Where is the ruler in the city? Corporeal Invisibility and Architectural Visibility in the

Where is the ruler in the city? Corporeal Invisibility and Architectural Visibility in the Mausoleum of al-Ṣāliḥ Najm al-Dīn Ayyūb By Emily Fu

In the accounts of al-Maqrīzī, who wrote during the Mamluk era (1250-1517 C.E., AH 648-923), he described what happened to the palace area, known as Bayn al-Qasrayn, after Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn’s (r. 1174-1193 C.E., AH 569-588) rise to power. Amīrs who were occupying the area set up their residences in the halls and pavilions, sold inventory, founded a hospital, and opened the area to wider circles of the population— all of these indicated that there was no plan to keep up the former palatial associations of the area.1 However, by the time of alṢāliḥ Ayyūb (r.1240-1249 C.E., AH 637-646), Ibn Saʿīd al-Maghribī’s report gave the impression of “narrow, dark alleys full of dust and smell, against which the wide space of Bayn al-Qaṣrayn appeared like a splendid array of royal buildings.”2 Eventually this street will come to be lined with seven royal mausoleum complexes, with al -Ṣāliḥ’s being the first. What accounts for this transformation and the

revival of the former place “between the two palaces”? Shajarat al-Durr chose to erect her late-husband’s mausoleum on this site — setting off a chain of Mamluk building projects on this central ceremonial passageway. Beginning with the mausoleum of al-Ṣāliḥ, this building type, the madrasa-mausoleum, and the site of Bayn alQaṣrayn, came to be the choice vehicle and locale for sultans to proclaim their presence in the city. Like any other ruler before or after her, Shajarat al-Durr was aware of architecture’s representational function and the ways in which it could indicate the importance of the patron. After a series of reigns by sultans pulled away from the city by the forces of war, and during the unusual rule of a woman from within the confines of the citadel, a new emphasis on tomb building emerged in the late-Ayyubid period. The void left by the absence of the sultan’s physical body came to be replaced by heightened visual and aural prominence. The mausoleum commissioned by Shajarat al-Durr represents a turning point, away from the tradition of the Fatimid forer-unners and towards the later developments of Mamluk architecture — marked by a demand for highly visible domes, visual access, the attention of passersby on the street, and a highly sophisticated aural and epigraphic system, which fashioned the public image of the ruler. Al-Ṣāliḥ Najm al-Dīn Ayyūb constructed his madrasa on the site of the former Fatimid eastern palace two years into his rule. After Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn’s rise to power, the Fatimids were removed, and Abbasid rule was restored along with Sunnī orthodoxy. As Creswell’s reconstruction shows, the plan of two iwans (rectangular vaulted halls) on the shorter eastern and western sides connected by cells and assembled around a courtyard are assumed to be mirrored on the southern half of the madrasa.3 The madrasa provided an iwan for each of the four Sunnī schools of law. During Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn’s rule, Bayn al-Qaṣrayn was possibly intentionally neglected to send the message that the heretical grounds upon which the Fatimids based their rule were justly decaying. On this basis, al-Ṣāliḥ’s choice to erect his madrasa on the site could have been a means of showcasing the pious monument that is the product of a “just ruler” taking possession of the royal grounds of an illegitimate dynasty. However, as Lorenz Korn points out, by the time the madrasa was erected, seven decades after the fall of the Fatimids, it was probably no longer conceived as an anti-Fatimid statement.4 If we are to conceive of al-Ṣāliḥ’s structure as more than just a reactionary measure against Fatimid traditions, then what does the madrasa-mausoleum say about itself? Looking beyond the city walls, the madrasa-mausoleum complex of imam al-Shāfiʿī’s dome has a comparable configuration and a similar emphasis on visibility, both from inside and outside the complex. Inside the complex, someone facing the qibla wall of the madrasa connected to the mausoleum would have had direct visual access to the cenotaph (the empty tomb).5 The complex was also highly visible from the citadel, as the cemetery was relatively empty at the time of its construction, and it was across from a spacious maydān (public square).6 There is little evidence of the original shape of the dome of the mausoleum, however, the 15th -century Mamluk reconstruction was likely modelled on the pointed profile of al-Ṣāliḥ’s dome, revealing a connection between the two structures that persisted two centuries later.7 Additionally, the Imam

