Aga Khan Trust revives the Middle Ages

The Khayrbek and Umm Al-Sultan Shaaban monumental complexes, two of the finest examples of Islamic mediaeval architecture in the Darb Al-Ahmar district of Cairo, have been restored. Nevine El-Aref was at the opening ceremony
Traffic was barred from Bab Al-Wazir Street in the Darb Al-Ahmar district last Friday night as journalists and TV crews joined government officials at the Khayrbek complex to await the arrival of Prince Karim Aga Khan and Culture Minister Farouk Hosni, who would announce the inauguration of the Khayrbek and Umm Al-Sultan Shaaban complexes after five years of restoration.

Local residents wearing customary traditional dress stood on their balconies overlooking the street to watch, while children in the alley clapped happily and sang folk songs.

The Khayrbek complex was named after the first of Egypt's Ottoman governors, Emir Khayrbek, and was built in stages during the Mameluke and Ottoman periods. It contains five monuments: the Alin Aq Palace, the Khayrbek Mosque and Mausoleum, the Janim Al-Hamzawi sabil (water fountain) and the two Ottoman houses belonging to Ibrahim Mustafazan.

The neighbouring Umm Al-Sultan Shaaban monument, which was built by the Mameluke Sultan Shaaban for his mother Khwand Baaraka in 1368, comprises a mosque, two madrassas (religious schools), a kuttab for children (Quranic school), two mausoleums, a sabil and a water trough for animals.

Upon the invitation of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC), the Aga Khan, Hosni, Cairo Governor Abdel-Azim Wazir and Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) Zahi Hawass toured the two monuments to inspect the restoration work being achieved.

Both monuments, like all other Islamic monuments located in heavily populated areas, were suffering seriously from environmental danger including air pollution, a high subsoil water level, a high level of humidity, leakage from the Al-Madiaa (a fountain used for ritual ablution), and an overloaded and decayed sewage system more than 100 years old, not to mention the earthquake of 1992 which significantly increased the number of cracks.

One of the most serious causes of the damage has been the ill use of the mosques and the madrassa by worshippers, as well as the encroachment of traders over the centuries.

The walls of the monuments had cracked, masonry was damaged and the condition of the ceilings and the water fountain was critical. The ceiling decorations were heavily stained with smoke, while most of the flooring was broken. Both monuments had been closed to worshippers and visitors.

AKTC director Luis Monreal said the conservation of the complexes came under the AKTC's Historic Cities Programme (HCSP), set up in 1991 to implement conservation and urban development projects in culturally significant sites of the Islamic world. This includes not only restoration but also socio-economic intervention to improve the quality of life in historic districts. The AKCT's goals and activities encompass encouraging local participation and harnessing the accompanying enthusiasm to generate fresh development.

The AKCT says reconciling conservation and development is a prerequisite for achieving improvements in the quality of life in environmentally and culturally sensitive places. It calls for the introduction of appropriate new functions, such as the re-use of historic structures, in order to generate income for the buildings and for the local community. It also requires the improvement of services and public open spaces, community supported rehabilitation of historic housing districts and open spaces, creation of employment opportunities and promotion of local crafts.

"The array of HCSP projects in Cairo follows this integrated approach and is the Trust's boldest attempt to date to achieve interrelated conservation and development objectives," Monreal said. "It is also the most challenging one, owing to historic Cairo's towering urban and social problems and complex implementation procedures."

The Trust's involvement in Egypt began with the Aga Khan's decision in 1984 to donate a park to Cairenes. It followed a conference entitled "The Expanding Metropolis: Coping with the Urban Growth of Cairo", organised by the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. Soon thereafter, the 30-hectare site on Al-Darassa was selected because of its enormous potential as a "lung" at the very centre of the historic agglomeration. The hilly site is surrounded by the most significant historic districts of Islamic Cairo, all of which are major destinations for visitors to the city. To the west are the Fatimid city and its extension, Darb Al-Ahmar, with their wealth of mosques, madrassas and mausoleums, signalled by a long line of minarets. To the south is the Sultan Hassan Mosque and its surroundings, as well as the Ayyubid Citadel. To the east is the Mameluke "City of the Dead", with its many social welfare complexes sponsored by Mameluke sultans and dignitaries -- an area which has developed into a dense neighbourhood of its own.

