These additions notwithstanding, it seems that the podium indicates a central nave, flanked by a twin-row of columns, which is an ancient design that most likely originated from Tunisia (where it is found in the great mosques in Sfax, Tunis, Kairouan, Mehdiya, Beja, Gafsa, etc.), the cradle of the Fatimid dynasty. While the recent sections are made of stone, the ancient sections of Al-Azhar are constructed with bricks covered in a thick levelling plaster coat with ornamental engravings; it is the same in the small dome at the entrance.
The courtyard is accessible through a broad passage. This entrance, dominated by the minarets of nearby madrasas, presents recycled Roman and Byzantine columns and their capitals. The wall of the courtyard is overlaid with an openwork frieze richer than that of Tulun, above which hollowed out openwork melons with six-level indentations rise. Al-Azhar arcades that span between columns have a slender, unique form, like the arches of niches interposed between them: this type of arch, made of bricks, was used quite often in Persia. Since the Fatimid dynasty was Shiite like the Persians, this form might somewhat have been the result of dealings with Persia, or a Persian architect might even have influenced it. This use of arches was evident for a long time in Cairo, even under the Mameluke-Baharites, when all monuments were made of hewn stones.
The Hassan Mosque in Cairo
Whereas Cairo’s mosques revealed, at the beginning of the 14th century, an increasingly unique trend towards stone construction – as seen in the Al Sankor mosque (1346) – a visit to the Sultan Hassan Mosque reveals an entire structure where Persian contributions fuse with other eastern and northern influences to create an important monument. This mosque, begun in 1350 and completed in 1362 by Sultan Mohammed Hassan, Al Nasser’s seventh son, is the most beautiful mosque based on the cruciform plan. It has in its centre an unshaded courtyard with an ablution fountain, and to the east of this courtyard is the sanctuary. Behind the lower wall is the tomb chamber, whose renovated dome dates back to the 17th century; the three other iwans complete the layout, and between the arms of the cross are the colleges of the four orthodox rites, each of which includes a courtyard, an iwan and rooms for students. Viewed from the exteriour, the mosque exudes grandeur and severity, towering into the sky with its two minarets, the tallest of which comprises three stories and stands fifty-five metres tall. The walls of the mosque are fitted with very attractive windows; long grooves run along the walls. A story told by Khalil Zahiri reveals that among all the influences that contributed to the composition of the plan of the Hassan Mosque, Asian and Mesopotamian influences rank first. According to his account, Sultan Hassan summoned architects from several countries and asked their opinions of the most impressive mosque in the world, so that he could construct his mosque to outshine it. He was told it was Khosroe Anushirvan’s iwan. He had it measured and drawn, and then had his mosque built three metres taller. The lateral facades of the Hassan Mosque have a unique decoration reaching up to the enormous cornice of stalactites and long, solid bands that separate the vertical series of windows. The unknown architect thus achieved, through the simplest of means, an extraordinary effect.
The dome which covered the mausoleum is bulbous, with corbelled ribs supported by pillars. The original plan of the mosque called for four minarets, but the minaret that overlooked the porch collapsed in 1360 and was never reconstructed, and a fourth was never built. Of the two remaining ones, the one in the southwest is the most beautiful. By way of a simple triangular glacis, it moved from the square plan to the octagonal plan. On four of its faces, the first part of the octagonal shaft has on four of its faces a long window and balcony supported by stalactites; on the other four, a flat niche, and windows or niches are still locked by an angle with rectilinear sides, which is the simplest form of the short brick arch. A stalactite cornice supports a second octagonal lower floor surmounted by a second, richer cornice with the last platform where, above eight arcades with slender stanchions, emerges the dome supported by a pedestal that remained the terminal pattern motif most frequently used on minarets in Cairo until the 17th century.
The lavishness of the mosque’s interiour reflected the splendour of its exterior. The main entrance was of bronze, with large panels filled with a polygonal network whose principal elements were decorated in high relief; the two panels were set in a flat bronze border with huge, decorative door knockers. This entrance, together with the gate, formed a rare and impressive example of Islamic art. Sultan El-Moyed had it placed in his mosque, where it stands today. He equally seized the bronze lustre he found in the Hassan Mosque, which was subsequently built; it is currently conserved in the Cairo museum along with twenty-four enamelled glass and gilded lamps equally from this mosque. A look at the numerous chains still hanging from the masonry arch in the grand iwan, each of which carries a lamp, is enough to imagine the stunning beauty that once characterised the interior of this monument. The iwan was decorated with low marble panelling; below the sanctuary, this panelling rose to the magnificent frieze in cut stucco where a Kufic inscription runs and which shows the springing of the vault. The dikka, the marble minbar, with chased bronze doors, and the mihrab inlaid with marble round out this structure with an extravagance that is severe and almost austere.
Palace of the Abbasids, 1179.
Baghdad.
B – North Africa and Spain
Al Hassan Mosque, 1195–1196.
Rabat, Morocco.
During the early centuries of the Hijra, Kairouan, capital of the Aglabite kingdom, and Córdoba, capital of the Umayyad caliphate of the West, were the centres of Maghrebian artistic influence. In the 9th and 10th centuries, Morocco became the cradle of a new power that asserted the Berber component almost without any foreign influence. Fez was founded in 807 and Marrakech two hundred years later. The Muslim power in the far West was not Spain, with its provinces torn by the ambition of small sovereigns, each jealous of the others: the Almoravids, the Almohads and later the Merinids asserted Morocco’s power. Subjugated by Sultan Abou of Morocco in the 11th century, Spain’s art was apparently not influenced by its conquerors, apart from the fact that it was at about this period that Spain’s Arab style took on a more concrete character. This was due, to a large extent, to change, the natural consequence of Islamic Spain’s material prosperity and continuity in the transfer of manufacturing techniques to artisans.
This art flourished in Morocco, Spain, Algeria and Tunisia in the 12th and 13th centuries. In spite of political decline, Maghrebian art produced its most sublime works in the 14th and 15th centuries. When the Christians forced the Arabs out of Spain, the Andalusian civilisation sought refuge in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, where its literary and artistic traditions were not completely wiped out by violent events. Following the reclamation of Spain by Christians, the Mudejar style, an Islamic-influenced artistic tradition used by the Christians, persisted for a long time.
The anarchy that split Algeria for a long time had a negative impact on the conservation of the nation’s buildings. In Morocco, however, owing to a fairly stable and sustainable government, these traditions were partly preserved. Finally, notwithstanding the unique regime that replaced the overthrown Hafsid dynasty, Tunisia saw the burgeoning of an Islamic art in the 16th and 17th centuries, a style which, while lacking in absolute purity from a traditional perspective, nevertheless produced beautiful works and attractive monuments.
In the Maghreb, as in Syro-Egyptian architecture, the principal monument is the mosque; initially made of lateral naves, like the mosques in Amrou and Tulun, Maghreb mosques in Tlemcen and Mansurah were afterwards constructed in an original style. Early mosques in Algeria, Tunisia, Spain and Morocco have parallel naves like those of Amrou, Ibn Tulun and EL-Hakem in Cairo. They are rather “typical,” considering that they are designed to respond to specific needs. Muslims