Complex of Sultan Qā’it Bay

This complex is located in the northern Mamluk cemetery which was reserved for the sultan’s family, opposite the Darrasa quarter. Sultan al-Malik al-Ashraf Sayf al-Dīn Qā’it Bay (reigned 1468–1496), one of the last great Mamluk patrons, commissioned its construction. This magnificent architectural complex was designed to fulfil several functions; it comprises a mosque which is also a madrasah, student living quarters, a sabīl-kuttāb (primary school and public drinking fountain), and the founder’s tomb. There was also a wakala, which has now disappeared.

The building’s facade, which has a loggia on the first floor, is elegantly decorated with carved stone, which exploits the polychromatic nature of the materials, and is crowned by merlons. The facade’s recesses reflect the various monuments that comprise this ensemble. To the right of the entrance stands a high, characteristically Mamluk minaret, whose storeys each have a different plan separated by balconies decorated with muqarnas, and which is crowned by a lantern. The entrance, which is accessed by a flight of steps, is recessed and opens onto a vestibule ornamented with muqarnas. It leads on the left to the sabīl-kuttāb and on the right to the minaret, the Sufic and student living quarters—which are partly in ruins today—, and the mosque’s water reservoir. The mosque is opposite the entrance. Of rectangular plan, all its surfaces are highly decorated in the ablaq style and the floor is paved in marble in sectile opus. The qibla wall is pierced with niches on either side of the mihrāb. An epigraphic band separates two levels of windows and those on the upper level are decorated with stained-glass. A second, larger area extends in front of this room, and is separated from the first by a step. It is surmounted by a magnificent ceiling in wood and stucco covered by an octagonal lantern with three windows on each of its sides. There are four recesses in the lateral walls; this is probably the room that was used as a madrasah.

The axis of the entrance and the prayer hall extends to the founder’s tomb, which, like the mosque, is decorated in the ablaq style. It is surmounted by a dome that rests on pendentives comprising nine rows of stone muqarnas. Outside, the corners of the dome’s transition zone are flush and decorated with large carved horizontal gadroons. Each of its sides is covered with tri-lobed arches pierced with three windows surmounted by three oculi. The drum is pierced with small semi-circular openings surmounted by an epigraphic band. The dome is ornamented with carved decorative work forming a network of stars enclosing vegetal motifs. This type of composition was very common during the Mamluk period, when there was a pronounced taste for these kinds of epigraphic decorations and geometric compositions. They are found on various supports, such as on the doors of the al-Maridani Mosque in Cairo (1339–1340)[1] and the frontispieces of manuscripts.

This complex was one of the last great Mamluk monuments and represents the height of this art during this period. The presence of the loggia on the facade is reminiscent of the al-Ghawrī complex (1503–1505) and was probably the result of influence from fourteenth-century Italian architecture. In addition, the decoration on the dome isn’t characteristic of the early part of the Mamluk period—it wasn’t carved directly on stone after assemblage, but on flat pieces of stone that were then fitted on the dome. The openings surmounted by oculi, probably inspired by Christian architecture, had already been used in the Qalāʾūn complex, but they are more developed here—instead of being a single gemel window surmounted by an oculus, they are in sets of three surmounted by three oculi.