The Saad Zaghloul Mausoleum () was built following the death of Egyptian prime minister

Saad Zaghloul Saad Zaghloul Pasha ( / ; also ''Sa'd Zaghloul Pasha ibn Ibrahim'') (July 1857 – 23 August 1927) was an Egyptian revolutionary and statesman. He was the leader of Egypt's nationalist Wafd Party, and served as the first Honorary President of ...

, and was completed by architect Mustafa Fahmy in 1936. It is located in

Downtown Cairo Downtown Cairo ( "middle of town") is the colloquial name given to the 19th-century western expansion of Egypt's capital Cairo, between the historic medieval Cairo, and the Nile, which became the commercial center of the city during the 20th c ...

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 ...

near Zaghloul's old house, which is known as

Beit El-Umma Beit El-Umma or Bayt al-Umma (House of the People) is a historic house museum and Saad Zaghlul biographical museum in Cairo, Egypt. Saad Zaghlul Beit El-Umma, or House of the People, was built at the turn of the century as a residence for the ...

or the "House of the Nation".

Overview

While Zaghloul died in 1927, his

interment Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and object ...

did not occur until June 1936 due to disagreements over the mausoleum's design. The Egyptian coalition government favored an Arabo-Islamic style, and the construction of a

mosque A mosque ( ), also called a masjid ( ), is a place of worship for Muslims. The term usually refers to a covered building, but can be any place where Salah, Islamic prayers are performed; such as an outdoor courtyard. Originally, mosques were si ...

was also considered, although this idea was rejected with the rationale that Zaghloul was a national leader rather than a religious figure. Fahmy ultimately constructed a mausoleum that adhered to a neo-Pharaonic motif, a decision that opponents of the project attributed to

Makram Ebeid Makram Ebeid Pasha (; 25 October 1889 – 5 June 1961) was an Egyptian politician. Ebeid was the Wafd Party secretary-general between 1936 and 1942. He was also the Minister of Finance 1930, 1936–1937, 1942. Ebeid helped establish the Wafd Part ...

and other

Copts Copts (; ) are a Christians, Christian ethnoreligious group, ethnoreligious group native to Northeast Africa who have primarily inhabited the area of modern Egypt since antiquity. They are, like the broader Egyptians, Egyptian population, des ...

. However, in his academic article, ''The Politics of the Funereal: The Tomb of Saad Zaghloul'', Ralph M. Coury posited that the design was instead finalized by the Department of Works. Budgetary concerns related to the project also plagued the project, with

Mohamed Mahmoud Pasha Mohamed Mahmoud Pasha (; 1877 – 1941), also known as Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Pasha, was Prime Minister of Egypt twice. Mahmoud was Egypt's Minister of Finance from 1927 to 1928. He first became Prime Minister from June 27, 1928, to October ...

and his ministry successfully stalled the project during his tenure. Once the

Wafd Party The Wafd Party (; , ''Ḥizb al-Wafd'') was a nationalist Liberalism, liberal political party in Egypt. It was said to be Egypt's most popular and influential political party for a period from the end of World War I through the 1930s. During th ...

returned to power in 1930, the restrictions on construction were lifted, although the Liberal Constitution Party soon returned back to power later that year. The mausoleum itself was completed by 1931, although

Ismail Sidky Ismail Sidky Pasha (; 15 June 1875 – 9 July 1950) was an Egyptian politician who served as Prime Minister of Egypt from 1930 to 1933 and again in 1946. Life and career He was born in Alexandria and was originally named Isma'il Saddiq but his ...

delayed the transfer of Zaghloul's body for the remainder of his tenure.

Safiya Zaghloul Safiya Zaghloul ( / ; ; 1878–12 January 1946) was an Egyptian political activist. She was among the early leaders of the Wafd Party. Background Zaghloul was born in 1878. Her father, Mostafa Fahmy Pasha, was the seventh prime minister of Eg ...

, the widow of the Saad, rejected Sidky's suggestion of burying Zaghloul with other notable figures, so Sidsky instead transferred mummies from an Egyptian museum to Zaghloul's mausoleum, where they remained for several years. Upon the Wafd's return to power in 1936, the mummies were removed and replaced with Zaghloul's body. Built partly of

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

, the mausoleum's design features an outward-curving

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative Moulding (decorative), moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, ar ...

and entrance flanked by two great lotus

pillar A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. ...

s with a pylon gate leading to the interior space, which also houses an unmarked

sarcophagus A sarcophagus (: sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a coffin, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Greek language, Greek wikt:σάρξ, σάρξ ...

References

{{coord, 30.037583, 31.237894, display=title Mausoleums in Egypt Buildings and structures in Cairo Buildings and structures completed in 1927 20th-century architecture in Egypt

Overview

See also

References