Sightseeing Sunday, August 7th - Water

Mosque-Sabil of Sulayman Agha al-Silahdar 1839 AD / 1255 AH

This week's sight follows on the same theme of water. However, other than the sabil (fountain), the connection won't be immediately obvious. A very young monument, by Cairo's standards, this mosque-sabil-kuttab (school) was was built in the third decade of Mohamed Ali Pasha's reign by his minister in charge of the arsenal. Appropriately, the minister's name was Sulayman Agha al-Silahdar (the armorer), and other monuments of his patronage include two surviving wikalas (caravanserai) in the Khan al-Khalili and near the northern walls of the city.  In the picture below you can see the complex (along the left of the photo). Cut off along the left edge is the gate leading into Haret al-Bargawan. A hara is an alleyway or street that usually terminated on either end with gates. Inside were shops and homes and usually a place for community prayer. The streets would traditionally police themselves and have a sheikh as a representative to the greater community. At night the gates would be closed to strangers and be staffed with a watchman. In this way, the hara, until the present day, functions as the most basic level of Egyptian society. Moving to the right along the picture, you can see the protruding sabil (fountain), moving farther along is the kuttab (school), and finally, the mosque itself. The minaret in the picture is a classic Ottoman style minaret. I always tell people that if you see a pencil in the sky, it's Ottoman. This style becomes more frequent in the late 17th century in Egypt. But doesn't really come into vogue until later still. (I will post this week on the minaret styles of Cairo... Stay tuned.) Another feature which had its roots in Europe and came to Cairo during the Ottoman period are the slanted eaves which top the front, exterior wall. 

From L to R: Gate, sabil, kuttab, mosque. Notice the window placement on the kuttab and mosque. On the kuttab the windows are low onto the street. On the mosque they are much higher to provide privacy.

Inside the mosque, the ceiling is more ottoman in style than in last week's sight. This is later in the Ottoman period and so the style is becoming more European. Again around the molding we see floral patterns.

This week feature our first sight that includes a mosque. I will detail the main features of the mosque in a later post. But for the time being, there are two features that need some explaining. The dome in the next picture is located over the mihrab. The mihrab is a niche in the wall indicating the qibla or direction of Mecca. As muslims must pray in the direction of the holy city, it is towards this niche that their prayers are specifically directed. Domes topping the mihrab are a common feature of many mosques in Cairo and will be featured in many subsequent posts. Another feature is the minbar or pulpit of the mosque. It is from here that Friday sermons are given. Traditionally they are wooden and they are located directly next to the mihrab. With few exceptions, mosques have one mihrab and one minbar. 

Dome over the mihrab.

The marble indentation below the chandelier is the mihrab. The wooden structure to the right is the minbar.

The next picture of the ceiling is a unique feature for a mosque specifically and a truly unusual architectural element for most viewers. The raised indentation with the sunlight is called a malqaf. The malqafs are basically giant vents or wind catchers that direct wind into the space below to cool the space. Most viewers are probably wondering, "what happens when the wind changes direction?" Well, fortunately Cairo has a wonderful natural feature: wind almost always comes from the north. Interestingly, the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic for traveling south was a ship with full sails; for traveling north, a ship riding the current with its sails down (the Nile conveniently flows north). So whenever you come across a malqaf in Cairo, you can be nearly certain it's pointed north.

Top Center: a malqaf

Another European style found in the complex is the openness and simpleness of the kuttab, large chandelier and, again, the ceiling ornamentation. 

Here you can see the space behind the sabil. Notice the curve of the windowed wall and the basins beneath each window (next two photos). In the corner there is an indentation, which is our clue to our not-so-obvious connection to the water theme. This indentation leads to a large underground cistern (coming photos). By means of this indentation, water was brought to this room from the cistern below using a bucket and rope system. The water was then poured into the water troughs below the windows. It was then scooped from the troughs by those who needed it from the outside of the building. 

Closer view of the water trough. Notice the larger spaces at the bottom of the grail. Here, small cups could grab water to be put into water vessels

The next three photos are of our special connector of the day. Nearly all of the sabils of Cairo had their own cistern under them. Except in a very few cases, however, they are either closed to the public or closed off completely. These cisterns contained large amounts of water to be brought up and distributed for public consumption. This particular cistern is particularly large, as you can see in the second photo. It is "roughly fifteen meters high, twelve meters wide and eighteen meters long" (Williams, 204). 

Unlike European cities where public squares contained wells, the water table in Cairo is brackish and barely potable. Therefore, water was collected by organized water companies to bring water directly from the Nile over a kilometer away. Andre Raymond in his master work Cairo: City of History better describes the organized process by which water was collected in distributed:

"The water carriers drew water from the river at  particular locations and loaded their filled skins (the rawiya of cowhide and the qirba of goatskin) onto camels and donkeys, shuttling back and forth between the Nile and the city. They were organized into five corporations along the western edge of the city... The distribution in town was performed by a corporation of street-based water sellers, another of carriers of cistern water... and one of carriers of 'salt' water, no doubt used for cleaning - an entirely rational distribution across the geographic and technical spectrum. The water was often sold to passerby or delivered directly to homes, where it was often paid for according to an ingenious subscription system. The water carrier inscribed lines on his client's door corresponding to the quantity delivered, or he used a necklace of blue pearls, removing one per waterskin. The number of water carriers is naturally impossible to estimate... [However] there were still 3,876 of them in around 1870... This system also made use of public fountains where water was stored. These fountains... were distributed evenly throughout the built up area as a function of the distribution of people... As supplying water had strong religious connotations, one of the favorite ways for rich patrons to perform good works during the Ottoman period, particularly among the military caste, was to build fountains." (Raymond, 246)

Forty-nine steps down into the cistern (Williams, 204).

Here you can see the immense size of the cistern.

Another view into the cistern from the stairwell.

Next week, we will view something highly unusual...

Sources:

Williams, Caroline. Islamic Monuments in Cairo. 6th ed. Cairo: American University in Cairo, 2008. Print. 203-204.

Raymond, Andre. Cairo: City of History. Cairo: American University in Cairo, 2007. Print. 246.