Al-Nasir Muahmed fascinating school "madrasa"

The fascinating school "Madrasa" of Al-Nasir Muhamed
Ibn Qalawun in Cairo "1296-1303 AD"

An overall view of the complex

Sultan al-Nasir ('the victorious') Muhammad was one of Qalawun's five sons. He ruled three times for a total of forty-two years, from 1293 to 1341. Variously described as despotic, enlightened, cruel, shrewd, deceitful, suspicious, tasteful, and vengeful, he was a man of courage and intellect, and his reign marked the high point of Mamluk culture and Islamic civilization in Egypt. Al-Nasir was an active builder who also encouraged his amirs to build, and his reign is credited with some thirty surviving buildings, the aqueduct from the Nile to the Citadel, and a canal from the Nile to the khanqah he built at Siryaqus, twenty kilometers north of Cairo. al-Nasir Muhammad.

The Gothic doorway of the madrasa

Some of the beautiful decorations on the facade

Part of the smart writing on the facade

The complex was begun in 1296 by al-'Adil Kitbugha, an interim sultan, and finished by Al-Nasir during his second reign. The monument was restored in 1985-86 by the German Archaeological Institute. The Gothic doorway comes from a Crusader church at Acre, which was captured by al-Nasir's older brother and predecessor, al-Ashraf Khalil, in 1291. The minaret is covered with an exceptionally fine, closely patterned, carved stucco surface, probably of North African workmanship. It was built around the time Qalawun's nearby minaret was restored.

The dome fell in 1870 and has not been replaced. Only the zone of transition next to the minaret remains. The general plan is the same as that of Qalawun's mosque. The madrasa lies on the left (south) and the mausoleum on the right as you enter. The madrasa was the first cruciform madrasa in Cairo and has four liwans around the same court, one for each of the schools of Sunni jurisprudence. In the eastern liwan is a fine stucco mihrab. Its style is derived from Mongol Iran, evidence of the better relations that existed between the two courts in the early fourteenth century. The mausoleum is locked. Al-Nasir Muhammad's favorite son Anuk and mother Bint Suqbay '' 0 are buried here. Al-Nasir himself lies next door in the mausoleum built byhis father.