was the founder of the four Sunnī schools of law and his complex inside the cemetery was a famous example of the madrasa-mausoleum building type. Aside from the madrasa-mausoleum of Imam alShāfiʿī, Shajarat al-Durr may have found inspiration before she even arrived in Egypt. She originally hailed from the Qipchaq people of the steppes of what is today southern Russia where she was enslaved and became the favoured concubine of the sultan while he was still governor of Ḥiṣn Kayfa‘. 8 According to Ruggles, the Ayyubids were “more a consortium of distrustful allies, fighting each other much of the time and acting cooperatively only when it was profitable to do so or when threatened by external force.”9 As the sultan toured the provinces in an attempt to wrestle control from other princes, Shajarat al-Durr was by his side as he first took control of Damascus, and then Egypt.10 It would be fair to assume that Shajarat al-Durr would have seen madrasa-mausoleums in Damascus on these travels, as it was a popular building type there. During this period, Damascus witnessed the most “intense and sustained” patronage of religious architecture by women, in particular that of funerary monuments.11 In the eighty-five years after Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn, women commissioned sixteen percent of all religious monuments.12 Even more surprising, within the Ayyubid house, nearly half of the patrons were women.13 Notably, ʿIṣmat ad-Dīn Khātūn, wife of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn, constructed a madrasa-mausoleum within the city, which is no longer extant.14 Shajarat-Durr’s experiences in Damascus may have informed her choice of building type, and revealed to her the possibilities of female patronage within the space of the city. Indeed, the madrasa-mausoleum combination was ideal for the ruling elite who were keen to be known as patrons (waqif) and eager to make charitable and pious endowments (waqf) to secure their legacy, while simultaneously establishing personal funerary monuments that elevated their status and rewarded them with blessings. While this combination existed outside the city, al-Ṣāliḥ’s was one of the first to appear within the city walls. This prompts some investigation into the nature of the urban madrasa-mausoleum and the additional functions that it served, as they were a departure from those of the cemeteries. The mausoleum appears differently inside of the city, as urban surroundings had a special impact on this type of architecture.15 Why did Shajarat al-Durr choose to introduce the mausoleum into the city and reinterpret its structure? Al-Ṣāliḥ ruled Egypt for a turbulent nine-year period, during which he not only warded off threats fr-om competing Ayyubid forces but also engaged in battle against the Seventh Crusade of Louis IX of France. When the sultan died from an illness on 14 Sha’ban 647 (November 22, 1249), Shajarat al-Durr, well-versed in statesmanship and already ruling in his absence, was positioned as regent until the sultan’s son by another wife, Turanshah, reached Cairo from his provincial post. Upon his arrival, Turanshah was assassinated by the Mamluks and Shajarat al-Durr was pronounced sultan.16 During this three-month period of transition, al-Ṣāliḥ’s death was kept a secret and his body was hidden on the island of Rawda. Shajarat al-Durr handled all the affairs of the state and waited until the Frankish threat subsided to announce his death and build his mausoleum.17 Al-Maqrīzī describes the official burial ceremony as such:

The people came out on Friday to the castle of alRawda from where the body of the sultan was borne. They prayed over him after the Friday prayer. All the soldiers wore white and the Mamluks shaved their hair. Condolences were received and the sultan was buried that night. For three days all the markets in Cairo and Egypt were closed. The burial ceremony was performed with tambourines in Bayn al-Qaṣrayn. Consolation was received until Monday.18

Although Al-Ṣāliḥ died from illness, he became a martyr figure. The ceremonies surrounding his death in Bayn al-Qaṣrayn are reminiscent of the processions of the Fatimid caliphs who moved through the city and announced their presence along the ceremonial pathway. According to Doris Behrens-Abouseif, Fatimid ritual had a role in determining the placement and iconography of buildings and the structures in Bayn al-Qaṣrayn were conceived as “elaborate stage sets of ritual and procession.”19 In contrast, Ayyubid sultans had a tangible absence as they were increasingly enclosed in the citadel or away at war. On this same Fatimid processional pathway, the invisible body of the sultan arrived — concealed for political stability and monumentalized in absence. No longer is Bayn al-Qaṣrayn a stage set for celebrating the life of the sultan. With the absence of the subject of spectacle and the blessings that radiated from his being, the architectural fabric of Bayn al-Qaṣrayn and the structure of the mausoleum became substitutes for the sultan’s physical presence and took on the functions that it had for the urban population. As a woman, Shajarat al-Durr ruled from within the confines of the citadel and

