Historians in Cairo: Essays in Honor of George Scanlon 9774247019, 9789774247019

Table of contents :
Contents
Contributors
Foreword
Introduction
More Thoughts on Early Abbasid Lusterwares in the Egyptian Context
The Timurid Bazar and the Origin of the Domed Tim
The Mosque of Amir Qawsun in Cairo (730/1330)
Taking the Plunge: The Development and Use of the Cairene Bathhouse
Osman Effendi: A Scottish Convert to Islam in Early Nineteenth-Century Egypt
‘Awalim; or, The Persistence of Error
Preservation and Restoration: The Methods of Max Herz Pasha, Chief Architect of the Comité de Conservation des Monuments de VArt Arabe, 1890—1914
An Olfactory Tale of Two Cities: Cairo in the Nineteenth Century
The Urban History of Cairo around 1900: A Reinterpretation
The Golden Anniversary of Egypt’s National Courts
Poet against Proconsul: Wilfrid Blunt’s Struggle with Lord Cromer over British Rule in Egypt
Nostalgie Literature on Alexandria
From Paris and Cairo to Tehran: Guénonian Traditionalism, the Iranian Revolution, and the Islamic Republic

Citation preview

Historians in Cairo

Historians in Cairo Essays in Honor

of George Scanlon

Edited by Jill Edwards

The American University in Cairo Press Cairo New York

Copyright © 2002 by The American University in Cairo Press 113 Sharia Kasr el Aini, Cairo, Egypt 420 Fifth Avenue. New York, NY 10018 www.aucpress.com “From Paris and Cairo to Tehran: Guénonian Traditionalism, the Iranian Revolution, and the Islamic Republic” is copyright © 2002 by Mark Sedgwick All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechani­ cal, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Dar el Kutub No. 16712/02 ISBN 977 424 701 9 Designed by AUC Press Design Center/Andrea El-Akshar Printed in Egypt

Contents

Foreword.............................................................................

ix

John Semple

Introduction........................................................................

XV

Jill Edwards

More Thoughts on Early Abbasid Lusterwares in the Egyptian Context...............................................

1

Rosalind Wade Haddon

The Hmurid Bazar and the Origin of the Domed T im

17

Bernard O ’Kane

The Mosque of Amir Qawsun in Cairo (730/1330)........

29

Chahinda Karim

Taking the Plunge: The Development and Use of the Cairene Bathhouse.................................................

49

Nicholas Warner

Osman Effendi: A Scottish Convert to Islam in Early Nineteenth-Century E g y p t................................

81

Jason Thompson

‘Awalim; or, The Persistence of E rror...............................107 John Rodenbeck

Contents

Preservation and Restoration: The Methods of Max Hera Pasha, Chief Architect of the Comité de Conservation des Monuments de l’Art Arabe, 1890-1914 ........................................................123 István Ormos

An Olfactory Tale of Two Cities: Cairo in the Nineteenth Century............................................................... 155 Khaled Fahmy

The Urban History of Cairo around 1900: A Reinterpretation................................................................ 189 Nelly Hanna

The Golden Anniversary of Egypt’s National Courts............. 203 Enid Hill

Poet against Proconsul: Wilfrid Blunt’s Struggle with Lord Cromer over British Rule in Egypt....................223 Roger Owen

Nostalgic Literature on Alexandria..........................................237 Robert Mabro

From Paris and Cairo to Tehran: Guénonian Traditionalism, the Iranian Revolution, and the Islamic Republic.................................................................. 267 Mark Sedgwick

Contributors

Jill Edwards, professor of international history, the American University in Cairo. Khaled Fahmy, associate professor of modem Middle Eastern history, New York University. Rosalind Wade Haddon, postgraduate, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Nelly Hanna, professor of Ottoman and Middle Eastern history, the American University in Cairo. Enid Hill, professor of political science, the American University in Cairo. Chahinda Karim, visiting assistant professor of Islamic art and architecture, the American University in Cairo. Robert Mabro, fellow of St. Antony’s, Oxford University. Bernard O’Kane, professor of Islamic art and architecture, the American University in Cairo. István Ormos, associate professor, Department of Arabic, Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest.

Contributors______________________________________________________________

Roger Owen, director, Contemporary Arabic Studies, Harvard University. John Rodenbeck, professor of English and comparative litera­ ture, the American University in Cairo. Mark Sedgwick, assistant professor of Middle Eastern history, the American University in Cairo. John Semple, representative of the British Council (1970-93) in Sudan, Yemen, Egypt, Brunei, and Saudi Arabia. Jason Thompson, associate professor of British history, the American University in Cairo. Nicholas Warner, joint director, the Gayer-Anderson Restoration Project.

Foreword

John Semple

am deeply touched that I should be asked to write a foreword to this learned tome: a tribute from so many scholars to George’s academ­ ic distinction. Having myself no claim to such scholarship I can do no more than make this a purely personal tribute to a long and enrich­ ing friendship. It seems to me almost impossible for anyone—it cer­ tainly is for me—to hold forth about George without a feeling of inad­ equacy. For what can I, what can anyone, say of his achievements and character that can have any freshness of interest? Although I worked with George in a humble capacity in the sands of Nubia and in his small kingdom of rubbish heaps and sewers that is al-Fustat, to have known him for over forty years outside the disciplines of academia has been something more precious. Fugit inreparabile tempus . . . it seems like only yesterday that I received, shortly after our first meeting in 1959, a copy of Geoige’s doc­ toral thesis, published by the American University in Cairo Press: A Muslim Manual o f War, being a translation of and commentary on a Mamluk manual of cavalry tactics. This arrived on a cold March day as I was languishing in some remote and dismal barracks, and it was a defining moment in my own life because it was at that moment that I resolved to return to Egypt and live in Cairo. It was inscribed with char­ acteristic modesty: “A Caprice to be sure; positive intentions abounding; but no Vainglory intended or desired.” I mention this because any men­ tion of George will sooner or later involve some symbol of the horse, but more particularly because earlier this year I was with Dr. Shihab alSarraf, that renowned scholar of al-Furusiya, while he was chairing an

1

John Semple

international conference on the history of the horse in the Near East, and I asked him if he had ever read George’s dissertation. He replied that this book had changed his life and had been a seminal influence on his sub­ sequent studies. So it must have been for all those students and the other lucky few that have come under the influence of George’s teaching and immense and always utterly genuine and enjoyable enthusiasms. With the possible exception of Robert Birley, mentor of my own schooldays, he is incomparably the finest teacher I have ever known, and by this I mean something apart from mere scholarship: not only an abil­ ity to inspire study, to send one scurrying to the sources, and to search out further reading, but the gift of illuminating whole areas of knowledge with metaphor and poetry. I have seen young children flock to his knee to learn some new or interesting fact or some insight into a book or poem, as he opens up to them unknown vistas of history, music, and lit­ erature. I have seen him in a small Anatolian village hold a classroom of Turkish children spellbound over a simple impromptu English lesson. On one occasion he arrived rather unexpectedly as my guest at lunch when I was a young soldier and, as the assembled company was not the most obvious of academic audiences, I was filled with some trepidation when he started holding forth to some of my senior colleagues on Edward Gibbon, with a flood of copious and lengthy quotations, some cloaked in the decent obscurity of a learned language. However, my fel­ low officers were enthralled and I am sometimes still reminded of this delightful occasion to this day. Everyone knows George as the incomparable cicerone of the Islamic architecture of Cairo, pointing out the discreet charm of a sabil-kuttab or a crumbling khanqah. For myself I shall never forget my first visit with him to the North Wall of al-Qahira in 1960. Not only did he reveal the uniquely chaste beauty of the masonry and the subtle complexity of the design, but here, in this masterpiece of military architecture, took place a tutorial of rare lucidity unequalled in my university experience and one that changed my whole perception of several centuries of history from the Atlantic to Mongolia: the Fatimids, the Crusades, the Ayyubids, the Armenian kingdoms, the rise of Seljuks, and the sultanates of the Fertile Crescent. To have knocked at that door and to have had a George to open was a privilege indeed. George has made Cairo his home, insofar as anyone with such wide and cosmopolitan tastes and interests can be said to have a temporal

Foreword

------- L

'

*

George Scanlon at al-Fustat (photograph courtesy of Elizabeth Rodenbeck)

John Semple

home, but, as his muse is Egypt, he wears the city like a well-made and comfortable old shoe. Himself almost a registered monument, he can remember most of what has passed of any interest in the last half cen­ tury. His first arrival in Cairo on New Year’s Eve in 1950 set the tone: he danced all evening with Rita Hayworth on the roof of the old Semiramis Hotel. Once asked to accompany Charlton Heston to the pyramids he commented: “I think you will find nothing new here, as I believe you have played every character in antiquity and in the Bible except the Archangel Gabriel." I was always delighted when, during the height of Soviet influence in Egypt, in the company of official visitors, he would enjoy pointing out the Mugamma* in Midan Tahrir and with a straight face would exclaim: “That is the new Intourist Hotel”—a com­ ment which once caused something of a flurry of activity in the United States embassy. And then there is George the letter writer with humor, sometimes etched with darkness, and with acute observation. Who else writes let­ ters anymore like George? In moments of the bitterest gloom their arrival has had the same affect as the presage of spring must have for an inhabitant of Siberia. Over the decades they have piled up, yellowing with time, but still glowing like stones of worth in the carcanet. In this respect he resembles Bernard Shaw, as George has never written a let­ ter or a postcard or a memorandum that was not worth reading and as one glances through them, the metaphors spring out at one and the scholarship peeps through: “Remembering the subtly sensuous picture in Creswell E.M.A. Vol. II, may one ask if you bathed in the Aghlabid wells?" he writes to me in Tunis. “Those frosted arches of the Maghrib do so weary one as those of, say, Sultan Hassan never do.” “I have broken my leg which is enclosed in a gypsum as obdurate as the carved soffits of Ibn Tulun.” “He got away with it, as Innocent III got away with shaky theology over the sack of Constantinople; but ill it bodes for any one else who attempts the like," he writes of some pedant colleague who he felt had only superficially skimmed the sources. “Did you sample chrism in Ani?” “I would trade Berkeley and half the coves from here to Puget Sound for the sound of a camel bell in Kandahar or for the sight of smoke ris­

Foreword

ing through the gussets of the Hindu Kush”: not a very characteristic comment from a young American academic in California, even then, but one senses that George has always been at heart a nomad. One cannot write of George without remembering him as Captain of the Fustat, the dahabiya that was his home on the Nile in Giza for so many years, and the home to so many of us, including from time to time myself and my family. George is by background a naval man and so it seemed appropriate that from here he directed his excavations, imple­ menting, from the quarterdeck, a disciplined routine of work and study. He would deal with any insubordination from the lower decks with an experience acquired in the South China Seas. However, he also came into his own as a generous host and trencherman, deploying either excel­ lent cooks or his own culinary skills. In Cairo every evening, after a hard working day, al-Fustat became the social center of the city to a distinc­ tive style of guests. Here one might find a visiting film star, an anthro­ pologist arriving fresh from Dar Fur, or a sprinkling of ambassadors; but only the sort of ambassador who was ready to indulge in serious debate on the respective merits of the novels of Henry James, or to cast a fishing rod from the poop. In spite of all the serious work that was done, those excavations, either in Cairo or Nubia, always seemed interludes of enor­ mous fantasy and fun. I cannot end this without saying a word about what I can only describe as George’s incredible sociability: an uncanny knack of being able to entertain any person from any background under any circum­ stances in an unforgettable and totally impromptu manner. With him knowledge becomes gracious and steps down to delight less gifted mor­ tals. On the other hand if he is treated as the fusty academic that he is not, he can deploy an armory of wit. One of my abiding memories of Geoige happened during a season at al-Fustat. A starchily dressed delegation from an American institution arrived unannounced at the excavation. Picking their way with some trepidation across a waste of garbage they came upon the master typologist and stratigrapher standing in a trench behind a pile of rubble, fingering a sample of glazed shards. If they appeared dispirited by the setting, they were even more taken aback by the reply he gave to their initial greeting: “All this! And all I have ever wanted to do is to be a barman!” But then George has never been a man to be lost for words and one can predict that even on the threshold of the scaffold he would make some interesting comment on the carpentry.

Introduction

Jill Edwards

he essays in this volume are written to honor George Scanlon, the Cairo doyen of historians of Islamic art and architecture, who con­ tinues to draw inspiration for his teaching and scholarly work from the vast store of Islam’s past. The contributions come from academic his­ torians distinguished in their fields and cover topics ranging widely through the history of Cairo, Egypt, and the Middle East. Collected together, they present both the interested non-academic reader and the scholar with an accessible and vibrant picture of life in this area from medieval times to the twentieth century. As organizing editor of the collection, I heartily thank the authors for their willingness—indeed eagerness—to contribute, to do so within the limits of a tough deadline, and to entrust the task to a non-specialist such as myself. I am also much indebted to the director of the American University in Cairo Press, Mark Linz, for supporting the project, and to Neil Hewison, managing editor of the Press, who brought to the chal­ lenge unfailing patience and invaluable expertise. The readiness of col­ leagues to participate is due not merely to George Scanlon’s great erudi­ tion, still less his record of long service, but to the nature of the man him­ self. The flavor of that nature is captured in the foreword of John Semple, whose fine thumbnail sketch reveals something of the range of his sub­ ject’s intellectual landscape, and the conviviality of his friendship. The main collection of essays that follows opens with Rosalind Haddon’s examination of the difficulty of dating early ceramic wares found at Fustat. Her contribution challenges previous archeological reports, and in doing so illustrates how artifacts—in this case shards of

T

Jill Edwards

pottery and the glazes they bear—indicate just how wide the geographic reach of the medieval merchant was. The marketplaces of Persia, easily within the mercantile radius of Cairo, are Bernard O ’Kane’s subject and illustrate the vigor of medieval Iranian urban economies in Timurid and pre-Timurid times, as revealed in the architecture of bazars. Covering some of the same period is Chahinda Karim’s careful academic reconstruction of distinctive fea­ tures of the Mosque of Sayf al-Din Qawsun al-Nasiri. Her work on the Mamluk period also dovetails with the essay by István Ormos on late nineteenth-century restoration, which follows later in the collection. Nicholas Warner’s examination of Cairene bathhouses ranges from the medieval to the late nineteenth century, and illuminates a neglected but commonplace essential of Cairo life. Readers will be familiar with the fascination exerted on early nine­ teenth-century travelers to the Middle East, and the next two essays in the collection reveal different aspects of what has come to be known slightingly as ’orientalism.’ Jason Thompson’s portrait of ‘Osman Effendi’ draws a picture somewhat at odds with the romanticized approach of European artists of the same period, illustrating how, in this case, Cairo offered a much-needed haven to a grateful refugee Scottish convert. John Rodenbeck’s rigorous critique of uninformed interpreta­ tions of the respected Egyptian tradition of the ‘awalim introduces the theme of dance and music that so excited many newcomers in the nine­ teenth century. He chastises writers who fail to distinguish between the highly trained chanteuses and the ghawazi, dancing girls considered to be of lower status if not significance. From the interest aroused by the Napoleonic campaign, the Description d’Égypte, and the influx of European travelers that followed, there arose in the second half of the nineteenth century the desire to con­ serve the architectural treasure house of Islamic Cairo. Max Herz, long­ time chief architect to the Comité de Conservation des Monuments de l’Art Arabe, and the subject of István Ormos’s paper, was outstanding for the great energy and scrupulous care—according to the ideas of the day—with which he vested projects of renovation and restoration. Besides renovation, Cairo, like other great cities at that time, under­ went tremendous social and structural changes, due in part to pressure from the expanding population. These changes involved new concepts of urban planning, and new technology with which to implement them.

