Ibn Tulun Mosque

About Ibn Tulun Mosque

Mosque in Cairo, Egypt

The Mosque of Ahmad ibn Tulun is the oldest well-preserved mosque in Egypt and one of the most significant monuments of Islamic architecture in the country. Ahmad ibn Tulun, founder of the Tulunid dynasty, ordered it built in 877 CE in his new capital al-Qata'i, and it was completed in 879, becoming the third congregational mosque of Egypt's Islamic capital after the Mosque of Amr ibn al-As in Fustat and the Mosque of al-Askar. It stands on a rocky rise once known as Gabal Yashkur, and with its outer enclosures covers about six and a half feddans, making it one of the largest mosques in Egypt. Its design was inspired by the 9th-century mosques of Samarra, the Abbasid capital in Iraq: a square plan with a vast open courtyard surrounded by roofed arcades divided by rows of pointed arches decorated with carved stucco. An outer enclosure, the ziyada, surrounds the mosque, and in it rises the unusual minaret with an external spiral staircase modelled on the Malwiya of Samarra, the oldest minaret in Egypt, which can be climbed for a panorama of Cairo. The Mamluk sultan Lajin added the domed kiosk and fountain in the centre of the courtyard during a major restoration in 1296. After severe neglect in the 19th century, when the building was turned to other uses, the mosque was restored in the 20th century. It stands today in Ibn Tulun Square in the Sayyida Zeinab district, with the Gayer-Anderson Museum (Bayt al-Kritliyya) against its eastern wall and the Sarghatmish Mosque to the west.

Where:

Cairo, Egypt