was not permitted to participate in processions, funerals, or ceremonies the way that male rulers did. Since women could not hold public audiences, even Shajarat alDurr’s oath of office was administered privately.20 For the most part, women also could not study in madrasas and custom admitted them only reluctantly into public worship in mosques.21 Ruggles points out that, most importantly, Shajarat al-Durr could not lead the army. This would have made it difficult for her to win the favour of her citizens during periods when Egypt was under attack or instigating conflicts with its neighbours.22 Although her fellow Mamluks had supported her ascension to the throne, not everyone approved of her rule, as the caliph in Baghdad officially rejected her by citing a ḥadīth on the inauspicious rule of women.23 Despite these restrictions, Shajarat al-Durr had a strong claim to legitimacy. Through her relationship to al-Ṣālih, she gave birth to his son Khalil and became his wife. Not only was her legitimacy bolstered by her military and financial experience, but her official claim to the throne was as wife of al- Ṣālih and through her status as the mother of Khalīl (the title of “wālidat al-malik al-Manṣūr Khalīl”), though her son died in infancy.24 Shajarat al-Durr wrestled not only with her own lack of visibility, but also that of the men from whom she derived her authority, as their corporeal presence vanished in death. Although Shajarat al-Durr was hardly physically visible, she came to gain high aural, epigraphic, and architectural visibility. Her name was read in the public Friday sermon (the khuṭba), she had coins minted in her name, and she initiated a program of public texts on the façades and interiors of her monuments. She also signed official documents with her own seal, not as regent for al-Ṣāliḥ or Turanshah, but as “malikat al-muslimīn” and as mother of Khalīl.25 As evidenced by her title, she had an identity separate from the men from whom she derived her authority and did not hide the fact that she was a woman. As Wolf points out, the inscription on her coins follows tradition by using a common Ayyubid script and referencing the caliph by name. However, the dīnār also departs from tradition by emphasizing motherhood on its obverse side with phrases like “malikat almuslimīn” and “wālidat al-malik al-Manṣūr Khalīl, amīr al-mu’minīn.”26 To further establish her authority in the public realm, the khuṭba aurally fashions her image in the following terms: “Protect, oh God, the sultan [wearer] of the elevated curtain and of the inaccessible veil (al-sitr al -rāfi‘ w’al-˙hijāb al-māni‘), queen of the Muslims, mother of Khalil.”27 According to Fatimid tradition, “sitr” describes the curtain that hid and revealed the caliph during audience meetings and ceremonies. The veiling of the caliph had many functions: it gave him personal privacy, protected regular civilians from his radiance and helped cultivate veneration.28 However, the inclusion “hijab” added spiritual gender and class dimensions as they were first worn by elite women in the Levant, and demonstrates a reinterpretation of the khuṭba for a female leader. Oral recitations like the khuṭba, often spoken inside spaces of prayer like the mausoleum, flowed out towards the street, while pious invocations flowed in. Communication with the interior is a significant feature of the madrasa-mausoleum building type. In the instance of the madrasa-mausoleum of al-Ṣāliḥ, this communication was difficult to establish since the mausoleum projected five meters into the street and did not have the usual full contact with the madrasa structure.29 The desire to expose the tomb as much as possible to pious invocations and the demand for high visibility from the street often resulted in structurally inexplicably openings, such as oblique cuts through the wall adjoining the two structures and window openings so thick that they became passages, with one of them almost five meters long.30 The placement of the tomb chamber on the street side, rather than the qibla side, which was the norm within cemeteries, was another means of grabbing the attention of passersby.31 AlṢāliḥ’s mausoleum is unusual, as it was built on the east side of the street in order to be joined to the earlier madrasa, while it became preferable later for mausoleums to be built on the west side for better alignment with the qibla.32 In her article on the spatial analysis of Mamluk architecture, Shatha Malhis draws from the concept of space syntax, which characterizes spatial systems in terms of how spaces relate to one another, and to individual users who travel in axial lines. In this mathematical paradigm, any spatial system can be configured into a hierarchy, in which some spaces are more “integrated” than others, that is to say, more strategic and accessible. According to Malhis, the more “integrated” a space is, the easier it is for individual users to reach it from other points in the complex.33 Drawing from the model of spatial analysis put forth by Malhis, the courtyard and the western iwan of the northern half of the madrasa are the most integrated. This level of accessibility had practical purposes since these areas were open to the public for prayer. The transitional space between the mausoleum and the western iwan also has a high degree of integration as it is near the entrance portals. These patterns would have motivated the visitor to stop in the courtyard and foll-

