arab Art to its repair.

More permanent than either of these works has been the Mosque of Ahmad Ibn Tulun, built during the years 877- 879. Only two mosques for public worship preceded it in Egypt, if we may believe the chroniclers — one, the old IMosque of Amr, the conqueror of Egypt, of which the ori- ginal has quite disappeared, though a building is still called by its name: another, long forgotten, in the quarter called Askar, the creation of which came between that of Fostat and Kata'i. The people of Fostat are said to have complained that the Mosque of Amr was not large enough to hold all Ahmad's black soldiers at Friday service; yet since Mohammedan potentates have ordinarily endea.voured to perpetuate their names by the erection of religious edi- fices, this motive is not required to explain the undertaking. Mr Lane Poole has observed that the older form of mosque consisted of an area enclosed by cloisters, which gave way to a form less wasteful of space, when ground became valu- able. This was the design adopted by Ahmad Ibn Tulun,

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TOOI.OON MOSOUli. CAIRO.

i'c^lOH

Qairo before the FaWnides

but a building of the size contemplated required a vast number of columns, such as could only be obtained by de- molishing existing churches or oratories, since the supply to be had from ancient and disused edifices had run short; and it was only so that the Moslem builders supplied themselves with columns. The Coptic architect — if the legend may be believed — hearing in his prison of the ruler's difficulty, sent word to the effect that he could build the desired edifice without columns, or at least wnth only two. He could build with piers, and employ brick, a material better able to resist fire than marble. His offer was accepted, he was released and set to work.

The Mosque has been frequently represented and de- scribed, perhaps best by Corbet-Bey in the article to which reference has already been made. The hard red bricks of which it is constructed are eighteen centimetres long by eight wide, and about four thick, laid flat, and bound by layers of mortar from one-and-a-half to tw^o centimetres .

thick, all covered with several layers of fine white plaster. ,^ \ \3 The foundations are for the most part on the solid rock; the, \ O site being called the Hill of Yashkur, named after an Arab tribe who were settled there at the time of the conquest of Eg}^pt, and employed before Ahmad's date as atrial ground for artillery. Owing to the nature of the foundation and the solidity of the building the whole Mosque, with slight ex- ceptions, has resisted the effects of time, only one row of piers — the front row of the sanctuary — having fallen, in consequence of an earthquake on Sunday, June 8, 1814. The founder's desire that the edifice should survive fire and flood has therefore been fulfilled.

Besides the use of piers instead of columns, the building is noteworthy as exhibiting the first employment on a large scale in Aloslem architecture of the pointed^arch, which is \ said to be specially characteristic of Coptic architecture, \

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and indeed to be found in all Coptic churches and monas- teries ; the builder of the Mosque had already employed them in the Aqueduct. The arches (according to Corbet's measure- ments) spring from a height of 4.64 metres from the ground, rising at the apex to a perpendicular height of 3.70 metres from the spring; their span is 4.56 metres, and there is a slight return. Above the piers the space between the arches is pierced by a small pointed arch, rising to the same height as the main arches, and indicating that the architect was aware of the mechanical properties of the pointed arch.

Four cloisters then — three consisting of double rows and one of a fivefold row of piers — surround a square court, of which the sides measure ninety and ninety-two metres, while the whole Mosque covers an area of 1 43 by 1 1 9, On three sides the whole is enclosed by a surrounding wall at a dis- tance of about fifteen metres from the cloisters. Various geometrical ornaments in low relief are worked in the stucco both round and above the arches, as they appear in the painting, which, however, represents not such arches as have been described, but windows in the wall of the same type as those which support the roof of the colonnades, but springing from eng"aged dwarf columns. A line of stucco ornament of a similar type runs above the small arches over the colonnades; the space between this and the roof of syca- more beams is filled with wooden planks, containing verses of the Koran in Cufic letters cut in wood and attached to the planking. Exaggerated accounts make this frieze con- tain the whole of the Koran; but Corbet-Bey's calculations show that they could never have contained more than a seventeenth part of the IMoslem sacred book.

Two features of interest are the dome in the centre of the court and the minaret on the north side. The central space was originally occupied by a fountain, for ornament not for ablution, a ceremony for which the founder had already

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Qairo before the Fatimic/es

made provision elsewhere. The fountain was in a marble basin, covered by a dome resting- on ten marble columns and surmounted by another resting on sixteen. There were thus above the fountain two chambers, from each of which the jMuezzin could utter the call to prayer; while the roof had a parapet of teak wood, and had on it something re- sembling a sundial. The whole of this marble erection was destroyed by fire on Thursday, September 7, 892, nine years after the founder's death, and more than a hundred years elapsed before it was replaced.

