The Amr ibn al-As Mosque () is 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 ...

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 ...

. Named after the Arab Muslim commander

Amr ibn al-As Amr ibn al-As ibn Wa'il al-Sahmi (664) was an Arab commander and companion of Muhammad who led the Muslim conquest of Egypt and served as its governor in 640–646 and 658–664. The son of a wealthy Qurayshite, Amr embraced Islam in and was ...

, the mosque was originally built in 641–642 CE as the center of the newly founded capital of Egypt,

Fustat Fustat (), also Fostat, was the first capital of Egypt under Muslim rule, though it has been integrated into Cairo. It was built adjacent to what is now known as Old Cairo by the Rashidun Muslim general 'Amr ibn al-'As immediately after the Mus ...

. The original structure was the first

ever built in

and one of the first in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

. For 600 years, the mosque was also an important center of Islamic learning until al-Muizz's Al-Azhar Mosque in

Islamic Cairo Islamic Cairo (), or Medieval Cairo, officially Historic Cairo (القاهرة التاريخية ''al-Qāhira tārīkhiyya''), refers mostly to the areas of Cairo, Egypt, that were built from the Muslim conquest of Egypt, Muslim conquest in 641 C ...

replaced it. Through the twentieth century, it was the fourth largest mosque in the Islamic world. The location for the mosque was the site of the tent of Amr ibn al-As. One corner of the mosque contains a room related in some significant way to his son,

Abd Allah ibn Amr ibn al-As Abū Muḥammad 'Abd Allah ibn Amr ibn al-As (; died 684 CE) was the son of Amr ibn al-As of Banu Sahm and was a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He was the author of "''Al-Sahifah al-Sadiqah''" ("''The Truthful Script''", ), the firs ...

. Due to extensive reconstruction over the centuries nothing of the original building remains, but the rebuilt Mosque is a prominent landmark and can be seen in what today is known as

Old Cairo Old Cairo (, Egyptian pronunciation: Maṣr El-ʾAdīma) is a historic area in Cairo, Egypt, which includes the site of a Babylon Fortress, Roman-era fortress, the Christian settlement of Coptic Cairo, and the Muslim-era settlement of Fustat that ...

. It is an active mosque with a devout congregation, and when prayers are not taking place, it is also open to visitors and tourists.''Eyewitness'', p. 124

Name

The mosque is named after its founder,

, who led the

Arab conquest of Egypt The Arab conquest of Egypt, led by the army of Amr ibn al-As, took place between 639 and 642 AD and was overseen by the Rashidun Caliphate. It ended the seven-century-long Roman Egypt, Roman period in Egypt that had begun in 30 BC and, more broa ...

. Historical sources record that the mosque was also known in Arabic as () and ().

History

Foundation

According to tradition, the original location was chosen by a bird. Amr ibn al-As, by order of Caliph

Umar Umar ibn al-Khattab (; ), also spelled Omar, was the second Rashidun caliph, ruling from August 634 until his assassination in 644. He succeeded Abu Bakr () and is regarded as a senior companion and father-in-law of the Islamic prophet Mu ...

, was the Arab general that conquered Egypt from the Romans. In 641, before he and his army attacked their capital city of

Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...

(at the northwestern part of the

Nile The Nile (also known as the Nile River or River Nile) is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa. It has historically been considered the List of river sy ...

river delta), the commander had set up his tent on the eastern side of the Nile, at the southern part of the delta. As the story is told, shortly before he set off to battle, a dove laid an egg in the commander's tent. When he returned victorious, he needed to choose a site for a new capital city, since Umar had decreed that it could not be in far-away Alexandria. Therefore, the commander was inspired to declare the site of the dove's egg as the centre of a new capital city,

, or ''Misr al-Fustat'', "City of the Tents". The commander built a Grand Mosque at the site of his tent in the encampment.

Renovations and expansions

The complex was completely rebuilt in 673 by the governor

Maslama ibn Mukhallad al-Ansari Maslama ibn Mukhallad ibn Samit al-Ansari () was one of the companions of the Prophet and active in Egypt in the decades after its conquest by the Muslims. Biography He was born in 616 or 620, and participated in the Muslim conquest of Egypt, r ...

, who added four minarets, one at each of the mosque's corners, and doubled its area in size. The addition of these minarets allowed the call to prayer to be heard from every corner, and taken up by other nearby mosques. Governor Abd al-Aziz ibn Marwan added an extension to the mosque in 698 and once again doubled the mosque's area. In 711 a concave prayer niche was added to replace the flat one. In 827, it had seven new aisles built, parallel to the wall of the

qibla The qibla () is the direction towards the Kaaba in the Great Mosque of Mecca, Sacred Mosque in Mecca, which is used by Muslims in various religious contexts, particularly the direction of prayer for the salah. In Islam, the Kaaba is believed to ...