-ow the lines of visibility toward the qibla-iwan and the mausoleum. In contrast, the mausoleum appears removed from the rest of the building, as it required a higher degree of privacy and detachment. There is no visibility from the mausoleum to the educational parts of the madrasa at all. To be in the mausoleum is to just be in the mausoleum, and not a part of the complex system of educational spaces.

Figure 1.

This heightens the experience of the mausoleum and visitors’ perception of it, as the structure was spatially distant but visually seen. These strong enclosures combined with direct visual connectivity allowed the mausoleum to co-exist with the educational part without violating traditions (fig. 1). Although the madrasa-mausoleum cannot compete with structures like the Mosque of Ibn Ṭūlūn in terms of sheer scale, it introduced new qualities which are characterized by large upwards and outwards motions. Without isolating motifs within the decorative program of the façade, the overall character expressed by the structure is this twofold dynamic rather than the playful combinations of motifs in Fatimid patterns of decoration. As Korn writes, “the rising from the bottom to the top, already signaled from afar by the minaret, and the expansion from inside out, best visible in the radiating niche above the portal, permeate the whole façade and create a hierarchy between the structural elements.”34 The command that the madrasa-mausoleum takes over public space is described by Korn as extrove-rted and innovative, and suggests that the effects of the building are focused towards passersby in Bayn alQaṣrayn, rather than those who have already entered the structure.35 The twofold dynamic of the façade and the emphasis on simultaneous visibility and physical distance in the plan of the mausoleum can be interpreted as architectural manifestations of the transformations of the position of the ruler within the city in this period. Although Shajarat al-Durr ruled during a period of increasing seclusion for Ayyubid rulers and was further confined by her status as a woman, the architectural innovations that she introduced visually amplified her structures, and by extension, her presence, within the city of Cairo. During her short reign, Shajarat al-Durr reached across geographical and temporal distances to establish her authority and build her legacy. Gazing across the maydān, she reconceptualized structures like the madrasa-mausoleum of imam al-Shāfiʿī and continued the powerful tradition of female patronage that she found in Ayyubid Damascus. Reaching into the past, she revived the Fatimid palatial centre of Bayn alQasrayn and brought it into the future, as the new heart of the Mamluk capital.

Notes

1 Lorenz Korn, "The Façade of as-Sālih 'Ayyūb's Madrasa and the Style of Ayyubid Architecture in Cairo," in Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras III (Leuven: Peeters, 2001), 113.

2 Korn, “The Façade of as-Sālih 'Ayyūb's Madrasa:” 114.

3 K.A.C. Creswell, The Muslim Architecture of Egypt, vol. II (New York: Hacker Art Books, 1978), 94-100. 4 Korn, "The Façade of as-Sālih 'Ayyūb's Madrasa:" 113.

5 Stephennie Mulder, “The Mausoleum of Imam Al-Shafi’I,” Muqarnas 2, no. 3 (2006): 21.

6 Mulder, “The Mausoleum of Imam Al-Shafi’i:” 22.

7 Ibid., 41. 8 Amalia Levanoni, "The Mamluks' Ascent to Power in Egypt," Studia Islamica, no. 72 (1990): 122, 129.

9 D. Fairchild Ruggles, “Visible and Invisible Bodies: The Architectural Patronage of Shajar al-Durr,” Muqarnas 32 (2015): 63.