The original minaret begins as a square tower, above which there is a round tower, each of which has an external staircase, broad enough for two loaded camels to mount; to these, in later times, two octagonal towers with internal staircases, after the style of the ordinary minaret, have been added. In explanation of this remarkable shape the Moslems tell a story how Ahmad Ibn Tulun, who considered it beneath his dignity to trifle in council, once by accident played with a roll of paper, and to conceal his momentary lapse asserted that he was making the model after which theminaret of his mosque should be built. Other writers, how- ever, state that both the ^losque and its minaret were copied from the great jNIosque of Samarra, which in Ahmad Ibn Tulun's time had been the metropolis of the Caliphate; and though Samarra quickly went to ruins when the supremacy of Baghdad had been restored, we hear something of a wonderful minaret there, whence a \\e\\ of the surrounding country could be obtained. Corbet-Bey imagines the form of tlie minaret to resemble that of Zoroastrian fire-towers; and this suggestion seems to account for the occurrence of the type at Samarra, which it was natural for a provincial governor to copy. The tower was at one time surmounted by a boat, standing by which, after the completion of his work, the Christian architect is said to have demanded his

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reward, which this time was amply accorded. The same ornament continued till May, 1694, when it was blown off in a gale, but it was afterwards for a time replaced.

The total cost of the building is given unanimously by our authorities as a sum which works out at about ;;{^6o,ooo; and when Ahmad's subjects doubted whether this money had been lawfully obtained, and therefore whether the Mosque could safely be used for worship, the founder is said to have silenced their scruples by assuring them that it had all been built out of treasure trove — money alm.ost miraculously supplied by heaven's favour. Tales are told of the magnificence of the decoration and furniture provided for the inaugural ceremony; how it was even intended to encircle the Mosque with a line of ambergris, that the wor- shippers might always have a fragrant odour to delight their sense. The dedicatory inscription was engraved on more than one marble stele, and parts of one of these have recently been rediscovered and fixed to one of the pillars of the sanctuary, opposite the mihrab, or niche, marking the direction of prayer. It runs as follows :

"In the name of, etc. The Emir Abu'l-Abbas Ahmad Ibn Tulun, client of the Commander of the Faithful, whose might, honour and perfect favour God prolong in this world and the next, commanded that this holy, happy Mosque be built for the Moslem community, out of legiti- mate and well-gotten wealth granted him by God. Desiring thereby the favour of God and the future world, and seek- ing that which will conduce to the glory of religion and the unity of the believers, and aspiring to build a house for God and to pay His due and to read His Book, and to make perpetual mention of Him; since God Almighty says, In houses which God has permitted to be raised, wherein His name is mentioned, and wherein praise is rendered unto Him morning and evening by men that are distracted

l.N A i^AiKENE STREET.

Qai7^o before the Fat'wiides

neither by merchandise nor by selling from making men- tion of God, reciting prayer and giving alms, fearing a day wherein the hearts and eyes shall be troubled, that God may reward them for the good that they have wrought, and may give them yet more out of His bounty. And God be- stows on whom He will without reckoning. In the month Ramadan of the year 265. Exalt thy Lord, the Lord of might, over that which they ascribe to Him. And peace be on the messengers and praise unto God the Lord of the worlds. O God, be gracious unto Mohammed, and Moham- med's family, and bless Mohammed and his family even according to the best of Thy favour and grace and blessing upon Abraham and his family. Verily Thou art glorious and to be praised."

Of the history of the Mosque after Ahmad's time some notices are preserved. His suburb Kata'i, which contained not only his Mosque but also his vast palace and parade ground, was burned in 905 ; and as the surrounding locality became more and more deserted, the Mosque itself suffered from neglect. The second of the Fatimide Caliphs is said to have replaced the fountain, which, as we have seen, was burned soon after its erection; but the desolation of the region reached its climax during the long reign of the Fatimide Mustansir, and the Mosque came to be used as a resting-place for jMoorish caravans on their way to ]\Iecca, who stabled their camels in the cloisters. Its use as a hostel was countenanced by the Egyptian rulers of the twelfth century, who even provided food for those who made it their resting-place; such persons were also declared free from the ordinary tribunals, and told to appoint a judge of their own to settle any quarrels that might arise.

Systematic restoration was effected by the Mamluke Sultan Lajin, who, after murdering his master in the year 1294, took refuge in the then desolate Mosque, and there vowed

13

V

(^airo

that, if he escaped his pursuers and eventually came to power, he would restore it. Two years later, being raised to the throne of Egypt, he was in a position to fulfil his promise; to which pious object he devoted a sum of about ten thou- sand pounds. He rebuilt the fountain in the centre of the ^ court, turning it into a lavatory for the ceremonial ablu- tion, and his building still remains ; he provided a handsome ^■ ■^ mimbar or pulpit, of which some panels have found their way way into the South Kensington Museum ; but the inscription which records his munificence is still there. He repaved the colonnades and restored the plastering of the walls. He also provided the Mosque with endowments sufficient to support a variety of officials, including professors of the chief Moslem sciences, and a school for children. Shortly after his time, early in the fourteenth century, the two minarets on the south side were built; and in 1370 the northern colonnade was rebuilt, and perhaps the arches which connect the minaret which has been described with the Mosque were constructed.