, the direction Muslims face during prayer. Each aisle had an arcade of columns, with the last column in each row attached to the wall by means of a wooden

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; , also called an epistyle; ) is the lintel or beam, typically made of wood or stone, that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can also apply to all sides, including the vertical members, ...

carved with a frieze. In 827, governor Abd Allah ibn Tahir made more additions to the mosque. It was enlarged to its present size, and the southern wall of the present day mosque was built. In the 9th century, the mosque was extended by the

Abbasid The Abbasid Caliphate or Abbasid Empire (; ) was the third caliphate to succeed the prophets and messengers in Islam, Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (566–653 C ...

Caliph al-Mamun, who added a new area on the southwest side, increasing the mosque's dimensions to 120m x 112m. S03 06 01 018 image 2390

In 1169, the city of Fustat and the mosque were destroyed by a fire that was ordered by Egypt's own vizier

Shawar Shawar ibn Mujir al-Sa'di (; died 18 January 1169) was the ''de facto'' ruler of Fatimid Egypt, as its vizier, from December 1162 until his assassination in 1169 by the general Shirkuh, the uncle of the future Ayyubid leader Saladin, with w ...

, who had ordered its destruction to prevent the city from being captured by the

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...

. After the Crusaders were expelled, and the area had been conquered by Nur al-Din's army,

Saladin Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, h ...

took power, and had the mosque rebuilt in 1179. During this time Saladin had a belvedere built below a minaret. In the 14th, century Burhan al-Din Ibrahim al-Mahalli paid the costs of restoring the mosque. In 1303, Emir Salar restored the mosque after an earthquake. He also added a stucco prayer niche for the outer wall of the mosque, which is now gone. In the 18th century one of the Egyptian Mamluk leaders, Mourad Bey, destroyed the mosque because of dilapidation then ordered the rebuilding of it in 1796, before the arrival of

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...

's French Expedition to Egypt. During Mourad's reconstruction, the builders decreased the number of rows of columns from seven to six, and changed the orientation of the aisles to make them perpendicular to the

wall. It was also probably at this time that the current remaining minarets were added. During the French occupation much of the interior wood decoration was taken for firewood by the French Army. In 1875, the mosque was again rebuilt. In the 20th century, during the reign of

's Abbas Helmi II, the mosque underwent another restoration. Parts of the entrance were reconstructed in the 1980s.

Architecture

The original layout was a simple rectangle, 29 meters long by 17 meters wide. It was a low shed with columns made from split

palm tree The Arecaceae () is a family of perennial, flowering plants in the monocot order Arecales. Their growth form can be climbers, shrubs, tree-like and stemless plants, all commonly known as palms. Those having a tree-like form are colloquially c ...

trunks, stones and mud bricks, covered by a roof of wood and palm leaves. The floor was of gravel. Inside the building, the orientation toward Mecca was not noted by a concave niche like it would be in all later mosques. Instead, four columns were used to point out the direction of Mecca and were inserted on the

Qibla The qibla () is the direction towards the Kaaba in the Great Mosque of Mecca, Sacred Mosque in Mecca, which is used by Muslims in various religious contexts, particularly the direction of prayer for the salah. In Islam, the Kaaba is believed to ...

wall. It was large enough to provide prayer space for the commander's army but had no other adornments and no

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 ...

s. At a point during the

Fatimid The Fatimid Caliphate (; ), also known as the Fatimid Empire, was a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries CE under the rule of the Fatimid dynasty, Fatimids, an Isma'ili Shi'a dynasty. Spanning a large area of North Africa ...

era, the mosque had five minarets. There were four, with one at each corner, and one at the entrance. However, all five are now gone. The current Minarets were built by Mourad Bey in 1800. Also, the Fatimid Caliph al-Mustansir added a silver belt to the prayer niche which was eventually removed by

when the mosque was restored after the fire in Fustat. The only part of the mosque's older structure which can still be seen are some of the architraves, which can be viewed along the southern wall of the Mosque. These were probably added during reconstruction in 827.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* Behrens-Abouseif. Doris. 1989. ''Islamic Architecture in Cairo''. Leiden: E. J. Brill. * Creswell, K.A.C. 1940. ''Early Muslim Architecture, vol. II''. Oxford University Press. Reprinted by Hacker Art Books, New York, 1979. * *

External links

Jami' 'Amr ibn al-'As
at '' ArchNet'' {{Authority control 7th-century mosques Mosques completed in the 1790s Religious buildings and structures completed in 1796 Mosques completed in the 1870s Religious buildings and structures completed in 1875

Old Cairo Mosque buildings with domes in Egypt Landmarks in Egypt Muslim conquest of Egypt 642 establishments Religious buildings and structures completed in the 640s Grand mosques 19th-century mosques in Egypt 18th-century mosques in Egypt Mosque buildings with minarets in Egypt Sunni mosques in Egypt