10 Ruggles, “Visible and Invisible Bodies:” 64.

11 R. Stephen Humphreys, "Women as Patrons of Religious Architecture in Ayyubid Damascus," Muqarnas 11 (1994): 35.

12 Humphreys, “Women as Patrons of Religious Architecture:” 35.

13 Ibid., 36. 14 Ibid., 43.

15 Christel Kessler, “Funerary Architecture Within the City,” Colloque International sur l’Histoire du Caire: 257.

16 Ruggles, “Visible and Invisible Bodies:” 64-65.

17 Nairy Hampikian, "Restoration of the Mausoleum of Al-Salih Najm Al-Din Ayyub," in The Restoration and Conservation of Islamic Monuments in Egypt (American University in Cairo Press, 1995): 46.

18 Hampikan, “Restoration of the Mausoleum of al- Salih Najm:” 47.

19 Mulder, “The Mausoleum of Imam Al-Shafi’I:” 28.

20 Ruggles, “Visible and Invisible Bodies:” 65.

21 Humphreys, "Women as Patrons of Religious Architecture: " 35. 22 Ruggles, “Visible and Invisible Bodies:” 65.

23 Caroline Olivia M. Wolf, "'the Pen has Extolled Her Virtues': Gender and Power within the Visual Legacy of Shajar Al-Durr in Cairo," in Calligraphy and Architecture in the Muslim World (Edinburgh University Press, 2013): 200.

24 Ruggles, “Visible and Invisible Bodies:” 64.

25 Ibid., 65. 26 Caroline Olivia M. Wolf, "'the Pen has Extolled Her Virtues': Gender and Power within the Visual Legacy of Shajar Al-Durr in Cairo," in Calligraphy and Architecture in the Muslim World (Edinburgh University Press, 2013): 201.

27 Wolf, “the Pen has Extolled Her Virtues:” 202.

28 Ibid.

29 Korn, "The Façade of as-Sālih 'Ayyūb's Madrasa:" 108.

30 Christel Kessler, “Funerary Architecture Within the City,” Colloque International sur l’Histoire du Caire: 265.

31 Kessler, “Funerary Architecture Within the City:” 260.

32 Ibid., 265.

33 Shatha Malhis, “Narratives in Mamluk architecture: Spatial and perceptual analyses of the madrassas and their mausoleums,” Frontiers of Architectural Research 5, no. 1 (2016): 77-78. 34Korn, "The Façade of as-Sālih 'Ayyūb's Madrasa:" 112.

35 Korn, "The Façade of as-Sālih 'Ayyūb's Madrasa:" 112.

Creswell, K.A.C. The Muslim Architecture of Egypt, vol. II. New York: Hacker Art Books, 1978. Hampikian, Nairy "Restoration of the Mausoleum of Al-Salih Najm Al-Din Ayyub," in The Restoration and Conservation of Islamic Monuments in Egypt (American University in Cairo Press, 1995): 46. Humphreys, Stephen R. "Women as Patrons of Religious Architecture in Ayyubid Damascus," Muqarnas 11 (1994): 35. Kessler, Christel. “Funerary Architecture Within the City,” Colloque International sur l’Histoire du Caire: 257. Korn, Lorenz. "The Façade of aṣ-Ṣāliḥ 'Ayyūb's Madrasa and the Style of Ayyubid Architecture in Cairo," in Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras III (Leuven: Peeters, 2001), 113. Levanoni, Amalia. "The Mamluks' Ascent to Power in Egypt." Studia Islamica, no. 72 (1990): 121-44. Malhis, Shatha. “Narratives in Mamluk architecture: Spatial and perceptual analyses of the madrassas and their mausoleums,” Frontiers of Architectural Research 5, no. 1 (2016): 78. Mulder, Stephennie. “The Mausoleum of Imam Al-Shafi’I,” Muqarnas 2, no. 3 (2006): 21. Ruggles, Fairchild D. “Visible and Invisible Bodies: The Architectural Patronage of Shajar al-Durr,” Muqarnas 32 (2015): 64. Wolf, Caroline Olivia M."'the Pen has Extolled Her Virtues': Gender and Power within the Visual Legacy of Shajar Al-Durr in Cairo," in Calligraphy and Architecture in the Muslim World (Edinburgh University Press, 2013): 200.

Figures Fig. 1. Fu, Emily. Axial analysis of visual lines of sight within the madrasa-mausoleum, after Rabbat, floor plan of complex (https://archnet.org/sites/1539/media_contents/44572). 2020. Drawing.

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