__________________________________________________ Introduction Khaled Fahmy and Nelly Hanna write on different aspects of the social, economic, and legislative questions involved in this mammoth task. Khaled Fahmy deals with the problems of the working population, small shopkeepers, butchers, builders, and so on with urban hygiene and hous­ ing. To resolve these problems, new legislation was needed to bring bet­ ter conditions to the poor and to create what became, for privileged sec­ tions of society, the beautiful city known as ‘Paris on the Nile.’ Cairo’s expansion and modernization were well under way by the time of the opening of the Suez Canal, but that event enhanced even further the city’s geopolitical significance. Nelly Hanna’s work looks at the social impact resulting from the creation of suburbs. She selects as an example the suburb of Shubra, just one of Cairo’s many new areas of development brought about by the upsurge in population, the burgeoning of social aspirations, and the application of new technology to urban planning. National, regional, and urban renewal required modem administra­ tion. Enid Hill’s work on innovation in Egyptian law traces the history of Egypt’s judicial system from the time of Khedive Isma‘il and the found­ ing of the Egyptian School of Law in 1886, through the institution of the Egyptian Bar Association in 1912, up to the establishment of the Egyptian National Courts in 1933. Foreign presence and intervention came in a multitude of forms in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth. The correspondence of Lord Cromer and the poet Wilfrid Blunt, as Roger Owen shows, pres­ ents portraits of men of very different temperament, each of whom believed he had Egypt’s interests at heart. Active in the closing years of the nineteenth century, when imperial sentiments were still running strongly against new internationalist ideas of independence and selfdetermination, both men were keenly interested in concepts of statecraft, but differed as to what might best suit Egypt. Blunt, the more progres­ sive of the two, staunchly favored independence and derided Cromer’s patrician views and practice. But it was commerce of one type or another, rather than politics, that brought most foreigners to Egypt. Besides Europeans and other nation­ alities there were the Egyptians—or rather those who thought them­ selves at last half Egyptian—who faced a rude awakening following the 1952 Revolution. Robert Mabro, himself bom and raised in Alexandria, reviews what he labels recent nostalgic literature—that is, literature written by those with only distant memories of that great Egyptian city.

Jill Edwards_______________________________________________________________

xviii

He is skeptical of the value of these fictionalized accounts of family histones from the one-time melting pot of Alexandria, either as histor­ ical record or as literature. He singles out for praise Harry Tzalas’ recent collection of short stories, Farewell to Alexandria, as most truly reflecting the city and its mid-twentieth-century easy, accommodating, cosmopolitan life. In his foreword, John Semple mentions George Scanlon’s work in the wider Islamic field, his travels abroad, for instance, to such exotic hin­ terlands of Islam as the Hindu Kush. Equally wide-ranging is Mark Sedgwick’s account of Islamic pluralism in the 1990s. His discussion of the recent literature on this subject, which in turn draws on much earlier texts, is a timely reminder both of the Islamic diaspora and of on-going theological debates in Iran, Europe, and the United States surrounding one of today’s minor Islamic sects. This last essay then, brings us to the present day—that is, around five decades from the time when George Scanlon first came to the Middle East as a young man performing his military service with the Sixth Fleet. In these contributions are reflections on aspects of the multifaceted world that is the base and source of his life’s work. Those who have con­ tributed—and at least as many other historians were unable, for many reasons, to participate—join in hoping that this festschrift will go some way to presenting a fitting tribute to George’s scholarship, his collegiality, the warmth of his friendship, and the esteem in which he is held.

More Thoughts on Early Abbasid Lusterwares in the Egyptian Context* Rosalind Wade Haddon

he archaeologist is the policeman of the past, sifting through other civilizations’ rubbish, looking for clues, groping for a pattern and diagnostic indicators that might lead one to conclude that one holds positive proof that would stand up in any court of law. In sifting through one of Professor Scanlon’s boxes of shards, collected from his excavations at Fustat, I believed that I had found a major clue to help solve the mystery of some early luxury wares. The feeling was so strong that I decided to pursue it. I was struck by the presence of a few frag­ ments with a compact, well-levigated body. Most of the collection had a much coarser, pinky-red body, but these had a distinctive yellow one, indicating a totally different clay source. On closer inspection they all had an opaque white glaze and a somewhat faded, but nevertheless lustered, overglaze decoration, commonly known in the literature as ‘Samarra’ lusterware, but in the case of Egyptian finds, thought to have been of local manufacture, styled ‘Tulunid.’ For the purposes of this paper, both should more correctly be styled ‘Abassid’ lusterware. Further research revealed that many misconceptions had arisen, largely due to a lack of archaeological understanding of a deceptively complex site. It

T

*This chapter is based on an M.A. thesis for the American University in Cairo (see note 15 for full reference) and a paper presented to the Hong Kong International Conference for Asian and North African Studies meeting in August 1993.

Rosalind Wade Haddon

also became clear that these lusterwares, although widely distributed throughout the Dar al-Islam, were a luxury ware that slavishly copied Chinese shapes. This factor further complicated the situation: in view of insufficient data from the Islamic sites, scholars had drawn upon the evi­ dence for the Chinese wares for dating purposes, which have subse­ quently proven to be unreliable too. The Problem of Dating

The dating of the so-called ‘Samarra horizon’1 is a highly emotive issue and one that is of necessity raised with each new excavation in ninth- and tenth-century Islamic occupation levels. The German exca­ vations at Samarra before 1914 and the subsequent publication of the ceramic finds2 have been frustrated by the lack of a final excavation report and by the seeming lack of stratigraphy. Subsequent scholars reporting on the subject3 and on similar finds from other sites4 assumed a fixed chronology by virtue of the caliphal occupation being known to cover the period 221/836-269/883. A chronology by color and design for lusterwares was quickly established by Ernst Kiihnel.5 This was complemented by the accepted dating of polychrome and bichrome lustered tiles in the mihrab of the Great Mosque in Qairawan, present-day Tunisia,6 as being 247/861, which suggested a dating of circa 860 for the introduction of bichrome luster.7 It was not until Dr. G.C. Miles published an article in 1954* revealing that the Samarra mint continued in production until 341/952, that scholars seri­ ously began to doubt the value of the assumed fixed chronology for the type site.9 More recent work by a British team at Samarra confirms this continued occupation.10 Islamic levels on Egyptian sites have revealed considerable quanti­ ties of shards included in the Samarra horizon. Indeed, it is one of those curiosities of research that Raymond Koechlin first recognized these Abbasid luster shards at Fustat in 1889;11 he appreciated that they dif­ fered in both design and body from the later Fatimid lusterwares. Charles Vignier and his brother excavated, albeit clandestinely, at Rhages (Rayy, Iran) for over twenty years and both he and Koechlin favored this site for the manufacture of these luxury wares, but sug­ gested that poorer copies could have been manufactured elsewhere too.12 Subsequently a local manufacture for many of these shards found in Egypt has been assumed.13 The purpose of this article is to demon-

More Thoughts on Early Abbasid Lusterwares

strate that in all probability there was only one site of manufacture for all of these Abbasid lusterwares. By their very nature, the reliability of results from the excavations of many Islamic sites has to be considered tenuous. This is due to no fault of the excavator but to a more or less constant occupation, with its sub­ sequent destruction and rubbing out of earlier structures over the cen­ turies. In Egypt, admittedly, the great urban sites had shrunk, but those areas that had been deserted were prey to another type of ‘development.’ Centuries of occupation had created a build-up of highly fertile, nitroge­ nous deposits of decayed organic mater, known in Arabic as sibakh. From the end of the nineteenth century the locals vandalized these sites for their agricultural utility. In 190S at Bahnasa (ancient Oxyrhyncus), Sir Flinders Petrie relates that a railway had been built for the export of the sibakh, and that more than 100 tons were being removed every day.14 The sibakh diggers, or sabbakhin, undoubtedly discarded the coarse, unglazed daily wares, but collected the luxury wares and found a ready market for them in Cairo. This gave a distorted impression of the num­ bers of luxury wares in circulation.15 Indeed, during his excavations at Fustat between 1912 and 1925, Ali Bahgat turned this blatant vandalism to his advantage, and organized the sabbakhin into clearing the site. This helped finance his endeavors!16 Returning to the point, on almost all Islamic sites so far excavated, it has been impossible to pinpoint the dating of these Abbasid lusterwares precisely, and we cannot escape a broad ninth-/tenth-century dating. Alastair Northedge, through his successive surveys and excavations at Samarra, has managed to build up a development chronology for these wares and to prove that monochrome lusterwares appear only at the very end of the ninth century and are really a tenth-century phenomenon.17 In an attempt to correct the idea of a fixed period of occupation for the Samarra type site, field archaeologists working on comparable sites have added a further complication, some advocating a high chronology and others a low one. The high chronology is primarily based on Robert Adams’ excavation at Tell Abu Sarifa, a small site near Nippur, south of Baghdad.18 He demonstrated a sequence of glazed wares from the Sassanian levels through to the early Islamic ones, and suggests that white-glazed pottery “was of Sassanian derivation and . . . not an imita­ tion of Chinese production at all.” 19 In his level VI, which he dates to the seventh and eighth centuries, he found fifty white-glazed (some lustered)

Rosalind Wade Haddon

and thirty-four splash-ware shards. On this basis he concludes that these wares must be as early as the seventh/eighth centuries. He is thus in agreement with Florence Day, who favored this early manufacture, argu­ ing that the Chinese wares on which the shapes and splashed decoration were based went out of production in the mid-eighth century, after the An Lushan rebellion.20 She went on to admit that it was impossible to dis­ tinguish between the Umayyad and Abbasid levels, thus making the mis­ take of tying her ceramic chronology to a historical event. The primary exponent for the low chronology suggested by John Hansman through his extensive surveys in Khuzistan, is David Whitehouse.21 Hansman suggests that Islamic white-glazed and splashed wares may not have come into use until after the ninth cen­ tury. This appealed to Whitehouse in the context of his Siraf finds. More recent research and constructive criticism of his dating evidence have destroyed his argumentation, leaving chronology and dating open to question.22 Contemporary Sources

An appeal to contemporary sources to indicate centers of trade and industry throws little light on the subject of luxury ceramic production. The chief sources are the historical geographers of the period who trav­ eled widely throughout the Dar al-Islam recording some aspects in minute detail; many of these are known to us only in transcriptions included in the works of later commentators. They appear to have worked to a set format, recording distances between government posts, listing what they considered to be the important commodities traded from each port, and stating the revenues for each individual province or city. It is not always clear if the author actually visited each place he describes, and certainly much hearsay is recorded as being secondhand. What is evident, however, is that many of these were government intel­ ligence manuals and doubtless commissioned by court treasury and mil­ itary officials. They reflect a high degree of organization. The earliest of these geographers is Ibn Khurradadhbih (bom between 205/820 and 210/825 and died c. 300/912). Of Persian descent, he was director of posts and intelligence (sahib ai-barid wa-l-khabar) in al-Jibal in central Iran (Rayy was the administrative capital), and subse­ quently promoted to the office of Director General of the same depart­ ment in Baghdad and later Samarra. He became a great friend of the

More Thoughts on Early Abbasid Lusterwares

Caliph al-Mu‘tamid (870-892), and thus a contemporary of Ahmad ibn Tulun, governor of Egypt from 254/868-270/884. The date of his trea­ tise al-Masalik wa-l-mamalik is hotly debated, and it is chiefly con­ cerned with recording road communications throughout the Dar alIslam, and not with the economy.23 The other ninth-century geographer of note is Ya‘qubi (d. 284/897 in Egypt) whose Kitab al-buldan,2A was the first to emphasize both topographical and economical detail. Al-Jahiz (c. 160/776-255/869) should be added to this list, and as we will see below, he was helpful in another work. A native of Basra, and a prolific literary writer, he nevertheless has one economic treatise attributed to him: Kitab al-tabassur bi-l-tijara.25 The tenth century saw much more activity, with Ibn al-Faqih al-Hamadhani’s Kitab al-buldan appearing about 291/903.26 It is later in the tenth century that the most prolific writ­ ers emerge, with al-Balkhi (c. 236/850-322/934),27 al-Istakhri (dates unknown),28 Ibn Hawqal (started his travels in 331/943 and was last heard of in Sicily in 3Ö2/973),29 and al-Muqaddasi (died c. 380/990).30 Al-Istakhri’s work Masalik al-mamalik was apparently an elaboration of the geographical system of maps established by al-Balkhi, whose work has not been preserved. The official historiographers should be treated with extreme caution, due to their natural bias towards the dynasty they were commissioned by. Al-Tabari (d. 310/923) chronicled the events of the Abbasid dynasty in Tarikh al-rusui wa-l-muluk. Al-Mas‘udi (died 345/956 in Fustat) is said to be the first Muslim historiographer to group events chronologi­ cally by year instead of by dynasty. He did not restrict himself to libraries, and traveled widely throughout the Dar al-Islam. His principal work is Muruj al-dhahab wa ma ‘adirt al-jawhar (Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems).31 For cross checking, there are, of course, some Byzantine and Chinese sources. For these it has been necessary to rely entirely on secondary sources. A recent article by Zhang Jun-yan32 has shed considerable light on Chinese/Muslim trade and official relations between the seventh and ninth centuries. All these authors indicate an active trade through the principal ports of Fustat, Basra, and Baghdad. Sea ports as commercial centers were eschewed in the early Abbasid empire: categorized as al-thughur (frontier fortresses),33 the military considered them too vulnerable to sea-borne enemies. Extensive trade was carried out in both the Mediterranean and

Rosalind Wade Haddon

the Indian Ocean, continuing those trade contacts that had been well established by the Byzantine and Sassanian empires, inherited through conquest. Lewis considered that the major proportion of this trade was in bulk commodities such as wheat, olive oil, fish, other foodstuffs, salt, timber, metals, wool, and hides, and that luxury goods were “always the frosting on the maritime commercial cake.’’34The extent of this trade can be deduced from the official records, but the archaeological record is important to complete the picture.33 Doubt has been raised as to whether the Chinese actually made the long sea voyage to Arabia at this time. George Hourani discusses this problem and concludes that there is no evidence of Chinese ships in the Arabian Gulf in early Islam.36 W.W. Rockhill says that the earliest Chinese reference to this trade is found in the eighth century.37 Certainly there were diplomatic exchanges between the Abbasid and Tang courts from the outset of the dynasty.38 The Arabic sources indi­ cate the stages of the voyage from the Gulf to China, and the archaeo­ logical evidence in India, Ceylon, Sumatra, and Thailand testify to this coasting and trading.39 The Evidence for Beere ee e Single Site of Menufecture

The disproportionate number of Abbasid lusterwares coming out of Egypt can be accounted for through the extensive ’excavations’ by the sabbakhin. Certainly I benefited from their efforts, as they provided the corpus of material that was available to me in the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Ashmolean Museum, and the study collections at Cairo University Museum and the Islamic Museum, Cairo. More recently I have also been able to study additional material in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Freer Gallery, Washington, D.C. The evidence for limited production is supported by Professor Scanlon’s excavations carried out between 1964 and 1980 at Fustat. With the help of his colleagues, he mastered the anomalies and complexities of the site, and the ceramic finds were copious.40 But despite establish­ ing several ninth-/tenth-century pits and road levels, there were very few Abbasid lusterwares. Only five fragments were registered, including two ruby and gold luster shards found in Pit V (XVI-16).41 More recent French excavations at Istabl Antar, the southern suburbs of Fustat, have