Conservation work in Khayrbek was sponsored by the AKTC and the world monuments funds in collaboration with the SCA, and came in two phases. The first began in 2002 with the conservation of the Khayrbek mosque-mausoleum and sabil, as well as the improvement of the open spaces along the Bal Al-Wazir Street. The Ottoman houses were also reconstructed and adapted for use. An entrance gate to Al-Azhar Park was created, and houses lining the Haret Al-Merkez were rehabilitated.

"The second phase began in mid-2006 and will be completed by the end of 2008. This includes the conservation and adaptation of the Alin Aq Palace," Monreal said.

Among the activities carried out in Umm Al-Sultan Shaaban was the reconstruction of the upper part of the minaret, which collapsed in an earthquake in 1884. The reconstruction was based on historic references and proposals by the Committee for the Conservation of Arab Art, the responsible body at the time, to re-establish the integrity of the monument.

The mosque is now being used for prayer, while the madrassa spaces are used as a healthcare unit which alone has created more than 200 job opportunities and had treated almost 3.3 million patients.

Prince Karim Aga Khan expressed his satisfaction at the revitalisation of Islamic Cairo and said the "victorious city" was regaining its golden age of the Fatimids. The restoration of the two complexes, Hosni added, had two important advantages: individual monuments were being preserved for future generations, and the entire neighbourhood was being revived and upgraded. "It also provides the opportunity to live in the history that we have long read about and never experienced," Hosni pointed out.

Khayrbek built his mausoleum in Darb Al-Ahmar in 1502, when he was the viceroy of Aleppo under Sultan Al-Ghuri, whom he then betrayed by defecting to the Ottoman side in the battle of Marj Dabiq near Aleppo in 1516. To this new complex he annexed the adjacent palace that Amir Alin Aq had built in 1293, and took up residence there. This complex serves as an example of a construction that straddles two eras. There is even a reminder of an earlier time. The brick minaret rests on a threshold made from a block of stone from a Pharaonic building. The custodian claims that the hieroglyphic inscriptions, which include a figure of the mummified Osiris, have kept all flies and insects out of the mosque.

The Umm Al-Sultan Shaaban complex was dedicated to the sultan's mother, who was on pilgrimage. Going on pilgrimage was a public way for a female member of the Mameluke court to express her piety. She commemorated her return by endowing the madrassa. The main feature of the façade is the beautiful entrance, which stands in a recess covered by a tier of distinctive Anatolian portals. The internal plan is that of a cruciform madrassa with four iwans (open halls). The qibla iwan is flanked by two tomb chambers with lofty domes. The large tomb chamber on the left is where Baaraka and her daughter Zahra are buried. In front is an irregularly shaped room that was probably used for storing large Qurans or for special Quran recitations. The smaller tomb on the right, with no decoration and no mihrab, is the final resting place of Sultan Al-Ashraf Shaaban and his son Al-Mansur Hajji. This madrassa is the first religious structure in Cairo to revert, after a lapse of centuries, to the rather easterly Meccan orientation or qiblat al-sahaba. This adjustment of the divergence between the qibla orientation and the main street proved to be very advantageous to the configuration of the building, both inside and out. It allowed the architect to bend the qibla façade with the two domed mausoleums towards the main street, thus ensuring higher visibility. The minaret in the middle of the façade, instead of the typical spots on the vault or corners of a monumental portal or at the corner of a façade wall, is unusual.

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The mosque in Umm Al-Sultan Shaaban monument after restoration
photo:Sherif Sonbol