Under the dominion of the Turks the Mosque was again allowed to fall into neglect, and became a factory for the production of woollen goods; while in the nineteenth century it became a poorhouse for the aged and infirm, the arcades being built up and turned into a series of cells, and the in- terior profaned and desecrated in every possible way. The poorhouse was closed in 1877, and in 1890 the Committee for the Preservation of the jMonuments of Arab Art suc- ceeded in removing some traces of the injuries which the edifice had sustained, and it has ever since remained under their care. 1 The period between the death of Ahmad Ibn Tulun in 884 I to the foundation of Cairo in 969 was in the highest degree eventful, but the events which it contained were of little con- sequence for the subject of this book. The last days of Ahmad

14

Qairo befo7^e the Fatimides

were embittered bythe rebellion of one of hissons, who, being caught and imprisoned, was put to death shortly after the accession of another son, Khumaruyah, who reigned for thirteen years. He showed great competence both as a diplo- matist and as a soldier; he restored friendly relations between the courts of Egypt and Baghdad, and received in fief from the Caliph for the period of thirty years a vast empire stretch- ing from Barca to the Tigris. He was, however, more famous for his magnificence than for his statesmanship or his mili- tary skill. Wonderful tales are told of his palaces, his gar- dens and his menageries; of walls frescoed at his order with pictures of the ladies in his harem, with crowns on their heads; of trees set in silver, and exotics brought to Egypt from all parts; of a pond of mercury whereon was placed a bed of air-cushions, secured with silk and silver, that its per- petual rocking might give him the sleep which his physi- cians could not procure for him save by distasteful remedies; of the tame lion that guarded him sleeping; and of the wealth of Egypt expended on the dowry of his daughter, sent to Baghdad to wed the Caliph. The pond of mercury is appa- rently no fiction, since it is recorded that after his day men found the liquid metal all about the site where it had stood.

In 896 Khumaruyah was assassinated, it is said, in conse- quence of some indulgence; and his sons and other succes- sors of his family were quite incapable of managing great affairs. Nine years after his death Egypt was conquered by a force sent from Baghdad, and the surviving members of the line of Ahmad Ibn Tulun were carried captive to the metropolis on the Tigris. Such parts of Kata'i as remained after the fire had only the status of an annex to Fostat. Once more the country was governed by a viceroy sent from Bagh- dad with a finance minister equal to him in authority.

The weakness of the Caliphate prevented this arrangement from working as it had worked in earlier times. Another Turk

15

0

atro

from Farghanah, similar in a variety of ways to Ahmad Ibn Tulun, utilized the favour of a vizier with whom he had con- tracted an alliance to obtain by fraud an appointment to the governorship of Egypt. In August 935 this person entered Egypt as governor, having defeated other aspirants to the office ; and shortly afterwards he obtained permission from headquarters to assume the title Ikhshid, which in his native country stood for "king" ; somewhat as in the nineteenth cen- tury the Egyptian viceroy got from his Turkish suzerain the right to style himself Khedive. An enterprising chieftain de- prived the Ikhshid of the provinces of Syria and Palestine by force of arms; and his being confirmed in their possession by the Caliph provoked such resentment in the mind of the Ikh- shid that he bethought him of abandoning the Prophet's successor on the Tigris, and bestowing his homage on the pretender who was founding an empire in Western Islam.

The Ikhshidi dynasty was ofeven shorter duration than that of Ahmad Ibn Tulun, and left in Egypt even less to perpetuate its name. Its founder was charged by his contemporaries with avarice and cowardice, neither of them a quality which helps to secure immortality.

The system of slave rule, which, as has been seen, gave Egypt its best days, was anticipated in the interval between the death of the Ikhshid and the accession of the Fatimides. Of two negroes brought from the Sudan to the Egyptian market one aspired to employment in a cook shop, that he might never want food, the other aspired to become ruler of the country, and each obtained his wish. Purchased for a small sum, and passing through the lowest stages of misery and degradation, the latter rose finally by force of character to be the Ikhshid's first minister and general of his forces; and on his master's death he contrived to keep the heirs in a state of tutelage to himself, and afterwards to seat himself on their throne; displaying throughout capa-

16

Cairo before the Fatimides

city for the management of great affairs. Kafur," Camphor," whose name of itself indicated the servile condition of its owner, was not only master of Egypt, Syria and Arabia, but in one respect was the most fortunate of all Oriental sovereigns. He obtained as his encomiast the most famous of Arabic poets, known as al-Mutanabbi "the Prophetas- ter," at a time when the poet's powers were at their ripest; and although in consequence of a dispute these brilliant