More Thoughts on Early Abbasid Lusterwares

produced a few Abbasid bichrome lusterwares, which the excavator pos­ tulates are of Iraqi origin;42 unfortunately, it has never been possible for me to see them personally. If these lusterwares had been manufactured locally, undoubtedly many more examples would have been found: the lack o f evidence indicates both this ware’s luxury status and its rarity. The breakthrough in scientifically identifying a single site of manu­ facture has come through R.B. Mason’s petrographic analyses at the Royal Ontario Museum. He is confident that products of a particular kiln can be identified by physical characterization of the petrofabric.43 In his research he has analyzed the full gamut of the so-called Samarra horizon and makes many cogent comments. In discussing wasters and kiln furni­ ture he has a good, commonsense approach, and warns about the possi­ bility of acceptable ‘seconds’ being in general use, and that these should not be interpreted as evidence for a kiln site. More importantly: T h e ‘Lustre-Painted’ type provides a particular problem in this regard. H ere a metallic pigment is affixed to the surface o f an already fired ves­ sel, in a second low-temperature firing, in a specially designed kiln in a reducing atmosphere. As the luster-pigment is fixed to the vessel at a low tem perature, wasters o f luster-painted pottery are rare, if they exist at all. T his produces a considerable problem in the identification o f the lusterware production centres, a problem not recognized by excavators who publish fragments o f ‘Lustre-Painted’ pottery found in the vicinity of an ordinary kiln as evidence o f production.44

Mason’s argument for a Basran production of these Abbasid opaque white wares is based on wasters and kiln furniture found in old Basra in 1952 and housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Sampling repre­ sentative collections from most of the contemporary sites reveals that as far as luster and ink-on-snow wares are concerned, based on the evidence of their petrofabric, Basra is the only possible place of manufacture. Arthur Lane made the observation, based on two bowls in the Victoria and Albert Museum, that these wares were probably produced in the same center.43 Some plain white wares have other petrofabrics, indicat­ ing other production centers. These results emphasize the importance of Basra as both a manufacturing and a trading center, and demonstrate how widespread the fashionable influence of the Abbasid court was. We have already indicated that the historical geographers do little to

Rosalind Wade H a dd o n ___________________________________________________

indicate that Basra was a luxury ceramic manufacturing center. Unfortunately there is a lacuna in Ya’qubi’s description of Basra. AlMuqaddasi reports that al-Jahiz mentioned that Basra was remarkable for its manufacture.46 Al-Muqaddasi agrees with him, but goes on to say that there are divers commercial products in Basra too. It is interesting that there is a distinction between manufacture and commerce. None of the chroniclers mentions a ceramics industry, other than the fact that glassmakers, potters, and rushmat makers were among the artisans sent to Samarra to help build al-Mu‘tasim’s city.47 Vera Tamari, however, found two references to Basra’s pottery manufacture that are relevant. In a unique tenth-century narrative al-Azdi describes white-glazed vessels, and, most importantly, what must be a ruby-luster cup: [Wine is put] in a cup, whose pearl-like surface is either plain o r inscribed, and is shaped like a full moon. Another cup resembles opaque crystal, plain-lipped, without a scratch or blemish. [The clay] is extracted from a white layer in the Sawad [region near Basra] and fashioned in Basra. It has a lustrous, red sheen. The top is decorated with a Solomon’s seal m otif and the bottom with a garden Flower.48

The other account comes from another work by al-Jahiz, who describes the outstanding quality of Basra’s clays and ceramic wares: “The whiteness of the vessels and the delicious taste of water contained in their jars is an indication of the good quality of their clay, whose color is as if it was molded from an egg yolk.”49 In the course of my research, two typical but random lusterware shards from Fustat were submitted to Mason, and he confirmed that they were definitely made of the same Basran petrofabric. From comparison with all the other pieces handled, I was confident that they would be, but it is always gratifying to have the scientific proof. The historiographers would have us believe that Basra's trade and industry was crippled by the Zanj revolt, which lasted from 255/868 to 270/883, and that it never fully recovered.50 The Zanj were slaves who had been imported to clear the Marshes and had been grouped in gangs of 500-5,000 laborers, housed in animal pens, and rendered totally help­ less. Their brushes with Islam taught them that they had certain rights. Their cause was supported by the Banu Tamim, one of the five main Arab tribes of Basra. It is tempting to draw parallels with the Qarmat. or

More Thoughts on Early Abbasid Lusterwares

Abu Saidis, of Bahrayn, who F. de Blois has demonstrated were rich, benevolent Ismaili landowners.51 Both groups apparently sacked Basra (the Zanj for three days, and the Qarmat for seventeen days),52 and then controlled its customs posts and outlets. Al-Tabari’s claim that the Zanj destroyed Basra’s trade and industry should probably be interpreted as meaning that the Abbasid state treasuries lost the taxable income from them. Ya’qubi, who was writing at this time, described Basra as “la prémière ville du monde, le centre commercial et riche par excellence’’ (Wiet’s translation).53 Having established that Basra was a major pro­ ducer of luxury ceramic ware found throughout the Dar al-Islam during a period that cannot yet be defined more narrowly than the ninth/tenth century, I would suggest that the so-called devastation of this obviously flourishing city was purely political diatribe. Research on Chinese Wares

Due to the copying of the Chinese shapes, possible dating has been heav­ ily reliant on the Chinese dating. Further confusion arose with the Samarra finds when William Watson proclaimed that Friedrich Sarre’s Chinese ceramic finds54 were in fact locally manufactured and not imports, which suited the advocates of the low chronology. More recent research carried out by Jessica Rawson and colleagues at the British Museum on sancai from Man tai, Fustat, and Samarra has proved that Sarre was correct in assigning these wares a Chinese provenance.55 Rawson cites three kilns in southern China that continued to produce sancai. Using a scanning electron microscope (SEM), they found it easy to distinguish between the Chinese and Islamic wares sampled, and they established a quick and accurate method of recognition and distinction by X-ray fluorescence analysis of the bodies. Because very few of the sancai shards found have classic designs, Rawson suggests that they are later. This is also indicated by their shapes. The key argument for the Islamic archaeologists has been the ques­ tion of when the Chinese white wares that were widely copied in the Islamic world were first manufactured in China. Research carried out in the 1980s has widened the goalposts considerably.56 C.-A. Richards demonstrated that high-fired northern white wares appeared as early as the late Northern Dynasties, that is, in the sixth century. These were widely distributed, and it is conceivable that these white wares could have appeared in the Islamic world by the eighth century.

Rosalind Wade Haddon

Examples from Egypt

In investigating samples for my thesis, strict criteria were used in choos­ ing only those examples with an exact provenance. None of the complete vessels in the Islamic Museum, Cairo, for example, could meet this requirement. They had all been accessed via local dealers in the 1920s and 1930s, and many were assigned Rayy as a provenance. This is indicative of the extremely active Persian dealers who found a ready market in Cairo. One of the most interesting pieces for Chinese scholars37 is a base fragment of a small, oval, foliated cup from the Fustat mounds: three other lustered examples are known.58 The shape was widely used for the contemporary molded relief wares,59 and Whitehouse found a molded green and white splashed example in Siraf.60 The original prototype was undoubtedly Sassanian silver ware.61 The subject merits a paper to itself, but suffice it to say that current research in China demonstrates that cups with the foliated footrings were manufactured at Xing kilns.62 Fan Dongqing says that this shape was very popular in the Tang period: “It was employed by the Yue, Xing and Ding kilns, and sometimes given a sancai glaze.”63 Professor Scanlon’s excavated monochrome luster bowl fragment no. 68.11.53, a lobed cup, now housed in the Kelsey Museum, University of Michigan, was analyzed by neutron activation analysis at the University of California laboratories64 and found to be of the same make-up as other Abbasid lusterwares found at the Iranian sites of Siraf, Muveh, and Jiruft. When Mason analyzed the Siraf pottery, he confirmed that among the opaque white-glazed group, without excep­ tion the lustered and ink-on-snow wares had the Basra petrofabric.65 Although item 68.11.53 was found in an undisturbed pit, the associated finds covered a period of 150 years, so it is possible to provide only a relative date.66 In publications it has been assigned to the tenth century, which is strongly supported by Chinese prototypes, and Northedge’s recent conclusions (see above). This lobed shape was extremely popu­ lar for lusterwares, but does not appear to have been used for any other modes of decoration. Its Chinese prototype was equally popular in Fustat: the Yueh Yao porcelain bowls with five ribs date to the same period,67 as do similar wares from the Ding kilns. According to Fan, during the Five Dynasties period (907-960), the Ding white wares “were mostly left undecorated, but were often made in the shape of

More Thoughts on Eariy Abbasid Lusterwares

flowers with three, four or five petals.”68 They also had shallow footrings. Scanlon found a white ware spittoon (item 68.11.81) at 3.20 meters, in the same pit, which is similar to the dated Ding ware proto­ type also published by Fan.69 O ne o f the most amusing finds in museums’ stores was a rather insignificant looking bichrome luster lid,70 found in an assorted box of fragments from the “rubbish heaps of Aswan,” now in the British M useum stores. An almost identical fragment was found in the Victoria and Albert Museum stores (C632-1922), in a collection from Samarra; and a third is stored in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (23.75.22 a 52598). The Metropolitan piece was part of a group of shards from Samarra that was purchased from the British Museum in 1923. All three had the identical, diagnostic yellow body, as well as identical decoration. The real interest lies in their find sites. Aswan was an entrepot for the Red Sea port of Aidhab and would have acted as a conduit for some of the imports through to Fustat. It would also have boasted a small mer­ chant community trading along the profitable African routes, importing gold, ivory, and slaves, and thus could have well afforded these import­ ed luxury wares. Conclusion

The early commentators who had the exceedingly difficult task of estab­ lishing pottery sequences for Egypt were overawed by the seeming magnitude of the lusterwares produced from the various sites, and assumed a local manufacture. Controlled excavations have put these wares in their correct perspective. Concurrent with this, the confusion over the type site Samarra has hindered the progress of research in Islamic pottery. More recent investigations here have helped enormous­ ly, and it is to be hoped that it will be possible to continue this work. Fortunately we can now appeal to China and Southeast Asia for more precise dating, and are aware that these seemingly insignificant frag­ ments with their diagnostic body are strong indicators of what to the Islamic world was a luxury trade.

Rosalind Wade Haddon

Notes 1. D. W hitehouse, “Islamic glazed pottery in Iraq and the Persian Gulf: the ninth and tenth centuries,” Annali Napoli 39, New Series (1979), 45: “scholars believed that the pottery published by Sarre belonged exclu­ sively to the period from 836 to 883 and provided the type-fossils o f a ninth century ‘Sam arra horizon,* which could be used to date sites and stray finds elsewhere in the M iddle East.” These included both Islamic and Chinese ware: Islamic— white glazed pots and tiles (plain, lustered, or painted with cobalt blue); colorless glazes splashed or mottled with green and yellow-brown; sgraffito; and a far higher proportion o f unglazed earthenwares. Chinese— Tang white wares, some o f which are splashed sancai or three-color wares. 2. F. Sarre, Die Ausgrabungen von Samarra II: Die Keramik von Samarra (Berlin, 1925). 3. Directorate General of Antiquities. Iraq, Hafriyat Samarra 1936-69, 2 vols. (Baghdad, 1940). 4. See H. Philon, Early Islamic Ceramics (London, 1980), 63, notes 6 and 7, and M. Tampoe, Maritime Trade Between China and the West: an

Archaeological Study o f the Ceramics from Siraf (Persian Gulf). 8th to 15th Centuries AD, BAR International Series 555 (Oxford, 1989), 105-16 for a listing o f the more recently investigated sites, and for an indication of the wide distribution. 5. E. Kühnei, “Die abbasideschen Lusterfayencen,” Ars Islámica I (1934), 152. 6. G. Marçais, Les Faiences à Reflets Métalliques de la Grande Mosquée de Kairouan (Paris, 1928), 10. 7. A. Lane, Early Islamic Pottery (London, 1947). 8. G.C. Miles. “The Samarra mint,” Ars Orientalis I (1954), 187-91. 9. W hitehouse, “Islamic glazed pottery,” 46. 10. R. Falkner, “Report on the surface pottery from the 1986 survey season at Samarra,” unpublished manuscript dated 13 August 1989. 11. C. Vignier and R. Fry, “New excavations at Rhages: the so-called Samarra Faience,” Burlington Magazine (XXV, July 1914), 212— this was written after a visit to Berlin where Vignier saw all Sarre's Samarra finds; later Koechlin comments on the status of research in his article entitled “A pro­ pos de la céramique de Samarra,” Syria 7 (1926), 234—46. 12. R. Koechlin, “Chinese influences in the Musulman pottery of Susa,” Eastern Art Quarterly 1.1 (July 1928), 5. 13. A. Bahgat and F. Massoul, La Céramique Musulmane de l ’Egypte (Cairo, 1930), 21; and R. Schnyder, “Tulunidische Lusterfayence,” Ars Orientalis V (1963), 49. 14. G. Fehervari, Bahnasa Preliminary Report. 3. citing W.F. Petrie's Tombs of the Courtiers o f Oxyrhyncus (London, 1925), 12-13. 15. R.A. Wade Haddon, “Abbasid lustre wares in the Egyptian context” (Cairo, 1992), unpublished M.A. thesis presented to the American University in Cairo, 73.

More Thoughts on Early Abbasid Lusterwares

16. W .B. Kubiak, Al-Fustat: Its Foundation and Early Urban Development (C airo, 1989), 30. 17. A. Northedge and D. Kennet, “The Samarra Horizon,” in Cobalt and

Lustre: The First Centuries o f Islamic Pottery, the Nasser Khalili Collection o f Islamic Art, vol. IX (Oxford, 1994), 21-35; and A. Northedge, “Friedrich Sarre’s DIE KERAMIK VON SAMARRA in perspec­ tiv e ,” in Continuity and Change in Northern Mesopotamia from the Hellenistic to the Early Islamic Period, BBVO 17, eds. K. Bartl and S. H auser (Berlin, 1996), 229-58. In the latter, Northedge underlines the problem of lack o f coin dating for Middle Eastern archaeological sites betw een the ninth and twelfth centuries. Only three coins have ever been published from Samarra; Siraf and the Amman Citadel have similar stories. 18. R. McC. Adams, ‘T ell Abu Sarifa: Sassanian-Islam ic ceramic sequence from south central Iraq,” Ars Orientalis 8 (1970), 87-119. 19. A dam s, ‘T ell Abu Sarifa,” 110. 20. F. Day, “The Islamic finds at Tarsus,” Asia (March 1941), 143-46; and “A review o f the ‘Ceramic Arts’: ‘The History’ in A Survey o f Persian Art," Ars Islámico VIII (1941), 17^18. 21. W hitehouse, “ Islamic glazed pottery,” 46-47. 22. Tampoe, Maritime Trade. See pages 155-59 for a full bibliography of W hitehouse’s publications on the site; and T. Allen, “Review o f Siraf III,” Ars Orientalis 13 (1982), 188-89. 23. M. Hadj-Sadok: Encyclopaedia o f Islam, 2nd ed.. Ill (Leiden, 1986), 839-40. 24. Ya‘qubi: Kitab al-Buldan, ed. De Goeje (Leiden, 1892); G. Wiet, Ya'kubi: Les Pays, (Cairo, 1937); and C. Brockelman, “Ya'kubi,” Encyclopaedia o f Islam, 2nd ed., VIII (Leiden, 1987), 1152-53. Sadly the description o f India, China, and the Byzantine Empire is lost. 25. Ch. Pellat, “Gahiziana, I: Le Kitab al-Tabassur bi-l-Tijara attribué à Gahiz,” Arabica I (1955): 153-65; and Pellat, “Al-Jahiz,” Encyclopaedia o f Islam, 2nd ed., II (Leiden, 1983), 385-87, wherein Pellat gives useful biographical detail. Discovered by the Caliph M a’mun, Jahiz spent much o f his time at the Abbasid court and was in an excellent position to gain accurate information, although it seems he never held an official post. 26. H. M asse, “Ibn al-Fakih,” Encyclopaedia o f Islam, 2nd ed.. Ill (Leiden, 1986), 761-62. Only an abridged version remains. M uqaddasi criticized him for being imprecise and taking irrelevant diversions. However, De Goeje recognized that M uqaddasi borrowed a lot of his work, and Yaqut, in his Mu 'jam al-Buldan, used him widely. 27. D.M. Dunlop, “Al-Balkhi,” Encyclopaedia o f Islam, 2nd ed., I (Leiden, I960), 1003. He was a pupil o f the ninth-century philosopher al-Kindi. Dunlop writes: “Though Mukaddasi observes that al-Balkhi did not travel widely, he admits that he was an expert, especially in his own province, mentioning in particular his familiarity with the diwans (register of taxes) of Khurasan."

