RESIDENTS of Sayeda Zeinab will for the first time be able to worship in the Ibn Tulun Mosque at night during Ramadan, Nevine El-Aref reports. The Ibn Tulun Mosque stands as splendid as it was when it was first constructed -- at a cost of 120,000 gold dinars -- on the top of a hill known as Gabal Yashkur in the city of Al-Qatai. This city was founded in 868 after the Abbasids gained control over the Islamic Empire by the Abbasid governor Ahmed Ibn Tulun to replace Egypt's earlier capital of Al-Fustat. The historian Al-Maqrizi noted that construction started on the mosque in 876, while the mosque's original inscription slab identifies the date of completion as 265 AH, or 879 AD. The high and solid bedrock on which it was built has protected the structure from natural catastrophes such as floods, earthquakes and the more insidious threat of rising groundwater, as well as from encroachment inflicted by human activity. The bricks that make up its walls are fire-resistant, and the mortar that gives them coherence has proved flexible enough to absorb the shocks dealt by earthquakes and military bombardments, and even the tremors caused by heavy vehicles passing through neighbouring streets. The largest mosque ever to be built in Egypt, the Ibn Tulun Mosque, was the focal point of Al-Qatai, which was also the capital of the Tulunids. The mosque originally backed on to Ibn Tulun's palace, and a door adjacent to the minbar (pulpit) allowed him direct entry. The mosque was built in the Samarran architectural style. It has a vast and imposing structure built around a courtyard; arcades, supported by piers with engaged columns at their corners, run round its four walls. The mosque has a Samarran-style spiral minaret with outside staircase. Because of its vast area and the absence of microphones at that time, the mosque has three places for mobalegh (those who repeat the imam's words during prayers). The original mosque has its madiaa (ablution water fountain) in the area between the inner and outer walls, but a distinctive fountain with a high drum dome was added by the Mamluk sultan Al-Malik Al-Mansour Hossameddin Lajin Al-Mansuri at the end of the 13th century. The distinguished architectural style of the madiaa was copied by an international Chinese architect in the design of the Doha Islamic Museum. Sultan Lajin also added a clock in the shape of a dome with 24 small windows representing the hours of the day. This week and for the first time since its restoration in 2004, the Ministry of State for Antiquities (MSA) opened the Ibn Tulun mosque at night for worshippers to say their taraweeh prayers in Ramadan. Mohsen Sayed Ali, general-secretary of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), told Al-Ahram Weekly that the mosque was opened this Ramadan because of frequent demands by the residents of Sayeda Zeinab to open it at night for prayers. Opponents of the opening cited the spacious area of the mosque, as well as the technical problems of lighting such a vast area. Following several attempts, Ali said, an appropriate solution was reached and the mosque courtyard and prayer hall were lit to allow worshipers to perform the taraweeh prays. The Ibn Tulun mosque is the second oldest and one of the most important of those built during the Islamic era, and the first great mosque to be built after that of Amr Ibn Al-Aas. "It is the only mosque, not only in Egypt but in the whole world, to have kept his original architectural features and decorative structure through the span of history," Ali said, adding that: "No additions or expansions have been made to the mosque since its construction." The mosque has been restored several times through the centuries. The first restoration was carried out in 117 under the order of the Fatimid vizier Badreddin Al-Jamali, who left a second inscription slab on the mosque. In 1290 Sultan Lajin added several improvements. The most recent renovations were carried out by the SCA in 2002 and lasted for two years. Several houses were built against the mosque's external wall during the mediaeval period, but these were all demolished in 1928 by the Committee for the Conservation of Arab Monuments with the exception of the Beit Al-Kritliya and Beit Amna bint Salim, which are connected to each other by a bridge. In the 1930s these houses became the home of Major R G Gayer-Anderson Pasha, and now form the Gayer-Anderson Museum. As for the Mosque of Ibn Tulun, it is and always will be one of the gems of Cairo's Islamic architecture.
