Al-Hākim Mosque

The Mosque, which was founded extra muros in 990 by the Caliph al-‘Azīz, was originally called al-Anwār, ‘the brilliant’, a name which, like al-Azhar (‘the splendid’), is connected with the symbolism of light, which is very intrinsic to Shiite ideology. The name of al-Hākim was given to the Mosque at a much later date, in homage to the extensive work carried out in the building by the caliph. These dates have been corroborated by the historian al-Maqrizi, and the inscriptions on the minarets and the main entrance give the dates of the work carried out under al-Hākim. When the wall was constructed by Badr al-Jamālī in 1087–1092 it was built around the Mosque; the wall does, in fact, run along the north-eastern wall, and encloses the north minaret.

The Mosque, in the form of an irregular rectangle, is of Arab plan, like those of Ibn Ţūlūn and al-Azhar, which were built at an earlier date. The unroofed courtyard was surrounded on all its sides by a portico. The prayer hall—it has five naves parallel to the qibla wall, a larger transversal bay in the centre, giving greater access to the mihrāb, and rectangular pillars which are sometimes contained by columns—resembles the Ibn Ţūlūn Mosque (Cairo, 879).

There are two minarets in the northern and western corners. Unlike the rest of the Mosque, they were made of stone, like the facade. They have different shapes: one is circular, on a parallelepipedal base, and the other is octagonal, and rises from a high square-shaped base. But in 1010, for reasons that aren’t clear, the Caliph al-Hākim added tiled coverings to the minarets, which conceals most of the original constructions. After an earthquake in 1303, Baybars al-Jashankir had the upper part of the minarets, which had collapsed, restored by building two octagonal brick kiosks at the top of each minaret. These were decorated with niches decorated with a scalloped pattern, topped with a row of small muqarnas superposed and covered with a ribbed polygonal dome.

The Mosque originally had eleven doors, an unusually high number that recalls the mosques of Sāmarrā. The most important entry, modelled on the Great Mosque of Mahdīyah (910, Tunisia), is the one made of stone in the middle of the main facade, whose two sets of steps run either side of a vaulted passage providing access to the courtyard. Along with two side entrances, it is integrated into a projecting stone porch, ornamented with carved and tiled niches, which recall the Great Mosque of Kairouan (Tunisia, ninth century), and was later used under the Fātimids (al-Aqmarn Mosque) and the Mamelukes (Mosque of Baybars).

In the courtyard and the prayer hall, pointed arches rest on rectangular pillars, sometimes contained by columns at the entry of the transept, as in the Ibn Ţūlūn Mosque. The original mihrāb has survived, except for two lateral supporting columns. It is preceded by a dome, rebuilt during the Mameluke period; the other two, in the corners of the prayer hall, have disappeared (the al-Azhar Mosque may also have had this particularity, which was later used in the Maghrib).

The Mosque’s decorative elements are rich and varied. Many Qur’anic inscriptions dating from the reign of al-Hākim are carved in flowered Kufic script; this type of calligraphy can be found in buildings from different periods, in Spain[1], Iran[2], and Anatolia[3]. Also present are numerous stylized vegetal (fleurons, palmettes, and more complex compositions) and geometric motifs (tiles, five- and six-pointed stars, entrelacs…). Carved wooden tie beams between the prayer hall’s arches recall the Sāmarrā (Iraq) style (style C), which had already spread in Egypt during the Tūlūnid period[4]. The merlons that surrounded the mosque’s exterior walls also resemble those of Ibn Ţūlūn, and the bulbous capitals of the central bay’s columns recall certain paintings in Sāmarrā.

The al-Hākim Mosque, like the Al-Azhar mosque, certainly served as a model during the Mameluke period, particularly for the construction of the Mosques of Baybars and Muhammad ibn Qalā’ūn.

[2] Bowl in gold (Iran), beginning of eleventh century, British Museum, London.

[3] Inscriptions on the columns in the Yeni Mosque, Bursa, sixteenth century.

[4] Panel with stylized bird, Louvre Museum, OA 6023.