Rosalind Wade Haddon

28. A. Miquel, “Al-Istakhri,” Encyclopaedia o f Islam, 2nd ed., IV (Leiden. 1978), 222-23. 29. A. Miquel, “Ibn Hawqal,” Encyclopaedia o f Islam, 2nd ed., Ill (Leiden, 1986), 787. For the purposes o f any economic study he is highly relevant; as Miquel explains he “is much less interested in rare or precious prod­ ucts, and secondly he was able to study on the spot a given economic situ­ ation in relation to a particular period or with reference to an implicit norm. He was the only Arab geographer o f the period who really sketched a vivid picture o f production.” 30. Al-Muqaddasi, Ahsan al-taqasim fi m a‘rif at al-aqalim, Arabic text in De Goeje III (Leiden, 1906); English trans. G.S.A. Ranking and R.F. Azoo (Calcutta, 1901). The latter is an abridged version. 31. P.K. Hitti, History o f the Arabs, 10th ed. (London, 1980), 391. 32. Zhang Jun-yan, “Relations between China and the Arabs in early times,” Journal o f Oman Studies 6, pt. 1 (1983), 91-109. 33. A.L. Udovitch, “A tale o f two cities: commercial relations between Cairo and Alexandria during the second half o f the eleventh century,” in The Medieval City, ed. H.A. M ikimin, D. Herlihy and A.L. Udovitch (Yale, 1977), 143. 34. A. Lewis, “M editerranean maritime commerce AD 300-1100," in The Sea and Medieval Civilizations (London, 1978), ch. XII, 2. 35. Al-Muqaddasi, Ahsan al-taqasim. De Goeje III, 97. He includes alghada ’ir (earthenware) in his listings for imports to Oman and Aden. In his list for Aden, he specifically mentions earthenware in addition to Chinese wares, so it is tempting to see this as a rare reference to trading in the luxury Islamic wares found at most important sites. 36. G.F. Hourani, Arab Seafaring (Beirut, 1963), 46-50. 37. Chou Ju Kua, Chu-fan-chi: Chinese and Arab Trade in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, ed. and trans. E. Hirth and W.W. Rockhill (St. Petersburg, 1911), 11. 38. Zhang, “Relations,” 93. According to the Chinese records, between 31/651 and 178/794 the Da-shi (Arabs) sent thirty-nine embassies to China, and Abu M uslim ’s defeat o f Gao Xian-shi’s army in 134/751 at the River Talas did not deteriorate relations. The following year the Abbasid caliph sent an embassy to China for the first time. In 140/757 an Arab army was sent to help the Tang quell the Turkish general An Lushan’s rebellion. These rela­ tively frequent visits would doubtless have encouraged trade and exchange o f ideas and techniques, and contact was not just limited to a few prison­ ers taken at Talas. 39. Dr. Chuimei Ho of the Field Museum o f Natural History, Chicago, has significant Islamic ceramic finds from her two Thai sites: Ko Kho Khao on the western coast o f the Malay peninsula and Laem Pho on the eastern coast, including some Abbasid lusterwares. 40. G.T. Scanlon, “The C airo-A thens connection: an archaeological counterview,” manuscript prepared for the Journal o f American Research Center

More Thoughts on Early Abbasid Lusterwares

in Cairo review pages on H. Philon’s Early Islamic Ceramics. To indicate the volum e o f the ceramic finds, on p. 3 Scanlon says: “It must be recalled that the mounds yielded between 40,000 to 60,000 shards for each fort­ night’s clearing." 41. G.T. Scanlon, “Fustat expedition: preliminary report 1965: part I,” JARCE 5 (1 9 6 6 ), 89. 42. R.-P. G ayraud, “Istabl ‘Antar (Fostat) 1986: rapport de fouilles,” Annales Islamologiques 23 (1987), 58; and personal discussion. 43. R.B. M ason and E.J. Keall, “The ‘Abbasid glazed wares o f Siraf and the B asrah connection: petrographic analysis,” Iran XXIX (1991), 51-66. 44. M ason and Keall, ‘“ Abbasid glazed wares,” 52. 45. Lane, Early Islamic Pottery, 14. 46. Al-M uqqadasi, Ranking and Azoo, 48. 47. W iet, Ya 'kubi, 256; see note 24 above. 48. M uham m ad b. Ahmad ‘Abd al-M utahhar al-Azdi, Hikayat Abi-l-Qasim alBaghdadi (Heidelburg, 1902), 4 6 . 1 am extremely grateful to Ms. Vera Tam ari for sending me her draft manuscript for her subsequently published article entitled “Abbasid blue-on-white ware,” in Islamic Art in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford Studies in Islamic Art X, pt. 2 (Oxford, 1995), ed. J. Allan, 117-45. 49. Al-Jahiz, Rasa'il, vol. 3, ed. Ubaid-allah B. Hassan (Cairo, 1979), 141. 50. Abu J a ‘far M uhammad b. Jarir al-Tabari, Tarikh al-rusul wa-l-muluk, ed. De Goeje (Leiden, 1879-1901), vol. Ill, 1009-10; 1066; 1885. 51. F. de Blois: “The ‘Abu Saidis or so-called ‘Qarm atians’ of Bahrayn,” Proceedings o f the Seminar for Arabian Studies 16 (1986), 13-21. 52. G. Le Strange, The Lands o f the Eastern Caliphate (Cambridge, 1905), 44. 53. Wiet, Ya'kubi, 183-98. 54. Sarre, Ausgrabungen von Somarra; W. Watson, “On T ’ang soft-glazed pot­ tery,” in Pottery and Metalwork in T'ang China, Colloquies on Art and Archaeology in Asia I (London, 1970), 45-46. 55. J. Rawson, M. Tite, and M.J. Hughes, “The export of Tang sancai wares: som e recent research,” Transactions o f the Oriental Ceramic Society 52 (1987-88), 39-61; and Z. Pusheng, “New discoveries from recent research into Chinese blue-and-white porcelain,” Transactions o f the Oriental Ceramic Society 56 ( 1991 ), 37-46, demonstrated the presence of sancai wares at both Samarra and Fustat, thereby doubly confirming the British M useum team 's research results. 56. C.-A. Richards, “Early Northern whitewares of Gongxian, Xing and Ding,” Transactions o f the Oriental Ceramic Society 49 (1984-85), 58. 57. No. 10 in my thesis: Wade Haddon, “Abbasid lustre wares,” Pippin Collection no. 20 (housed in the Rare Books and Special Collections Library o f the American University in Cairo). 58. K. von Folsach, Islamic Art: The David Collection (Copenhagen. 1990), 83, fig. 68, no. 7/1970; Sotheby’s sale catalogue no. 34 for the sale of 15 October 1985; an unregistered fragment from Fustat in the Gayer-

Rosalind Wade Haddon

59.

60. 61.

62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70.

Anderson Museum. Cairo, sherd collection, #145 of the upcoming digital catalog. See fig. 47 in H. Philon, Early Islamic Ceramics, 24, in which she lists var­ ious other examples from Nishapur and states that the Benaki Museum. Athens, has several Chinese prototypes unearthed in Fustat. Tampoe. Maritime Trade, no. 1667, 327. A.C. Gunter and P. Jett, Ancient Iranian Metalwork in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and the Freer Gallery o f Art (Washingon, D.C., 1992). 182-84, no. 31. Fan Dongqing, “Early Ding wares in the Shanghai Museum." Orientations 22/2(1991), 48-53. Fan, “Early Ding wares,” 52. F. Asaro, J.D. Frierman, and H.V. Michel, “The provenance of early Islamic lustre wares,” Ars Orientalis XI (1979), 123, fig. 5. Mason and Keall. ‘“ Abbasid glazed wares,” 56. Wade Haddon, “Abbasid lustre wares,” 98. B. Gyllensvard, “Recent finds of Chinese ceramics at Fostat I.” Bulletin o f the Museum o f Far Eastern Antiquities 45 (1973), 94, figs. 5, 6. Fan, “Early Ding wares,” 51. Ibid. Wade Haddon, “Abbasid lustre wares,” 125, fig. 26, BM registered no. OA 6708.

The Timurid Bazar and the Origin of the Domed Tim* Bernard O ’Kane

robably the earliest surviving datable bazar buildings of the Iranian world are those of the Shibanids in sixteenth-century Bukhara.1 Less known, but also impressive, are those of seventeenth-century Samarqand and Shahr-i Sabz (figs. 1-5). The commercial center of Bukhara, in addition to its lines of shops and urban caravanserais flank­ ing the major street, is punctuated by buildings which are variously called in different sources chahar su, taq, or tim. These are domed struc­ tures with shops opening off both the central space and, sometimes, a surrounding ambulatory which could be either square or octagonal. Being completely roofed, they could be made secure by being locked at night. They had no rooms in which travelers or merchants could have stayed overnight, features which distinguish them from caravanserais, another building type that is intimately associated with bazars, and of which sixteenth-century examples are to be found in Bukhara. One other associated building type should be mentioned here which, although not surviving from the same period in present-day Bukhara, is noted by con­ temporary sources: the bath. For travelers, of whom merchants were probably usually the majority, this was an essential adjunct to the cara-

P

*An earlier version of this paper was delivered at the First Colloquium on the Bazaar in the Culture and Civilization of the World of Islam, sponsored by the Encyclopaedia of Islam Foundation and the Ministry of Culture and Art, Tabriz University, Septem ber 1993. It is a great pleasure to dedicate the present paper to my colleague of many years.

Th e Timurid Bazar and the Origin of the Domed Tim

Fig. 3. Bukhara, Tim of ‘Abd Allah Khan, exterior, C. 985-86/1577-78

Fig. 4. Shahr-i Sabz, chahar su, exterior, seventeenth century

Fig. 5. Samarqand, chahar su, exterior, seventeenth century

Bernard O ’Kane___________________________________________________________

vanserais, not only for their personal hygiene, but also for the opportu­ nities it afforded for making social and business contacts. To what extent were these impressive structures derived from earlier examples, particularly those of the Timurids? In addition to attempting an answer to this question, this paper will also examine the evidence for the continuity of the Timurid bazar from earlier examples, by bringing together and examining some of the scattered sources. The close rela­ tionship which existed in Timurid and pre-Timurid times between waqfs and the bazar will also be examined. Long before the arrival of the Timurids, the bazar played an essential role in the commercial life of Iranian towns and cities. Nasir-i Khusrau's account of Isfahan in 444/1052 illustrates this well: There were many bazars (bazarha)', one that I saw was only for money changers and contained two hundred stalls. Each bazar has doors and gates, as do all quarters and lanes. The caravanserais are exceptionally clean, and in one lane, called Ku-Taraz, there were fifty fine cara­ vanserais. in each o f which there were retail merchants and shopkeepers.2

Here too, it is clear that at this early period economic links kept the placement of bazars and caravanserais together. Nasir-i Khusrau’s visit was on his return from Fatimid Egypt, and sufficient records have been preserved to show the extensive participation of Iranians in long-dis­ tance trade with Egypt and other states of the time.3 Writing almost a century earlier, Muqaddasi recorded that towns such as Kazirun and Rayy in Iran had dars within their bazars, which for him evidently meant the equivalent of a khan or caravanserai.4 He notes that the towns of Arrajan and Hurmuz had bazars which could be locked at night, while the bazar of the latter was decorated, whitewashed, paved and roofed.5 With the advent of the Mongols, the economic life of Iran was shat­ tered. The wholesale massacre of populations left both agriculture and international trade in ruins, and reduced some cities, such as Balkh and Marv, to a state of poverty from which they never recovered. However, matters recovered somewhat under the later Ilkhans, especially after Ghazan Khan’s conversion to Islam and his promulgation of reforms.6 The fact that so much of Asia was under Mongol rule may also have facilitated the resumption of trade on the silk routes at this time.7

Th e Timurid Bazar and the Origin of the Domed Tim

Fortunately, we have considerable information from texts of this period which tell us of the ways in which bazars were used. It seems that, as with much land in this period, many of the bazar properties were constituted waqf. Bequeathing a property as a religious endowment was one way of securing it from arbitrary confiscation and so, despite the reforms of Ghazan, this may indicate that a mood of inse­ curity still prevailed. With new religious foundations, however, the importance of bazars as a means of generating revenue for their upkeep is seen in the number which had bazars attached to them.8 At Rashid alDin’s Rab‘-i Rashidi for instance, the whole complex was approached through a bazar which preceded the entrance court, an arrangement par­ alleled by the Yazd Friday Mosque, built in 725/1325 by Rashid al-Din’s son-in-law.9 Rashid al-Din’s rival, Taj al-Din ‘Ali Shah, was also con­ scious of the benefits of adjacent commercial properties when he built his complex in Tabriz, centered around his Friday Mosque. In addition to two baths adjoining it, he built a bazar and shops at each of the mosque’s four gates. The magnificence of these can be gauged from the report that they were adorned with lamps inlaid with gold and silver, hung on cop­ per chains, which implies that each of these bazars was also roofed.10Taj al-Din was originally a dealer in jewels and precious stuffs before becoming vazir, so it is no surprise to find that these commercial proper­ ties figured prominently in his complex.11 Nishapur, one of the towns sacked by the Mongols and subsequent­ ly rebuilt in another location, was sufficiently recovered by the 1330s for Ibn Battuta to describe its bazars as excellent and extensive. Similar to the Mosque of ‘Ali Shah, they surrounded the Friday mosque in the city. The bazars presumably benefited from the long-distance silk trade: Ibn Battuta mentions that silk fabrics made in Nishapur were exported to India.12 He singles out the bazars of Shiraz (which escaped destruction by the Mongols) for special praise, noting that each trade had its own bazar, and that it alone of Eastern cities was comparable to that of Damascus. To explore further the links between pious foundations and the build­ ing or functioning of bazars, we can compare the varying ways in which two Ilkhanid qadis of Yazd, Rukn al-Din and Shams al-Din financed their numerous pious foundations. Rukn al-Din built four mosques, three madrasas, nine khanaqahs, and five ribats, of which the most famous was the Rukniya in Yazd. Shams al-Din founded five each of mosques.

