Mausoleum of Sayida Ruqaya

While this building’s construction is attributed to Ulam al-Āmiriyya, the wife of the Fatimid caliph al-Āmir (reigned 1101–1130), it was dedicated to Sayida Ruqaya, the daughter of ‘Ali, the fourth of the Rashidun caliphs, a major figure of the Shiite doctrine. It cannot be classed as a tomb because it contains no body[1], but rather as a commemorative monument. In the opinion of C. Williams, it is part of a series of Fatimid monuments in Cairo that was connected with the cult of the ‘Alid saints.  

The rectangular-shaped monument is divided into two parts: a porch, opening out with a triple arcade (restitution during the restoration by the Comité de Conservation in 1916), and a tripartite prayer hall. The side rooms, like the porch, are covered with flat wooden ceilings, which, according to Creswell, attest to the need to develop Egyptian art that was distinct from that of Syria. The central section is surmounted by a ribbed dome sitting on an octagonal drum pierced with sixteen polylobed windows with screen walls. In Cairo, this feature is only found in the Sinān Pasha Mosque, which was built much later (1571). The transition zone with squinches on two levels is reminiscent of Iranian models, like the Tomb of the Twelve Imams, Yazd (1036–1037), and would seem to be a precursor of muqarnas in the Ayyubid period.

The mausoleum contains five stucco mihrābs, two of which are located under the porch, and three in the prayer hall, which according to C. Williams, corresponds to a symbolic number in Ismailian Shiism, the mystical number of five, comprising Muhammad, ‘Ali, Fatima, al-Hasan, and al-Husayn—the ‘People of the Cloak’. The prayer hall’s central mihrāb is one of the largest from the Fatimid period (5.53m x 2.95m). This pointed arch is decorated with a ribbed motif that emerges from a medallion. This is a common feature on Fatimid architecture; it can be seen at the Aqmar Mosque (Cairo, 1125). Here, the sides lead to three rows of small niches along the arch. In the spandrels, vegetal tendrils with slightly spindly stems are entwined around palmettes or terminate with palm leaves. Underneath is an inscription in twisted Kufic characters with swan-necked ascenders. It is concave, in order to make it easily readable from the ground, taking into account optical deformations, a feature also found on other mosques: the al-Hākim Mosque (990–1012), on a more ancient example at Sousse (Tunisia), in the Abi Fatata Mosque (838–841), and the Great Mosque (850). On the upper register lies a decorative band with geometric entrelacs also found on the al-Hakim minaret and in many Fatimid mihrābs.

The other mihrābs in the mausoleum, which are smaller, have the same decorative elements. Lastly, a mobile, assembled wood mihrāb exists that originated from this mausoleum; dating from 1154–1160 and decorated with stars and hexagons, it is now held at the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo[2].

[2] Inv. 446.