The Sultan Qalawun Group or Mosque, Madrasa, Dome and Bimaristan al-Mansur Qalawun
Originator: - An order to establish the complex or group, Sultan Al-Malik Al-Mansour Abu Al-Maali Saif Al-Din Qalawun Bin Abdullah Al-Turki Al-Alfi Al-Alai Al-Salhi Al-Najmi.
Location: - Al-Muizz Li Din Allah Fatimid Street, Cairo
Creation date: 683 AH / 1283 AD - 684 AH / 1284 AD
Establishment date
The archaeological group is currently located in Al-Muizz Li Din Allah Al-Fatimid Street in the area between Al-Qasrine, which dates back to the era of the Fatimid state, because it is located between two palaces, the great eastern of Caliph Al-Muizz Li Din Allah and the small western of Caliph Al-Aziz Billah Ibn Al-Muizz. The landmarks of Kasserine have ceased to exist, and part of the land of the Eastern Palace was settled, the school, the Al-Salihiya dome, the old Zahiriya school (Al-Bebrasiya) {1}, the palace of Prince Bashtak, the Sabil Muhammad Ali and the old weapon market, while the Western Palace occupied part of its land, a school, a dome, Bimaristan Al-Mansour Qalawun, a mosque and his son's school An-Nasir Muhammad, a mosque, a school, its khanqah, the dome of al-Zahir Barquq, and the al-hadith school. In the eighth century AH / fourteenth century AD, the name Bain Kasserine was used because of the establishment of the palace of Prince Bisri, and the palace of Prince Bashtak towards it. The street between Kasserine had a capacity of ten thousand soldiers, and since the establishment of the Ayyubid state, it has become the location of the most important markets in Cairo and the venue for societies for reading biographies, news, chanting poetry and artistry in the types of games and cabarets {2}.
- The group was set up on a part of the western Fatimid palace land. It was basically a large hall. I am not the king, the daughter of the Caliph al-Aziz Billah God and the sister of the Caliph al-Hakim, God’s command [information 15], then it was known as the house of Emir Fakhr al-Din Jharkis [piece of information 16], and then House of Musk relative to Prince Ezz Al-Din Musk Al-Salahi, one of the princes of the Ayyubid state, then it became the favorite king Qutb al-Din Ahmad bin al-Malik al-Adil Abu Bakr bin Ayyub, and the venerable Sixth Princess Ismat al-Din remained in the hands of the venerable Sixth Princess Muonsa Khatun al-Qutb al-Ayyubi, daughter of the just king Abu Bakr and the sister of the preferred king Qutb al-Din, so it became called the house The Qutbiyah, so Sultan Al-Mansur Qalawun took it from it and replaced it at the Emerald Palace with the spaciousness of the door of the feast. The king of Egypt is to build a bimaristan with it, when the king’s guardian and his vow, and his choice fell on the polar house and others to establish the bimaristan, the school, the mosque, and the dome, and there is another narration that says that the Sultan ordered his Mamelukes to put the sword in the commoners for a high order B changed the minds of the Sultan over them, because they contradicted his order in something with their ignorance, so he ordered their killing, so he played the sword in them for three days, during which the countless number of them were killed. When the matter exceeded its limit, the judges and scholars came to the Sultan and interceded for them, so he pardoned them and stopped killing them. The sultan took sins, regretted what he did, built the bimaristan, and made many endowments for it, and he did good deeds that other kings did not do, so that God would atone for him what he did to people, so that good deeds can eliminate bad ones {5}.
The construction of the collection took fourteen months between Rabi 'al-Awwal 683 AH / 1283 CE and Jadi al-Awwal 684 AH / 1284 CE and those dates were inscribed on the main lintel, including the text:
«He ordered the establishment of this great noble dome, the Blessed School and the Blessed Bimaristan, Mawlana the Great Sultan, King Mansur, Saif al-Dunya and al-Din Qalawun al-Salihi, and it was starting to build that in Rabi 'al-Akhir in the year eighty-three and six hundred and the space of it was in Jumada al-Awal in the year eighty-four and six hundred.
- However, the greatness of the group’s area, the abundance of its decorations, and its accuracy made historians doubt those dates, and they assumed that those dates were written at the end of the building block and the facades, not the decoration, and their suspicions were strengthened by the difference of historians on the date of the burial of Mansur Qalawun in his dome, as many of them mentioned that he was buried there the day after his death While Mufaddal bin Abi al-Fadil mentioned that on Muharram 10 690 AH / 1291 CE, the martyr Sultan al-Mansur was transferred from the castle and entered it through the door of the telegram and prayed on him at the Al-Azhar Mosque, and was carried to his soil and buried in his dome, and Ibn al-Furat also mentioned that al-Mansur Qalawun died on 6 Dhu al-Qa'da 689 AH / 1290 AD and was carried to Qalaat al-Jabal and continued with it until the end of the first day of Muharram 690 AH / 1291 AD, and his body was transferred on the second day of Muharram from the castle to its soil in the Mansurian school. The two narrations were reinforced by Ibn Shakir al-Kutbi and al-Maqrizi, who mentioned that Ashraf Khalil ordered his father to be transferred from the castle to the Mansurian dome on 2 Muharram 690 AH / 1291 CE. From these narrations it is understood that the completion of the construction of the collection and its decorations was in the first year 690 AH / 1291 CE, and thus it took seven years and eight months, and it is permissible that the school and the Bimaristan carried out their functions in part of the building before it was finished, as was usual at that time and as happened in the Al-Moayad Sheikh Mosque It was reported that in the year 686 AH / 1287 CE, Chief Judge Burhan al-Din al-Sinjari sat to rule in the Mansuriyya School, and in the month of Ramadan 684 AH, Muhdhab al-Din, known as Ibn Abi Halika, was appointed to teach medicine in Bimaristan {7},
Historians describe the bimaristan as a complete bimaristan and a school of medicine with a full pharmacy devoted to treating all diseases, it had departments for ophthalmology, surgery, internal and mental diseases, and gynecology, all of them internal and external, and the medicine and food were disposed of for those who were treated in their homes, and the bimaristan continued to function until the year 1856 A.D. Decomposition was left with nothing but the madmen who were transferred from it later to the Jokh workshop in Bulaq, then they were transferred to Abbasiya in 1880 AD, then the bimaristan was transformed to treat all diseases, then it was limited to treating eye diseases, and in 1915 the Ministry of Awqaf established a section of Bimaristan a hospital to treat eye diseases It is the rest until now. What influences Al-Mansur Qalawun is that when he visited the Bimaristan after his leisure, he consumed a mug of bimaristan drink and drank it and said, “I have stood for this like me, who is without me, and made it a standstill for the king, the king, the males, the females, the old, the young, the free, the slave, the soldier, and the prince” {7}.
1- Souad Maher, “Old Cairo and Its Neighborhoods”, 1962 edition, The Egyptian General Organization for Authorship, Translation, Printing and Publishing - page 30
2- Hassan Abdel-Wahhab, “The History of the Ancient Mosques,” 1946 edition
- Part 1, p. 114
3- Ahmed Issa, “The History of the Bimaristans in Islam - p. 83:84
4- Hassan Abdel-Wahhab, “History of the Ancient Mosques,” 1946 edition -
C 1 p. 114
5- Suad Maher, “The mosques of Egypt and their righteous saints
C 3 p.63
6- Hassan Abdel-Wahhab, History of the Ancient Mosques Part 1, p. 115: 116
7- Hassan Al-Basha, "Encyclopedia of Islamic Architecture, Archeology and Arts."
1999 edition-vol.1 pp. 379: 382
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