Bernard O ’Kane

madrasas, and khanaqahs, his main work again being a complex in Yazd named after him, the Shamsiya. However, while Rukn al-Din relied heavily on income from shops, baths, and khans for support of the waqf. Shams al-Din was the brother-in-law of Ghiyath al-Din, and the deputy (na’ib) for religious administration. His waqf relied more heavily on land revenue and taxes from the imperial divan, less on water rights from qanats (underground canals), and not at all from local commercial estab­ lishments. Of course, both would have profited from the revenues which their caravanserais accumulated.13 The earliest reference to a domed chahar su that I have been able to find comes from Yazd in the Muzaffarid period, an era which had already seen considerable expansion of the bazar into a new commercial zone south of the old city walls.14The Muzaffarid ruler Shah Yahya ( 1387-93) built in the middle of Yazd the Bazar-i Gunbad, which consisted of a dome chamber with four entrances (gunbad-i chahar su), which had forty shops.15 Turning to the Timurid period itself, we have it on Clavijo’s authori­ ty that Timur’s Samarqand was a major entrepot for trade from China, India, and many other places. The importance of a bazar to cater to this trade was realized surprisingly late in Timur’s career, only taking place at the time of Clavijo’s visit in autumn 1404, in other words, shortly before Timur’s death. However, he characteristically made up for this in the speed and ruthlessness with which he ordered the project to be com­ pleted. The bazar traversed the whole of the city, and the houses which stood in the way were demolished without compensation. The shops faced each other on both sides of the street, each of them consisting of two rooms, one behind the other, and with a stone bench topped with white (marble?) slabs in front. The street itself was vaulted by domes which were provided with holes for light, and at intervals provided with fountains.16 The artisans of Samarqand had earlier participated in craftguild displays on the occasion of Timur’s quriltay (the assembly of Chaghatai tribes convened to celebrate the marriage of six of his grand­ sons), which might have made him more favorably disposed to them.17 Clavijo also noted the flourishing trade in two other cities of Timur’s domain, Tabriz and Sultaniya. In Tabriz he mentioned the cara­ vanserais, some specializing in perfumes, adjacent to the bazars, which sold goods of every kind; he was especially impressed with the variety of textiles which were on sale. At Sultaniya he noted the merchants who

Th e Timuríd Bazar and the Origin of the Domed Tim

came from Christian and Muslim Anatolia, as well as those from Syria and Baghdad. From further afield were spice dealers from India, while from Italy came Genoese and Venetian merchants to compete for the silk which was brought from Gilan and Shirvan. He specifically men­ tioned the streets and squares (presumably open) where their merchan­ dise w as on sale, and the hostels, in all quarters of the city, where they could be lodged.18 Yazd was another center of the silk trade, and Timur’s governor of Yazd, Ghiyath al-Din Salar Simnani, built a textile bazar there in 805/1402 to celebrate Timur’s victory over the Ottomans.19 This was unusual on several counts, not only in the magnificence of the building but in that it was sponsored by a member of the Persian bureaucracy, a very rare example of architectural patronage by this class under Timur. Its exceptional character is also underlined by the number of Timurid sources that record the event.20 The fullest account is that of the Tarikh-i Yazd:2] Description o f the Dar al-Fath inside the City of Yazd At the time when the great amir (Timur), may God illuminate his proof, w as seizing Anatolia (Rum) and waging war against Ildirim Bayazid, when Anatolia was conquered and Ildirim captured, Khvaja Ghiyath alDin Salar was the tax assessor (in Yazd). He bought several houses and built a square small tint (timcha) consisting o f thirty shops. On the semioctagonal22 portal he had the titles of his majesty (Timur) and the date inscribed. The whole building was built o f baked brick and tile mosaic. The dadoes were tiled and the frontage o f the shops was of marble mosa­ ic; the paving was also o f marble. Three fountains of marble mosaic were erected and supplied by water from Taft. All the building was painted with gold and dark blue.23 Above each shop a fine (second story) room was built; iron (grilles) were installed in the windows. A small verdant garden with tall buildings was made including a cistern, an arcade (tanabi) and windtraps (badgir), on which the imperial titles and the date were written in gold. Nearly two hundred shops around it were registered and Khvaja Ghiyath al-Din Salar made them waqf to the Dar al-Fath. The mind was awed by that building so that they say: This is not a foundation to encompass any imperfection Even if the mountains are ground down and the heavens split. Around it this was written continuously in dark blue on its inscriptions: "M ay Glory and Perpetuity be always with You.”

Bernard O ’Kane

Its upper parts had a tent-like covering of cypress planks. On its north­ ern gate the following was written: May the air24 o f your portal waft on the good fortune o f the sign o f religion This is the garden of Eden, enter and dwell here.25 In the year 808/1405-6 a khanaqah known as the Dar al-Ghuraba’ (the Abode of the Poor) was founded opposite the Dar al-Fath.26

The description of the expensive materials and decoration of this ensemble is unusually fulsome, even for a source as architecturally aware as the Tarikh-i Yazd, underlining its exceptional character. It is also possible to suggest that, with its tent-like wooden roof, it was an intermediate form between earlier open bazars and the domed tim. The author of the Tarikh-i jadid-i Yazd describes the covering as a shadirvan-i kharpushta, i.e. as a steeply pitched roof that might have had the same exterior prominence as a dome.27 We are unfamiliar with roofs of this kind in pre-modem Iran, probably not because they were uncommon, but more likely because they were easily perishable and usually not thought worthy of mention by medieval authors. The importance of the bazar was not lost to Timur’s successor Shah Rukh, for his first major architectural work in his new capital of Herat was the rebuilding of the bazars. He ordered the bazars to be roofed, with spaces for light, and its shops were rebuilt in baked brick in two stories. These lined the streets leading from the four axial roadways leading to the center, where there was a chahar su, a square with four equal sides, situated in the center of a circle of charitable works.28 If this last description of Hafiz Abru is taken as literal rather than metaphori­ cal, the result would be a structure consisting of a dome surrounded by an ambulatory, corresponding to those of Bukhara mentioned above. The dome chamber and vaulting of the bazar were mentioned by sever­ al nineteenth-century travelers, although the remnants seem to have been tom down in the 1930s.29 Another source reveals that there were other bazars outside each of the city gates, and that they stretched fur­ ther into the suburbs.'0 The bazar of Shaikh Chavush, outside the Malik gate, was repaired by Sultan Husain later in the fifteenth century. Another chahar su was built outside of the city by Shah Rukh’s grand­ son ‘Ala al-Daula.'1 The major foundation in Yazd in the first half of the fifteenth century.

The Timurid Bazar and the Origin of the Domed Tim

the complex of Mir Chaqmaq, included a bazar together with a bath and a caravanserai, serving the new Friday mosque and its adjacent khanaqah.32 Also erected in Yazd in the reign of Shah Rukh was another complex with many constituents of a commercial nature. Both the main historical sources on fifteenth-century Yazd mention first the house which Sadr al-Din Ahmad Abivardi erected, which must have been a grand affair. He was involved in silk trading, and even established a silk weaving factory next to his house.33 Outside the house were some small shops where merchants, both from Yazd and elsewhere, would await his appearance every morning, whereupon they would retire to the cara­ vanserai for trading. The caravanserai in question was probably the building known as the Khan-i Qalandar, a two-story building erected by him in the Sar-i Rig area, and which was known to be chiefly the abode of silk weavers. It was entered by a fine dome chamber and had shops opposite. In the same area he also built another caravanserai, the Khan-i Bibicha, one which is mentioned as having decoration of tile-mosaic, and which was therefore clearly an exceptional building.34 In addition, Sadr al-Din built near to his house two baths, one for men and one for women, and a bazar and a mosque, an impressive marriage of commerce and piety. Also in the same Sar-i Rig area of Yazd, another bazar was built after 828/1424-25, that of Shams al-Din Muhammad Tahir. To judge from the accounts this may have closely resembled one of the tims of Bukhara, as it contained not only fifty or sixty shops which were roofed, but in the middle had a domed area with finely-worked doors leading to it.35 Some idea of the indebtedness of the bazar economy to the waqf sys­ tem can be gauged from the waqf deed of Sultan Husain Baiqara’s clos­ est confidant, Mir ‘Ali Shir Nava’i, which specifies some twenty-six commercial properties, mostly near the Malik bazar, the largest and most important of Herat’s markets, which were endowed to his complex, the Ikhlasiya.36 They included the tim of the skull-cap sellers, a two-storied building which on the bazar side had two passages, each with a gate and aivan. On the south of this tim five adjacent shops were bequeathed, while on the east side was a shop called the “Water Jug.” Two two-sto­ ried shops, one selling felt, another leather, were also near the Malik bazar. Just outside the Malik gate was a manufacturing warehouse, a two-storied building and seven adjacent shops. North of the city, in the old citadel area (quhunduz-i Masrakh), were a timcha and two adjacent

Bernard O'Kane

shops, and in the nearby Kucha-yi Bagh-i Zaghan two manufacturing shops. Outside the Iraq gate (the western gate of the city) he owned a timcha and four adjacent shops; these are mentioned as being opposite the bath of ‘Alika Beg, a combination that we have often seen before.37 Prior to this, Sultan Husain had himself set an example at the time of the foundation of the Shrine of ‘Ali at Mazar-i Sharif in 855/1480-81. In addition to rebuilding one of the main irrigation canals of Balkh, the Nahr-i Shahi, he erected in the new town a bazar contain­ ing shops and a bath. The bazar of course would not only have served the needs of pilgrims to the shrine, it would also have encouraged them to visit the area.38 With respect to the chahar su development in Bukhara mentioned at the beginning of the paper, Robert McChesney has pointed out how the religious monuments and the commercial establishments that supported them through waqf produced intertwined relationships between the founders, those employed within the institutions—who found a chance of bettering their lives—and both the shopkeepers and the clientele of the shops. The motives of those establishing such foundations could be many—piety, a wish to secure possessions for one’s descendants, or a more philanthropic wish for participation in the social and economic well-being of society. Where, as in sixteenth-century Bukhara, and fifteenth-century Samarqand and Herat under Timurid rule, the economy was flourishing, bazars could expect to benefit from other building pro­ grams. Even though few remains have been identified, the sources indi­ cate that Timurid bazars were worthy predecessors to the most impres­ sive Iranian bazar complexes that survive: those of the Shibanids in Bukhara and of the Safavids in Isfahan.

Notes 1. The Bukhara bazar is best documented in R.D. McChesney, "Economic and Social Aspects of the Public Architecture of Bukhara in the 1560’s and 1570’s,” Islamic Art II (1987) (published 1989), 217^12. 2. Safamama , ed. Vahid Damghani (Tehran, n.d.), 145; trans. W.M. Thackston as Naser-e Khosraw's Book o f Travels (New York, 1986). 98. 3. See S.D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: I, Economic Foundations (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967), 400, n. 2.

The Timurid Bazar and the Origin of the Domed Tim

4. M uham m ad b. Ahmad al-M uqaddasi, Kitab ahsan al-taqasim fi ma’rifat alaqalim, ed. M.J. de Goeje (Leiden, 1877), 434; Guy Le Strange. The Lands o f the Eastern Caliphate (London, 1966), 215, 266. 5. M uqaddasi, Kitab ahsan al-taqasim, 413,415. 6. A lthough the possibility of these being more effective on paper than in practice is discussed in David Morgan, The Mongols (Oxford, 1986), 167-70. 7. See Ann Lambton, Continuity and Change in Medieval Persia: Aspects o f Administrative, Economic and Social History, Ilth-I4th Century (Albany, 1988), 332-33; Janet L. Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350 (Oxford, 1989), Ch. 5. 8. T his was true even of earlier palace complexes, such as those of the Ghaznavids at Lashkar-i Bazar and Ghazna. 9. See Sheila Blair, “Ilkhanid Architecture and Society: An Analysis of the Endowment Deed of the R ab’-i Rashidi,” Iran 22 (1984), 69. 10. B adr al-Din al-’A ini’, ‘Iqd al-juman fi ta'rikh ahl al-zaman, Istanbul, Ahm ed III MS, f. 358a, where he quotes from al-Yusufi’s Sahib al-nuzha. I am most grateful to Donald Little for providing me with a copy o f this. 11. For the complex see Bernard O ’Kane, “The Mosque of ‘Alishah: Its Reconstruction and Influence,” proceedings of the symposium on The Art o f the Mongols, ed. Robert Hillenbrand (in press). 12. The Travels o f Ibn Battuta A.D. 1325-1354, trans. H.A.R. Gibb, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1958-71), 3:584. 13. Jami‘ al-Khairat, in Iraj Afshar, Yadgarha-yi Yazd, 2 vols. (Tehran, 1348-54/1969-75), 2:391-557; Renata Holod, “The Monuments of Yazd, 1300-1450: Architecture, Patronage and Setting,” unpublished Ph.D. dis­ sertation, Harvard University, 1972, Chapter 2; Jean Aubin, “ Le patronage culturel en Iran sous les Ilkhans: une grande famille de Yazd,” Le Monde Iranien et l’Islam 3 (1975), 107-18; Ann K. S. Lambton, “Awqaf in 7th/13th and 8th/14th century in Persia,” International Seminar on Social and Economie Aspects o f the Muslim Waqf, Jerusalem, 1979, 22-32 (unpublished paper, for which I am grateful to David Morgan). 14. Michael Bonine, “Islam and Commerce: W aqf and the Bazaar o f Yazd, Iran,” Erdkunde 41 (1987), 186. 15. Ahmad b. Husain b. ‘Ali, Tarikh-i Jadid-i Yazd, ed. Iraj Afshar (Tehran, 1345/1966) (henceforth TJY), 87. 16. Embassy to Tamerlane, 1403-1406, trans. G. Le Strange (London, 1928). 278-79. 17. Bernard O ’Kane, “ From Tents to Pavilions: Royal Mobility and Persian Palace Design,” Proceedings of the Symposium on Pre-Modern Islamic Palaces, Ars Orientalis 23 (1993) (published 1994), 253. 18. O ’Kane, “From Tents to Pavilions,” 152. 159-61; Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, Vida y hazañas del gran Tamorlan con la desecripcion de las tierras de su imperio y señorío, ed. and tr. I. Sroznevski (St. Petersburg, 1881), reprinted London 1971, 180: casas de mesones.

Bernard O'Kane

19. It is described as a hazzazkhana, i.e. a cloth warehouse, in Sharaf al-Din ‘Ali Yazdi, Safarnama, ed. Muhammad ’Abbasi (Tehran, 1336/1957), 321. 20. As noted by Beatrice Forbes Manz, The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane (Cambridge, 1989), 116-17. Other notices occur in Ahmad b. Jalal al-Din Fasih Khvafi, Mujmal-i fasihi, ed. Mahmud Fam ikh. 3 vols. (Mashhad, 1339/1960), 3:145-46; Ghiyath al-Din b. Humam al-Din Khvandamir, 21. Ja'far b. M uhammad b. Hasan Ja'fari, Tarikh-i Yazd, ed. Iraj Afshar (Tehran, 1343/1965), 57-9 (henceforth 7T). 22. Literally three-sided (sih gana). 23. Lajvard, literally lapis lazuli. 24. Reading hava'i for savad, as in the emendation of TJY, 93. 25. The second line, in Arabic, is a partial reproduction of Quran 39:73; the last words of the first line are a play in Persian on the Arabic words. 26. TJY, 93 specifies that it was opposite the southern gate of the Dar al-Fath. several houses there having been purchased with waqf funds, and that stew was prepared for the dervishes there every day. 27. TJY, 93. 28. Hafiz Abru, Jughrafiya-yi Hafiz Ahru, ed. Mayil Haravi (Tehran, 1349/1969), 9-10; Bernard O ’Kane, Timurid Architecture in Khurasan (Costa Mesa, 1987), 16-17. 29. Terry Allen, A Catalogue o f the Toponyms and Monuments o f Timurid Herat (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), 49-50. 30. M u'in al-Din M uhammad Zamchi Isfizari, Raudat al-jannat ft ausaf madinat Harat, 2 vols., ed. Sayyid Muhammad Kazim Imam (Tehran 1338/1959), 1:78; Allen, Catalogue, 49. 31. Ghiyath al-Din b. Humam al-Din Khvandamir, Khulasat al-akhhar, ed. Guya 1‘timadi (Kabul, 1345/1966), 16. 32. The bath and caravanserai are mentioned in the waqfnama of the complex: Iraj Afshar, Yadgarha-yi Yazd, 2 vols. (Tehran, 1354/1975). 2:170; as well as in contemporary texts: TJY, 97. 33. 7Y, 88. 34. TY, 88-89; TJY, 108-9. 35. 7Y, 81; TJY, 112. 36. These are published most fully in M.E. Subtelny. "A Timurid Educational and Charitable Foundation: The Ikhlasiya Complex o f ‘Ali Shir Nava’i in 15th-Century Herat and Its Endowment,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 111/1 (1991), 51-52. 37. Beside the mid-fifteenth century Masjid-i Shah in Mashhad (see O 'K ane, Timurid Architecture in Khurasan, cat. no. 26). situated on the bazar route leading south from the shrine complex, is a bath whose foundations may go back to the period of the mosque. 38. O ’Kane, Timurid Architecture in Khurasan, cat no. 32.

