Mosque-Madrassa of Sultan Hassan

Mosque-Madrassa of Sultan Hassan
Looking down from the Citadel at the Mosque of Sultan Hasan 2014
Basic information
Location	Cairo, Egypt
Affiliation	Islam
Country	Egypt
Architectural description
Architectural type	Mosque
Architectural style	Islamic Architecture
Completed	1359

The Mosque-Madrassa of Sultan Hassan is a massive mosque and madrassa located in the Old city of Cairo, it was built during the Mamluk Islamic era in Egypt. Its construction began 757 AH/1356 CE with work ending three years later "without even a single day of idleness". At the time of construction the mosque was considered remarkable for its fantastic size and innovative architectural components. Commissioned by an-Nasir Hasan, a sultan of a short and relatively unimpressive profile, al-Maqrizi noted that within the mosque were several "wonders of construction". The mosque was, for example, designed to include schools for all four of the Sunni schools of thought: Shafi'i, Maliki, Hanafi and Hanbali.

The Mosque of Sultan Hasan is one of the largest mosques in the world, measuring 150m in length and covering an area of 7,906 sq m. Its walls rise to 36m and its tallest minaret to 68m. Visitors enter the complex through a tall portal that is itself a work of art. A dark and relatively low-ceilinged passageway leads to the brightly lit sahn, a standard cruciform-plan open courtyard. The courtyard centers on a domed ablutions fountain, which was probably an Ottoman addition. Soaring on four sides of the courtyard are vaulted liwans (sitting rooms), accented by hanging lamp chains and red-and-black rims.

Each liwan is devoted to one of the four Sunni schools of jurisprudence. Skilfully fitted between and behind each liwan is a madrasa, complete with its own courtyard and four stories of cells for students and teachers. low profile seems inconsistent with the massive undertaking that was his mosque, but the mosque's grandeur makes sense given Sultan Hasan's dramatic life. Sultan Hasan ascended the throne at the age of 13 in 748 AH/1347 CE. When he reached maturity in 1350, he arrested the Emir Manjaq who controlled all of the state's affairs. Prior to that arrest, the emir was restricted to an allowance of just one hundred dirham per day. This pocket change was collected by servants for the Sultan. It's especially striking considering that during that time, the emir Shaykhu was estimated to have an income of 200,000 dirham per day. This deprivation may be viewed as a prompt for his later extravagance.