The Khanqah of Baybars II is a medieval building located on historic

Sharia Gamaliya Sharia, Sharī'ah, Shari'a, or Shariah () is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition based on scriptures of Islam, particularly the Qur'an and hadith. In Islamic terminology ''sharīʿah'' refers to immutable, intan ...

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

. It was built between 1306 and 1310 in the medieval Islamic Cairo to accommodate four hundred

Sufis Sufism ( or ) is a mystic body of religious practice found within Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic purification, spirituality, ritualism, and asceticism. Practitioners of Sufism are referred to as "Sufis" (from , ), and ...

and children of the

Mamluk Sultanate The Mamluk Sultanate (), also known as Mamluk Egypt or the Mamluk Empire, was a state that ruled Egypt, the Levant and the Hejaz from the mid-13th to early 16th centuries, with Cairo as its capital. It was ruled by a military caste of mamluks ...

. This is the oldest ''

khanqah A Sufi lodge is a building designed specifically for gatherings of a Sufi brotherhood or ''tariqa'' and is a place for spiritual practice and religious education. They include structures also known as ''khānaqāh'', ''zāwiya'', ''ribāṭ'' ...

'' or

convent A convent is an enclosed community of monks, nuns, friars or religious sisters. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The term is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglican ...

that has survived in modern Cairo.

Builder

Baibars al-Jashankir () or

Baibars II Baybars al-Jashankir (; died 1310) or Baybars II, royal name al-Malik al-Muzaffar Rukn ad-Din Baybars aj-Jashankir al-Mansuri (), also known as Abu al-Fath (), was the 12th Mamluk sultan of Egypt in 1309–1310. Background He was a Circassian M ...

(d.1310, Cairo) (royal name: al-Malik al-Muzaffar Rukn al-Din Baibars al-Jashankir al-Mansuri; Arabic: الملك المظفر ركن الدين بيبرس الجاشنكير المنصورى) (Nickname: Abu al-Fath (Arabic: أبوالفتح)), was known as al-gashankir, "the taster", a court position he held at one point. He served as the Atabek of Egypt and after the death of Emir Salar, he became the

Sultan of Egypt Sultan of Egypt was the status held by the rulers of Egypt after the establishment of the Ayyubid dynasty of Saladin in 1174 until the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517. Though the extent of the Egyptian Sultanate ebbed and flowed, it generally ...

in 1309. He sponsored lavish decoration of the building.

Building

Within the confines of the irregular site, the various functions of the Khanqah were interwoven into an architecturally rich building complex. The elegant facade has an imposing arched entrance that projects into the street. The doorway is set back in a

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock consisting of carbonate minerals (most commonly calcite (CaCO3) or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite (CaMg(CO3)2) that have recrystallized under the influence of heat and pressure. It has a crystalline texture, and is ty ...

recess covered with a hood of

stalactites A stalactite (, ; , ) is a mineral formation that hangs from the ceiling of caves, hot springs, or man-made structures such as bridges and mines. Any material that is soluble and that can be deposited as a colloid, or is in suspension, or is ca ...

. A block of pharaonic stone engraved with

hieroglyphics Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct characters.I ...

was used for the doorsill. The

minaret A minaret is a type of tower typically built into or adjacent to mosques. Minarets are generally used to project the Muslim call to prayer (''adhan'') from a muezzin, but they also served as landmarks and symbols of Islam's presence. They can h ...

, capped with a ribbed

dome A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...

that was once covered with green

faience Faience or faïence (; ) is the general English language term for fine tin-glazed pottery. The invention of a white Ceramic glaze, pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an stannous oxide, oxide of tin to the Slip (c ...

tiles, is located on the south side of the building. The first tier is square and trimmed with rows of stalactites, or Muqarnas vaulting, while the second is cylindrical.

References

External links

Funerary Complex of Baybars al-Jashankir
at ArchNet
Funerary Complex of Baybars al-Jashankir
{{Islamic Cairo Muizz Street 1300 establishments Mamluk architecture in Cairo 14th-century establishments in the Mamluk Sultanate

Builder

Building

See also

References

External links