The Mosque of Amir Qawsun in Cairo (730/1330) Chahinda Karim The Founder

he amir Sayf al-Din Qawsun, who came at the age of eighteen to Cairo to sell sticks and leather used for the sharpening of razor blades, was described by al-Maqrizi as a tall handsome young man from Barka,1 a small village near Bukhara.2 He went to all the suqs and even entered the citadel to sell his goods, where he attracted the attention of the sultan, al-Nasir Muhammad, who attached him to his mamluks. Qawsun rose through the ranks of the amirate from amir of ten, to amir tablakhana, to amir of one hundred, and finally amir of one thousand.3 He was then sent to his homeland to bring his brother Susun and other members of the family, and they were all given the title amir. Qawsun became one of the sultan’s favorites. Indeed, the sultan married Qawsun’s sister, and married Qawsun to his daughter in 727/1327. The remains of the palace of Amir Qawsun can still be seen behind the Madrasa-Mosque of Sultan Hasan in Cairo where, according to al-Maqrizi, he ate off plates made of gold and silver; his saddle was also made of gold.4 When the sultan al-Nasir Muhammad fell fatally ill, he named his amir Qawsun guardian to his children and named his son Abu Bakr as his successor, thus putting an end to a long rivalry between the two amirs, Qawsun and Bishtak. Qawsun, becoming the most powerful amir, deposed Abu Bakr and had him killed in order to replace him with his infant brother Kujuk. He then named himself the sultan’s deputy. The five-year-old sultan remained in Kerak, leaving Qawsun to rule Egypt. The mamluks of al-Nasir Muhammad, jealous of Qawsun’s absolute power, had him arrested in 742/1341. He was taken to Alexandria where he was finally killed, his palace pillaged and his riches stolen.5

T

Chahinda Karim

Buildings of the Amir Qawsun

Palace and Stables These were situated below the citadel facing the Silsila gate (Bab al‘Azab) and beside the Madrasa-Mosque of Sultan Hasan. His palace had two gates, one overlooking the street called Hadrat al-Baqar6 and the other overlooking the Silsila gate. This palace was originally built by the amir ‘Alam al-Din Sanjar al-Tawil, but Qawsun bought it from him and paid for it from the state's funds. He then enlarged the palace and added stables to it. Qawsun lived in this palace during the lifetime of Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad, after which he moved to the citadel until his capture and execution. The palace was then bought by the amir Yushbak bin Mahdi, and only part of the façade and the portal have survived. Hikr Qawsun This consisted of two gardens, the revenue from which was used to buy clothes for young orphans living in the area outside Bab Zuwayla.7 The Wikala This is located along the Gamaliya road near Bab al-Nasr. Al-Maqrizi calls it a wikala8 although the foundation inscription calls it a khan;9 ‘Ali Pasha Mubarak calls it Wikalat al-Sabun because of the soap sold there.10 Only the entrance of this building has survived. The Khanqah This is located outside Bab al-Qarafa facing the citadel on the south side. All that remains from this building is the dome chamber of the mau­ soleum and a free-standing minaret, but Laila Ibrahim has published a detailed study and reconstruction of this building." The khanqah was built in 736/1336 and functioned well until the amir’s death, when it was plundered. It continued functioning until 806/1403, when the revenue from the hikr was confiscated.12 The Mosque beside the Khanqah This mosque is no longer extant. It was replaced by the Mosque of Mesih Pasha built in 984/1576, located at the edge of the southern cemetery fac­ ing the citadel.

The Mosque of Amir Qawsun in Cairo (730/1330)

The Mosque of Qawsun

This building, which is partly extant and which is the main topic of this paper, was started in 730/1330 on the site of the house of the amir Aqush Nemila. This house was then bought by Gamal al-Din al-Sab al-Musili, from whose son Qawsun obtained it and had it demolished to build his mosque. Al-Maqrizi also informs us that Qawsun brought an architect from the city of Tabriz to build the two minarets of his mosque, imitating the minaret built by the wazir of the sultan Abu Said in Tabriz. On Friday Ramadan 21 of the same year the mosque was inaugurated and the khutba was given by the Qadi al-Qudah Jalal al-Din al-Qazwini in the pres­ ence of the sultan al-Nasir Muhammad.13The mosque is not mentioned in any detail in the sources until al-Gabarti, who mentions the collapse of one of the minarets in 1215/1801. The collapse demolished part of the arches of a riwaq and left the lower part of the minaret leaning toward ‘Atfat alDarb, leading to Darb al-Aghawat. He also adds that this was the result of the bombardment of the French.14 Prisse d’Avennes disputes this: he says that the collapse of the minaret was the result of an earthquake.13 The mosque seems to have survived with one minaret until the build­ ing of Shari‘ Muhammad ‘Ali (Citadel Road) in 1290/1873, a road that starts at ‘Ataba square and ends at the Mosque of Sultan Hasan below the citadel. A large part of the mosque was demolished to make space for the new road, while the remaining part fell into ruins until its rebuilding in 1311/1893 during the reign of Khedive ‘Abbas Helmi II. The Comité de Conservation then restored two of the gates, namely the Bab alMahkama overlooking Shari ‘ al-Surugiya, which is the continuation of the Fatimid Qasaba south of Bab Zuwayla, and the gate overlooking the Harat al-Aghawat.16They took the remains of the bronze-faced wooden doors from the Bab al-Mahkama to the Islamic Museum, Cairo. The Location of the Mosque Al-Maqrizi mentions that the mosque lies along the road outside Bab Zuwayla beside Harat al-Masameda on its western side.17 This road, as mentioned before, is the Fatimid Qasaba which starts at Bab al-Futuh and ends at Bab Zuwayla, then continues southwards to the Mosque of Sayyida Nafisa, changing its name several times. The Bab al-Mahkama of the mosque overlooks the part of the road known as Shari* al-Surugiya. The Darb al-Aghawat, mentioned in conjunction with the minaret that collapsed, starts at Shari* Muhammad ‘Ali and is a wide road con-

Chahinda Karim

necting with ‘Atfat Abaza, which in turn connects with ‘Atfat al-Shaykh ‘Abdallah and ‘Atfat Qaysuni, both leading to Shari* Muhammad ‘Ali. In fact, ‘Ali Pasha Mubarak mentions the location of this mosque on this d a r b The location of the mosque today, as can be seen in fig. 1, is between Shari* al-Surugiya, ‘Atfat al-Mahkama, Harat and Darb alAghawat, and Shari* Muhammad ‘Ali. Description of the Surviving Original Parts of the Mosque The original surviving parts of the building are not many, as can be seen in fig. 1, and these are as follows: 1. A free-standing portal overlooking the Shari* al-Surugiya. The por­ tal is known today as Bab al-Mahkama, because it leads to ‘Atfat alMahkama. The search for the original name of this ‘arfa was unfortu­ nately in vain.

The Mosque of Amir Qawsun in Cairo (730/1330)

Fig. 2. Plan of the original part of the mosque (measure­ ments in meters)

33

2. The remains of a comer wall of stone, 95 centimeters deep behind the gate. 3. An old wall on the right of the entrance to ‘Atfat al-Mahkama from Shari* Muhammad ‘Ali. 4. Part of the southeast wall of the mosque which extends from the eastern comer of the qibla wall of the new mosque. The wall is 26.82 meters long and is cut by four windows with remains of stucco carving. These have been numbered one to four, starting from the wall of the new mosque to the eastern comer, with a band of stucco carving running underneath all of them. 5. A part of the northeastern wall running from the eastern comer for 31.80 meters to the only surviving entrance of the mosque. This wall is also cut by four windows with remains of stucco carving and a stuccocarved band running underneath all of them. In addition, one notices here

Chahinda Karim

springing of arches between the windows, which belonged to the four arcades running parallel to the qibla riwaq and which formed the prayer sanctuary. The other two windows probably overlooked the courtyard of the mosque. The windows in this part have been numbered five to ten, starting from the eastern comer of the mosque. Remains of a stepped cresting along the walls can still be seen. 6. An old entrance to the mosque overlooking Zuqaq Qusun and Harat al-Aghawat. 7. The remains of an old wall among the newly built tenement build­ ings along the northwest side. In 1910, the Comité de Conservation published a plan based on the map of the French expedition, but adding Shari* Muhammad ‘Ali and the plan of the new mosque.19 From this plan it appears that the rest of the northeastern wall and part of the northwestern wall also had windows with stucco carvings, but these are no longer extant. The Bab al-Mahkama This is the first free-standing portal leading to a mosque to appear in Cairo. It overlooks the Shari4 al- Surugiya, which, as mentioned before, was one of the important Mamluk roads and ran south of Bab Zuwayla. The trilobed stalactite portal is 3.35 meters high, 2.13 meters deep and 3.94 meters wide. The original wooden door with bronze facing is now in the Islamic Museum and was topped by a joggled black and white marble lintel, the joggling forming two levels of the fleur-de-lys design. This lintel is very similar in design to the lintel in the later madrasa of alGamali Yusuf (850/1446). The relieving arch, also of joggled black and white ablaq marble, is very similar to the one of the main entrance of the contemporary Mosque of Amir Ulmas al-Hajib (730/1330). The lunette, with its carving of leaf designs, is one of the oldest remaining showing such a design. Above the relieving arch one sees a rectangular window with a round arch that takes the whole width of the entrance bay. The sta­ lactite hood consists of four tiers of stalactites, ending at the top in a rosette with seven petals. Two side rosettes can also be seen with drip­ ping stalactites at the front. A molding frames the whole portal. A detailed drawing of this portal was drawn by Jules Bourgoin,20 showing a band of inscription in naskhi script running around the sides of the por­ tal starting on the right side (fig.3). This inscription is also mentioned by Max van Berchem21 and reads:

Th e Mosque of Amir Qawsun in Cairo (730/1330)

Fig. 3. Bab al-Mahkama by Bourgoin

Chahinda Karim ________________________________________________________

With the grace of God the poor slave o f God Qawsun the saqi (cupbear­ er) maliki al-nasiri during the days o f the sultan al-Nasir may God bless his followers and that is in the year seven hundred and thirty.

Fig. 4. Base of the minaret on Bab al-Mahkama

A mazwala (sundial) can be seen to the left of the entrance with an in­ scription in kufic script saying that it was made by Ahmed al-Hariri in the year 705.22 One also notices in Bourgoin’s drawing the appearance of two maksalas (side benches), one on each side of the entrance bay, but these are no longer extant. This entrance, when seen from ‘Atfat al-Mahkama is covered by a brick vault 4.13 meters long and 3.28 meters wide, and above the lintel one sees a wooden cushioning not visible from the front. The Comité de Conservation also mentions the base of a minaret above this portal.23 This can be seen in fig. 4 and consists of a square base of four meters, with the remains of a pointed arch on each side. The purpose of these arches seems to be to carry the weight of the minaret on the four sides of the entrance bay. Each arch is formed of five voussoirs, without any joggling but with two layers of stone in between the arches. The interior of the square base is round and an entrance is still visible on the qibla side with the remains of two maksalas. This, one can assume, was one of the two minarets mentioned by al-Maqrizi.24

The Mosque of Amir Qawsun in Cairo (730/1330)

This entrance is unique because of its free-standing position far away from the mosque proper. The remains of the wall at the back of the entrance may indicate a covered passage from Shari* al-Surugiya, the main road south of Bab Zuwayla, to the mosque. This covered passage may have led to an entrance on the qibla wall for the use of the sultan and his amir on the day of the inauguration of the mosque, or it may have led to a side entrance today no longer extant. In fact, the remains of the old wall on the right of the entrance of Harat al-Mahkama from Shari* Muhammad ‘Ali could well indicate a side entrance on this side which disappeared during the building of the street in 1290/1873. Hasan ‘Abd al-Wahhab25 believes that Bab al-Mahkama led not to the mosque but to other buildings built by Amir Qawsun that surrounded the mosque; the sources, however, do not mention any buildings adjoining the mosque and the inscription on this portal mentions only the mosque. The Windows of the Original Mosque These are located to the left of the new mosque, where two walls join each other at the eastern comer of the old mosque and enclose an area that constitutes about one-fourth of the extent of the old mosque. The two walls constitute the extension of the qibla wall (26.85 meters long) toward the southeast and part of the northeast wall (31.80 meters long). This area is bounded on the qibla side by the new mosque and from the western side by a wall built by Khedive ‘Abbas Helmi, with an entrance with steps leading down to the old part, which lies 1.77 meters lower than the floor of the new mosque. The ground plan with measurements of the walls, windows, and distances between them can be seen in fig. 2. These measurements show that the four aisles of the qibla side were of equal width, that the windows vary in width from 1.45 meters to 1.75 meters, and that window number one—which is placed higher than the other ones—must have been above the original mihrab. All the windows show remains of stucco carving: Window One, though blocked, shows the remains of a pointed arch resting on two columns and stucco carving in the spandrels showing a trilobed leaf enclosed in two half palmettes. The whole window is then framed on three sides by a band of stucco carving showing upright and inverted trilobed leaves amid undulating stems forming continuous cir­ cles. The upper comers are filled with a square ending in four triangles meeting in the center.

