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Al Aqmar Mosque

The Aqmar Mosque located at Muizz Street, in the Jamaliyya area, and accessible by car or foot. It constructed to the north of the Eastern Fatimid Palace, which was no longer standing in Cairo, Egypt, during its construction.

Al Aqmar Mosque
Al Aqmar Mosque view from outside

Date of the Monument:

Hegira 519 / AD 1125 is the year in which

Architect:

Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Fatik supervised the mosque’s construction and was a minister to the Caliph Al-Amir bi-Ahkam Allah at the time of its construction. The name of Minister Abu Abdullah engraved in the foundational inscription on the building, and the name of the Caliph the Emir.

Patron:

Caliph al-Amir bi-Ahkam Allah (r. AH 495–525 / AD 1101–31) was a Muslim ruler who reigned from 495 to 525 / AD 1101–31.

Al Aqmar Mosque
Al Aqmar Mosque from Inside

Al Aqmar Mosque Description:

Al-Aqmar Mosque is regarded as one of Egypt’s most magnificent Fatimid mosques and one of the country’s earliest examples of tiny mosques still standing in Islamic Cairo.

Perhaps the most conspicuous of its distinguishing characteristics is its western façade, one of Egypt’s earliest stone facades in Islamic architecture, and is embellished in this rich and complex manner.

It’s possible that the artistic motifs on the façade of the projecting gateway of al-Hakim Mosque in Cairo (constructed in AH 403 / AD 1012) impacted the design and decorating of the entry to this building’s main hall and courtyard.

Stone and brick, according to historical sources, were used in Fatimid architectural construction.

In 439 AH/1048 CE, the famous traveler Nasir Khusraw described the Fatimid palaces he saw in Egypt as having stone walls that fit together so seamlessly that the beholder might assume that the entire structure was excavated from a single piece of rock.

The design of the façade and the entry has been carved out in a symmetrical pattern and contains various elements such as shell forms, blind-arched recesses supported by spiral columns, vases, rosettes, and diamond shapes.

Additionally, muqarnas (chamfered-edged niches) are included on the façade; a new architectural element brought into Egyptian Islamic architecture and a device that had previously only seen on a gate in Cairo (constructed AH 480 / AD 1087), among other places.

Al Aqmar Mosque
Al Aqmar Mosque Mihrab Architecture

The facade decorated with inscription bands carved in ornate Kufic calligraphy as a bonus.

In front of the entrance, a minaret was built in AH 799 / AD 1396 by Prince Yalbugha al-Sulaimi, one of Sultan al-Zahir Barquq’s servants. The minaret located to the left of the entrance.

The interior of the mosque measures 28 x 17.50 meters. Four roofed spaces with rows of columns surround an open square courtyard that measures 10 meters long on one side. Four roofed areas flank the courtyard with columns.

The qibla region is the deepest of them, and it is made up of three arcades, while there is only one colonnade in each of the other three sectors—the arches of the arcades entirely constructed of brick.

Except for the column that precedes the mihrab, the mosque adorned with little shallow domes made of brick covering the colonnades.

The domes’ transition zones are composed of spherical-triangular pendentives, a previously used style in Cairo’s Bab al-Nasr and Bab al-Futuh mosques, constructed during the Fatimid dynasty, around AH 480 / AD 1087.

Later, during the Mamluk era, the style used in Khanqah Faraj ibn Barquq in Cairo (completed in AH 813 / AD 1410). Spherical-triangular pendentives were popular in Ottoman mosques, where several small domes utilized to cover the arcades, and the practice spread across Europe.

Al Aqmar Mosque
Al Aqmar Mosque with El Muizz Street View

One of the most distinctive features of this mosque’s floor plan is its reaction to the street alignment, which deviates from the direction of the qibla and is located where the western façade of the structure and the entrance located.

Although there is respect for the direction of the qiblah, this achieved by using a rectangular cross-section that acts as a transitional area because it is located outside facing the street and on the inside facing the direction of the qiblah.

When it comes to Islamic architecture, this mosque believed to be one of the first instances of a structure that used a triangle shape to adapt to its residential fabric.

In the AH 13th / AD 19th century, the mosque subjected to encroachments, the most notable of which destroyed the right-hand half of the western façade, which replaced a residential structure.

In the twentieth century, the structure encroached on the mosque demolished to make way for the mosque.

It subsequently decided that the mosque’s façade should restored to its original shape, based on the elements of the façade on the left-hand side of the building, which should have been similar to the façade on the right.

Al Aqmar Mosque

About the author

Magdy Fattouh (Migo) is a creative content marketer and expert in search engines for over 5 years. He manifests his passion in his role as a Creative Content Writer especially in travel where he strives to evoke a strong sense of place in his write-ups.

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