Th e Mosque of Amir Qawsun in Cairo (730/1330)

Fig. 10. The northeastern wall

Chahinda Karim

Window Two is also blocked and badly preserved. The stucco carv­ ing is similar to window one but the undulating stem here goes above and below the leaves and does not form circles. Window Three (fig. 5) is also blocked and shows in the spandrel of the arch a design similar to the one in windows one and two, but the band framing the three sides is decorated with upright and inverted pyramid shapes enclosing a decorative palmette. Window Four (fig. 6) appears different because of the round arch resting on two columns instead of the pointed arch of window one, and the stucco band decorated with an undulating stem and leaf design described in window two can be seen on the sides only. The upper hor­ izontal band here is carved with a design which is similar to those in the spandrels of the previously described windows and the comers are also decorated like the first three windows. Window Five (fig. 7) is framed by three bands showing the same design as in the horizontal band of window four. The remains of a stuc­ co grill can still be seen, consisting of a twelve-pointed star, which can be seen in an old photograph taken by K.A.C. Creswell. Window Six: the design of the vertical bands of this window is that of the upper comer of the other windows, and the horizontal band is filled with a stem and leaf design. The stucco grill is no longer extant but can seen in a picture in the Com ité.26 Window Seven: the decoration here is quite different. It is framed by two bands of Mamluk naskhi starting at the bottom of the right hand side. It shows the first three ayas of Surat al-Fath in the Quran, but the span­ drels of the pointed arch are decorated like the other windows. Window Eight shows the undulating stem and leaf design on the three framing bands and the stucco grill consists of a six-pointed star. The columns supporting the pointed arch are well preserved with their bell shaped bases and capitals. Window Nine: only one band on the right hand side (fig. 8) is pre­ served. It contains the remains of an inscription in Mamluk naskhi with aya four of Surat al-Fath. A picture in the Comité 27 shows the whole inscription, including part of aya five of the same sura. Window Ten (fig. 9) repeats the stem and leaf design. It appears quite clearly that the number of decorative elements used for the decoration of the windows was quite small, but they are combined in ways emphasizing variety. The unity is maintained by the band of stuc-

__________________________ Th e Mosque of Amir Qawsun in Cairo (730/1330)

co carving consisting of trilobed leaves enclosed in half palmettes run­ ning under all the windows, and thus joining them together so that the unity is not lost. The two blocked openings in the lower part of the northeastern wall (fig. 10) were probably doors leading to rooms behind that wall. The first, which is 1.40 meters high and one meter wide, lies below window six, but slightly to the right of it, and the second, which has the same measurements, lies below window seven, but slightly to the left of it. The remains of a stepped cresting can still be seen on this wall near the eastern comer above the springing of the four arches mentioned before. One can also see the remains of wooden beams embedded in the upper part of this wall, indicating what was once a wooden ceiling. A very interesting capital was found buried near the qibla wall at its junction with the wall of the new mosque. The diameter of this capital measures 0.95 meters, which is quite large. It may have been one of the capitals carrying a dome above the mihrab seen by Prisse d’Avennes,28 which will be discussed in more detail below. Fig. 11. The side portal The Side Portal Overlooking Zuqaq Qawsun and Harat al-Aghawat This entrance (fig. 11 ) is located in the northern wall of the mosque and overlooks Zuqaq Qawsun and its extension Harat al-Aghawat, which is perpendicular to Darb al-Aghawat and lies 2.17 meters away from the wall built by Khedive ‘Abbas Helmi II in 1311/1893. It can be reached from today’s entrance through a corridor leading to a garden along the new mosque’s northern wall. The garden is 7.85 meters wide and leads

Chahinda Karim

directly to this portal from the interior, indicating that this portal led to the sahn (court) of the mosque. This entrance is not as highly decorated as the one on Shari' al-Surugiya. It consists of a pointed arched bay 2.2S meters deep and 4.20 meters wide which is slightly tilted towards Harat al-Aghawat and framed by a molding. The plain wooden door is topped by a plain joggled lintel and relieving arch. No trace of an inscription was found. An Attempt at a Reconstruction of the Original Plan of the Mosque

The few surviving remains of the building, the lack of a detailed descrip­ tion by historians, and the absence of a surviving waqfiya (endowment deed) makes any attempt at a reconstruction hypothetical. This attempt will depend on two main factors: first, a detailed description of the sur­ viving parts, as seen above; second, the use of architectural ratios. This will be done by showing the relation between open and closed areas in contemporary mosque plans and comparing these with the surviving parts of the building. The first point can be summarized as follows: four springing arches with equal distances between them showing four rows of arches running parallel to the qibla wall, each row bearing eleven pointed arches and carried on ten marble columns with bell-shaped capitals like the one found near the qibla wall and others with Corinthian capitals as seen by Prisse d’Avennes29 all over the mosque; a number of those capitals are kept in the Islamic Museum.30 The stucco-carved windows described earlier helped in identifying the number of arches in the mosque. A look at fig. 1 shows that the present mosque occupies about one-fourth of the original area of the old mosque, and that the present qibla wall of the new mosque is an extension of the original qibla wall with windows one to four. If one draws a line extending the façade of the new mosque across Shari' Muhammad ‘Ali, and an imaginary line showing the north­ western wall, the two lines will meet at a point forming a triangle on Shari' Muhammad ‘Ali. This may explain what is written in the sources about the destruction of part of the mosque when building Shari' Muhammad ‘Ali,31 and the mention also of the large size of the mosque, requiring two minarets.32 In the reconstruction shown in fig. 12, the eleven arches seen by Prisse d'Avennes fit exactly in the qibla wall of the original mosque,

Th e Mosque of Amir Qawsun in Cairo (730/1330)

including the qibla wall of the new mosque, which, as described above, formed part o f the original mosque. The side areas were each fitted with two aisles, while the side opposite the qibla was also fitted with two aisles with eleven arches as in the qibla riwaq. This is based on plans o f contemporary mosques. Since one entrance survived on one side, another is assumed on the opposite side, as well as a main entrance on the side opposite the qibla. Finally, since the base of a minaret sur­ vives on Bab al-Mahkama, the second minaret would have been either above the main portal or on a comer of the building on the wall opposite the qibla. The latter conclusion is based on al-Gabarti’s refer­ Fig. 12. Proposed reconstruction ence to the minaret destroying of the mosque some of the aisles of the mosque as well as dependencies, which one can assume were situated near one of the side portals and not near the main one. The first sug­ gestion was chosen because it falls on the same line as the minaret above Bab al-Mahkama. Michael Meinecke tried placing them as twin minarets over the main portal comparing them to the twin minarets of Tabriz.33 In fact, al-Maqrizi,34 when mentioning Tabriz, writes about only one minaret, and Meinecke obviously had not seen the base of the minaret above Bab al-Mahkama. The second minaret must have been either above the main portal or on the southwest comer of the mosque, where in any case it would have collapsed on Darb al-Aghawat as alGabarti suggests. But what did those minarets look like? One can only

Chahinda Karim ___________________________________________________________

assume Tabrizi influence, for these were probably built by the same architect from Tabriz who built for al-Nasir Muhammad and who built the Khanqah of Qawsun in the southern cemetery of Cairo. The differ­ ence in style between the minarets of the Mosque of al-Nasir Muhammad at the citadel and the minaret of the Khanqah of Qawsun makes a reconstruction of the shape of the minarets too hypothetical. Prisse d’Avennes also mentioned the dome over the mihrab and one can only assume that it rested on nine columns like the contemporary Mosque of al-Nasir Muhammad on the citadel and the Mosque of Altunbugha al-Maridani. Having tried reconstructing the building from descriptions mentioned in sources and from surviving parts, one must now turn to the second fac­ tor, which is the use of architectural ratios, and these are: 1. The ratio of the mass of the building, equal to its length divided by its width; 2. The ratio of the courtyard, equal to its length divided by its width; R atio of w idth Percentage of to length co u rt area

M osque A h m a d alM ih m a n d a r

Percentage of qibla a re a

1:1.23 3 1

10 p e rce n t

8 p erce n t

1:1.433

20 percent

30 percent

1 :1 .1 0 5

2 2 . 2 4 p e rce n t

3 8 .6 p erce n t

1:1.102

22 percent

33 percent

1 :1 .1 6 3

2 9 p e rce n t

3 0 p e rce n t

22.046 percent

38.9 percent

725/1325

i Ulmas al-Hajib

730/1330 a l-N a s ir M uham m ad 735/1335

al-Maridani 740/1340 A q su nq u r 747/1346

t

Shaykhu 750/1349

1:1.636 i

i

i

Fig. 13. Table showing the ratio of built area to empty space in contemporary mosques

i

The Mosque of Amir Qawsun in Cairo (730/1330)

3. The proportion of the qibla area in relation to the rest of the building, equal to the qibla riwaq divided by the total area of the building. Fig. 13 shows these proportions in several contemporary buildings,35 from which it appears clearly that specific ratios were taken into consid­ eration when drawing plans of a mosque: 1. The ratio of the total area of the building width to length was 1:1, 1:1.25, or 1:1.667; 2. The ratio of the court area width to length was 1:1, 1:1.25, or 1:1.5; 3. The percentage given to the qibla riwaq in relation to the remaining parts of the building was in most cases around 33 percent; 4. The percentage of the court area in relation to the total mosque area was in most cases around 25 percent. These ratios and percentages can be measured on the reconstruction of the Mosque of Qawsun. The plan measures 64 meters in width and 73 meters in length. 1. The ratio of the total area of the mosque width to length is 1:1.14; 2. The ratio of the area of the court width to length is 1:1.127; 3. The percentage of the qibla riwaq area is 31.2 percent; 4. The percentage of the area of the court is 25 percent. These ratios and percentages fit well with fig. 13, which shows these figures in contemporary mosques, making the probability of the suggest­ ed reconstruction being correct more plausible. Finally, one must also mention that parts of the wooden minbar of this mosque have survived and are in the Islamic Museum, Cairo, under numbers 1092 and 479, while others are in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Prisse d’Avennes36 published a drawing of parts of this minbar, showing the intricate carving and ivory inlay. Van Berchem37 also published an inscription with the date 727/1327 which appears on a wooden piece (catalogue of the Islamic Museum, Cairo number 78500) but the inscrip­ tion reads 729 and not 727. Gloria Kamouk38 has pointed out that this piece of wood may be from the maqsura seen by Prisse d’Avennes and not from the minbar. The Islamic Museum, Cairo, also has a twelve-sided brass chande­ lier (catalogue number 509) which is 2.6 meters high and 1.07 meters in diameter, with an inscription mentioning the amir, the craftsman who finished it in only two weeks, and the year 730/1330. This brass

Chahinda Karim

chandelier probably hung under the dome above the mihrab. The lower tray of this chandelier has the name of Sultan Hasan who probably usurped it. The Islamic Museum, Cairo, also has a glass mosque lamp with the name of Qawsun, and Prisse d’Avennes19 also mentions two Quran chairs, which have not survived. Conclusion

The Mosque of Amir Sayf al-Din Qawsun al-Saqi al-Nasiri can be con­ sidered to be one of the major religious buildings built by an amir of the sultan al-Nasir Muhammad during his third reign, and the largest mosque from that period.40 The mosque consisted of an open court surrounded by covered arcades, with marble columns supporting four rows of arches running parallel to the qibla wall on the side facing Mecca. Two aisles on the other sides are hypothesized, taking into consideration the plans of contemporary mosques. A large dome, like the dome of the Mosque of al-Nasir Muhammad on the citadel and the Mosque of Altunbugha alMaridani, the latter also an amir of al-Nasir Muhammad as well as his son-in-law, is also hypothesized. The size of the mosque is interesting, for it is bigger than the mosque of the sultan. The building of two minarets was probably in imitation of the two minarets of the Mosque o f al-Nasir Muhammad on the citadel. The first was on the left of the main entrance opposite the qibla, the second on a free-standing portal placed overlooking the major street of the city of Cairo. The stucco carving o f the windows indicates a highly decorated building, probably with mar­ ble paneling covering the lower parts of the walls and a mihrab decorat­ ed with mosaic and mother of pearl. Historians do not mention any tiles on the minaret, or covering the dome, so one can assume that no tiles were used in this mosque by the architect from Tabriz. Finally, one must point out the fact that the sultan al-Nasir Muhammad was a great patron of architecture and he encouraged his amirs to build all over the city. That Qawsun was one of the most powerful amirs of his time is evident from the architecture of his mosque.

The Mosque of Amir Qawsun in Cairo (730/1330)

Notes 1. Taqi al-Din Ahmad ibn ‘Ali al-Maqrizi, Kitab al-mawa'iz wa-1-ïtibarfi dhikr al-khitat wa-l-athar (1270 [1853]), II: 307. 2. Shihab al-Din Yaqut, Mu'gam al-buldan (Cairo, 1906), II: 149. 3. Amirs in the Mamluk army were divided into four ranks: 1st rank: amir hundred muqaddam thousand, who led one hundred riders and one thou­ sand soldiers in battle; 2nd rank: amir tablakhana, each leading forty rid­ ers; 3rd rank: amir of ten, each of whom led ten riders: 4th rank: amir of five, under the supervision of the amirs tablakhana: see Hasan al-Basha, al-Funun al-islamiya wa-l-wadha ’if ‘ala al-athar al- 'arabiya (Cairo, 1966), I, 158. 4. Maqrizi, Khitat II: 308. 5. Ibid. 6. Hadrat al-Baqar was one of the streets between the citadel and Birkat alFil, where al-Nasir Muhammad built a house and stables and planted sev­ eral trees. Maqrizi, Khitat II, 68. Hadrat al-Baqar is probably today’s ‘Ali Pasha Mubarak street opposite the Mosque of Ulmas al-Hajib. 7. Maqrizi, Khitat II: 115. 8. Maqrizi, Khitat II: 93. 9. Max Van Berchem, Matériaux pour Corpus Inscriptorium Arabicum, Première Partie: Egypte [CIA I] (Paris, 1907), 180, no. 123. 10. ‘Ali Pasha Mubarak, al-Khitat al-tawfiqiya al-jadida li-Misr al-Qahira wa muduniha wa biladiha al-qadima wa-l-saghira (Cairo, 1980-83), 209-10. 11. Lai la Ibrahim, “The Great Khanqah of the amir Qawsun,’’ Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Institut Kairo (MDAI), 30/1 (1974), 37-64. 12. Maqrizi, Khitat II: 425 and Kitab al-suluk li-ma‘rifat duwal al-muluk (Cairo, 1972) II. 592-93. 13. Maqrizi, Khitat II: 307. 14. ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Gabarti, ‘A ja’ib al-atharfi-l-tarajim wa-l-akhbar (Cairo, [1904]), III: 143^14. 15. Prisse d’Avennes, L ’Art arabe d ’après les monuments du Caire depuis le Vllème siècle jusqu’à la fin du XVIIIème siècle, 3 vols. (Paris, 1969-71), 107. 16. Comité de Conservation de l’Art Arabe. Procès Verbeaux des Séances. Rapport de la Deuxième Commission (41 vols., Cairo, 1882-1951), (1890), 80; (1894), 74; (1895), 82; and (1896), 137. 17. Maqrizi, Khitat II: 307. 18. Mubarak, Khitat II: 142. 19. Comité (1910, issued in 1911), 151. 20. Jules Bourgoin, Précis de l ’art arabe (Paris, 1892), PI. 43 and 44. 21. Van Berchem, CIA I, no. 119. 22. Van Berchem, CIA I, no. 122. 23. Comité (1910 issued in 1911), 151. 24. Maqrizi, Khitat II, 307. 25. Hasan ‘Abd al-Wahhab, Tarikh al-Masajid al-athariya (Cairo, 1946), 140.

Chahinda Karim

26. Comité (1910), P!. 23. 27. Comité (1910), PI. 26. 28. Prisse d’Avennes, L'Art arabe, 107. 29. Ibid. 30. M. Herz, A Descriptive Catalogue o f the Objects Exhibited in the National Museum o f Arab Art (Cairo, 1907), nos. 60, 61, 65, 66; 25-26. 31. Mubarak, Khitat III: 254. 32. ‘Abd al-Wahhab. Tarikh al-masajid, 140. 33. M. Meinecke, “Die Mamlukischen Fayencemosaikdekorationen: Ein Werkstatte aus Tabriz in Kairo 1330-1350,” Kunst des Orients, XI: 112 Sonderdruck, 85-145. 34. Maqrizi, Khitat II: 307. 35. Tareq Basyuni, “al-‘Imara al-islamiya fi Misr." M.A. thesis. Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, 1982, 289. 36. Prisse d’Avennes. L ’Art arabe I, PI. 85-88. 37. Van Berchem, CIA I, nos. 121, 178. 38. Gloria Ohan Kamouk, “Bahri Mamluk Minbars, with a Provisional Typology and a Catalogue,” M.A. thesis, the American University in Cairo, 1972, 110. 39. Prisse d’Avennes, L ’Art arabe, 107. 40. Chahinda Karim, “Jawami* wa masajid umara’ al-Nasir Muhammad ibn Qalawun," Ph.D. thesis. Faculty of Archaeology, Cairo University, 1987, 85-126.

Taking the Plunge The Development and Use o f the Cairene Bathhouse Nicholas Warner

resently, Abu Sir bethought him to go to the Hammam-bath; so he said to one of the townsfolk, “O my brother, which is the way to the Baths?” Quoth the man, “And what manner of thing may the Baths be?” and quoth Abu Sir, “‘Us a place where people wash themselves and do away their dirt and defilements, and is of the best of the good things of the world.” Replied the townsman “Get thee to the sea.” But the barber rejoined, “I want the Hammam-baths.” Cried the other, “ We know not what manner of thing is the Hammam, for we all resort to the sea; even the King, when he would wash, betaketh himself to the sea.” When Abu Sir was assured that there was no bath in the city, he betook himself to the King’s Diwan and kissing the ground between his hands called down blessings upon him and said, “I am a stranger and a Bath-man by trade, and 1 entered thy city and thought to go to the Hammam, but found not one therein. How cometh a city of this comely quality to lack a Hammam, seeing that the bath is of the highest of the delights of this world?” Quoth the King, “What manner of thing is the Hammam?” So Abu Sir proceed­ ed to set forth to him the quality of the bath, saying, “Thy capital will not be a perfect city till there be a Hammam therein.”1

P

It is a commonplace among Arab geographers to describe cities in terms of the number of their prominent public buildings as an index of their relative prosperity and importance. Thus we find tallies of the var­ ious mosques, bathhouses, and suqs, which give every city its individ­ ual character. Cairo, by the time ‘Abd al-Latif, a visiting physician from Baghdad, wrote his account of Egypt in ad 1231,2 possessed public

Nicholas Warner

bathhouses that were reputed to be the most beautiful, spacious, and well-planned baths of the Orient. Yet this was not always the case. There was a time when Arab knowledge of public bathing establish­ ments was confined to those remnants of Roman thermal culture that survived in the Near East and North Africa.3 Indeed, when Amr ibn alAs came to build the first bath in the new settlement of Fustat, it met with ridicule from the local Christian population who swiftly dubbed it 'the Bath of the Mouse,' saying “this bath is good for a mouse [on account of its meager dimensions], and so it shall bear this name.*'4 The story, if not entirely apocryphal, would seem to indicate that the new­ comers had something to learn in the matter of bath technology. The supremacy of the ‘Rumis’ in this field is further borne out in the fact that for centuries after the Arab conquest, baths were frequently described with the adjective 'Rumiya,' acknowledging their Roman or Byzantine antecedents. The absolute requirement in Islam for thorough ablutions to remove major ritual impurity, or janaba, caused principal­ ly by sexual intercourse, explains why the bathhouse was rapidly adopt­ ed as one of the essential amenities of the Muslim city despite linger­ ing doubts5 on the part of some who believed it to be an unwholesome luxury that fostered vice within its steam rooms and plunge tanks. It also provides a major reason for the unbroken continuity of the tradi­ tion of public hammams in the Muslim world over a period of some 1,400 years, a time when European approaches to the concept of clean­ liness vacillated wildly.6 Major ritual impurity, requiring a purificatory bath (ghusl), is incurred by men after sex, and by women after sex, menstruation, or post-natal bleeding, or after a child is bom in a dry birth.7 All acts unlawful for someone in a state of minor ritual impurity were equally unlawful for one in a state of major ritual impurity. These included stay­ ing for any length of time in a mosque and reciting the Quran. The bath could take place through immersion either in a tank or in a stream of running water. Since the volume of water in such a tank was prescribed by fiqh manuals to be at least a thousand liters, to avoid pollution from other unclean individuals entering it,8 the latter method or a combina­ tion of the two methods was generally adopted. We are given an insight into the ultimate importance of the purificatory bath by the historian Ibn Taghribardi, in his account of the 1437 plague that affected Cairo:

.Taking the Plunge

Friday, Shawwal 9 [8]. A strange thing happened: the people had rumored that men were all to die on Friday, and the resurrection would come. Most o f the populace feared this, and when the time for prayer arrived this Friday, and the men went to prayers, I too rode to al-Azhar mosque, as men were crowding to the baths so that they might die in a state o f com ­ plete purity.9

Part of their anxiety must have stemmed from the fact that if the world was going to end, then there would have been no one present to perform the purificatory bath on the dead that was customary to remove all impurities prior to burial. A parallel observation was made centuries later by Kinglake in his description of the 1835 plague in Cairo: “it is said that when a Mussulman finds himself attacked by the plague, he goes and takes a bath.’’10 Not that religion and hygiene were the only guarantees of the survival of the bathhouse. It continued to play an important part in the social life of the city until the nineteenth century. In some instances, both men and women could use the same baths at separate times, with an accompany­ ing change of sex in the staff. If this were the case, it was traditional for a piece of cloth to be hung over the entrance indicating when it was the women’s turn: the day being divided between the sexes, with men usual­ ly using the facilities in the mornings and women in the afternoons." The only men allowed entry at the times of the women’s baths were reported­ ly blind old singers.12 In other cases, the baths remained single sex all the time. Another group of bathhouses were the ‘twinned’ baths that had one complex for men adjacent to another for women, sharing the same set of hydraulics. The only surviving example of a twinned bathhouse in Cairo is the Hammam of Malatyali (Monument Number 592, 1780),13 although the type was once prevalent. All such baths were usually managed not by their owners, but by tenant-entrepreneurs paying a monthly rent, whose responsibility it was to equip, manage, and maintain the premises.14 It seems likely that such enterprises were highly profitable to the owners, who frequently included a hammam in their endowments for other reli­ gious buildings, but much less lucrative for the tenants, who were grouped together in a corporation known as the ta’ifat al-hammamiya. The corporation, allied to that of the barbers, was one of the few that remained active until the end of the nineteenth century.13As for the num­ ber of visitors to a modestly sized bathing establishment, for the Ottoman

Nicholas Warner.

period this has been estimated at between fifty and sixty people a day: a figure based on the number of towels used by such an establishment.16 Waqf documents (endowments) provide good inventories of towels and other equipment used in the bathhouse, which represented a relatively low capital investment.17 The baths could also be leased out on special occa­ sions to private parties of women for an afternoon’s enjoyment with friends, to wealthy individuals for celebratory meals accompanied by music and dancing,18 or to entire wedding parties. The prevalence of private baths at home is a matter for debate, with some sources claiming that they were not at all common.19 There is evi­ dence to suggest that some baths that were initially attached to wealthy private residences were subsequently opened for public use.20 Although the rich may have retained the exclusive right to use certain public baths, theoretically the baths were open to all who could afford the entrance fee. Estimates of how much this cost vary. The Geniza records give us an example of a single visit to the baths costing the equivalent of five loaves of bread.21 In the waqf of the khanqah of Baybars al-Jashankir (Monument Number 32, 1306), an allowance was made of one dirham a month to each of the Sufi students for them to be able to visit a bathhouse if no specific hammam was reserved for their use.22 It was also normal for the students to be given an allowance for the purchase of soap.23 An estimate of the cost for a modest bath in the eighteenth century is 11 paras, or half an average day's wage,24 while for the nineteenth century Lane priced the full service including bath, massage, shave, and coffee afterward at a single piastre, with less being charged for a simple ‘soap and rinse’ operation.25 The Description de l'Egypte reported that “people take baths particularly in the winter, while in summer the lower strata of society perform their ablutions in the river.26 Even the poorest bathe once a week.’’27 In the last analysis, it seems fair to assume that there were baths to suit all pockets. The pattem of the dispersal of public baths around the more well-off areas of Cairo would seem to suggest, howev­ er, that in general the hammam was patronized predominantly by the middle class.28 Religious distinctions were meant to have been preserved within the hammam, with Jews and Christians (the dhimmi) wearing copper or lead bosses when inside them.29 In 1723, however, following an incident in a hammam, the dhimmi were required by the Commander (Agha) of the Janissaries, who controlled bathhouses, to wear bells about their necks.

.Taking the Plunge

The Agha rescinded the decision after the hammamiya bribed him to do so, being concerned about the effect this injunction would have on busi­ ness.30 This would seem to imply that the earlier practice of making the dhimmi visible, even when naked, was not subject to regular enforce­ ment by the inspector of markets (the muhtasib). During the period of the Ottoman rule of Egypt, it became necessary to establish in Cairo a spe­ cial bathhouse for the Turkish contingent of Janissaries stationed in or near the citadel (the hammam khassa) to prevent the brawls that would break out between them and the local inhabitants in unsegregated bathing establishments.31 Such distinctions apart, all rites of passage in life were marked by a trip to the hammam. Converts to Islam would be required to go there immediately after their conversion. Expectant mothers would make a first visit to ensure an easier delivery, and another forty days after the birth to purify themselves. As part of the circumcision ceremony, boys would be taken there by the barber a week after the performance of the operation. The greatest celebrations were reserved for a marriage when the bride would visit the hammam on several occasions, if her family was sufficiently wealthy yet did not possess a bath in their own home.32 The bathhouse itself may have been instrumental in her marriage, as it was one locale where mothers and matchmakers could assess the appearance of prospective brides, warts and all.33 The first of these bridal visits (sometimes referred to as the ‘bath for cleanliness’ seven days before the wedding) would be in the company of female relatives and friends in order to depilate, perfume, and coif the bride. Then, two days before her marriage (which would ideally be on the auspicious eves of Monday or Thursday), the bride “goes to the hammam, decked out in her finery with her head adorned by a crown, under an umbrella preceded by musicians, country dancers and almahs (professional dancers). In the evening she is brought back to her father’s house escort­ ed by the same procession.”34 Lane provides an illustration (fig. 1) of such a procession, known as the Zeffat al-Hammam, which was also common practice among the Copts.35 He adds that “sometimes, at the head of the bride’s party are two men who carry the utensils and linen used in the bath, upon two round trays, each of which is covered with an embroidered or a plain silk kerchief.”36 On these occasions the bath would have been decorated with flowers, candles, and oil lamps. The bride was not the only one to make such a trip to the hammam. The

Nicholas Warner.

groom also made a ceremonial trip, spending the day there with his friends. While each of the betrothed’s parties occupied the bath, which was hired in its entirety, entry was forbidden to the general public. On the day of the marriage itself, the bride was taken in procession to her husband’s home in the same apparel that she wore on her visit to the bath two days earlier.37 The busiest day of the week at the bathhouse was undoubtedly Friday. In the morning, the Muslim community would conveige there prior to the noon prayer. In the afternoon it was the turn of the Jews, who were prohibited the pleasure of visiting the hammam on their Sabbath the following day, when instead they were allowed “to stroll around in the magnificent buildings in order to enjoy the walk and the steam escaping from the overheated sweat rooms.”38 The Geniza records show that among the Jews, at least, both men and women made vows renouncing the pleasure of the weekly visit to the baths in order to enhance the efficacy of a prayer or to castigate themselves. Such acts of self-denial are a sure indication of the importance of these weekly gath­ erings. There was even a rabbinic decision in existence that prevented a husband from denying his wife such visits to the bathhouse, and from forcing her to live in a place that did not possess the amenity of a pub-

.Taking the Plunge

Fig. 1. The Zeffat al-Hammam, by E.W. Lane

lie hammam. Certain days, such as the day of the new moon, which was for Jewish women a kind of holiday, appear to have been especially pop­ ular for a visit to the bathhouse.39 It is not known whether such acts of denial were practiced by the Muslim community, but Ibn al-Hajj, the fourteenth-century jurist, accused Muslim women of emulating Jewish practices by not purchasing fish, buying soap, washing clothes or visit­ ing the public baths on a Saturday.40 The frequency of visits to the baths would of course vary, but it was normal for weekly visits to take place, which would rank the inhabitants of Cairo among the cleanest urban dwellers of the Middle Ages. Al-Maqrizi describes the experiences of a would-be bather in the ninth century who, on the occasion of a visit to Fustat, was unable to find an empty bathhouse, owing to their high rate of occupancy, until he had gone to his fourth hammam, and even there he was only served by a novice. In the first bath he visited, no less than seventy bathers had been present, each of whom had three assistants to serve him.41 The requirement that baths should be open for custom prior to the morning prayer meant that the opening hours were long: predawn to sun­ set. It was at this latter hour, according to popular belief, that it was most dangerous to take a bath as at this time the djinn were abroad.42 Djinn

Nicholas Warner.

habitually occupied bathhouses as well as rivers, wells and latrines (an interesting association with water given the djinns’ creation from fire), so it was customary to offer up a prayer against such spirits before setting foot over the threshold of the hammam with one’s left foot first.43 Some traditions go so far as to claim that Iblis (the Devil) had the bathhouse as his chief abode among men.44 A late sixteenth-century treatise on bathing practice by al-Minawi— The Book o f the Gloriously Pure Way Concerning Legal and Medical Regulations that Govern the Bath—con­ tains ample references that liken the bathhouse to hell, with its scalding waters, darkness, and naked bodies (“as naked as on the day of resurrec­ tion”).45 On leaving such an environment, the bather was encouraged to thank God before stepping into the street right foot first.46 The other major incentive for a regular bathing habit is, and was, per­ sonal health. The bath was often described as ’the silent doctor that cures all ailments’; as another aphorism put it, the feeling of well-being that was induced by a visit to the hammam was in no small part due to an atmosphere that combined “the water of winter, the heat of summer, the sweetness of autumn, and the smile of spring.”47 Even the hisba manual (market inspectors’ manual) in circulation in the early fourteenth centu­ ry was forced to concede something in favor of the hammam: Hammams have their value and their danger. Their value is that they clear the organs of smell, evacuate superfluities, dissolve vapors, bind when the body is relaxed by dysentery, clean away impurities and sweat, remove irritation, itch and fatigue, freshen the body, improve the digestion, absorb fluxes and rheums, and prevent quotidian, hectic and quartan fevers after their temperature has matured. The danger is that they relax the body, enfeeble the natural heat when too long a stay is made in them, blunt the appetite for food and enfeeble the camal powers. The worst harm is done when hot water is poured onto enfeebled limbs. That is done when the bather is fasting and it causes violent dessication or else emaciation and weakness...The baths should be used near to the time o f fullness after a meal but after the first digestion. That moistens the body, fattens it and beautifies the flesh.48

At the first signs of a sickness, it was recommended that the sufferer should repair to the baths to try and sweat out the complaint. Muhammad ‘Ali’s personal French physician, Clot Bey, also recommended foreign-

__________________________________________________________Taking the Plunge

ers to use the steam bath and massage for health reasons.49 Similarly, at the conclusion of an illness, one of the first signs of recovered health was a visit to the bathhouse for what was known as ghusl , or the “washing of health.”50 This is corroborated by the Geniza records, which contain reports over the centuries that a sick person “has recovered and already entered the bathhouse.”51 Baths were also used for the treatment of mental illnesses (such as melancholy, lycanthropy, love-sickness I'ishqJ), mania, and rabies.52 Of the multitude of public baths that Cairo once possessed, many have been destroyed or substantial­ ly altered over the last century. Some do remain, however, and it is on these examples and on textual evidence that we must rely to achieve an adequate architectural reconstruction of their appearance and manner of functioning. The entrances of the grander bathhous­ es were comparable in the ambi­ tion of their decorative schema to those of mosques or palatial resi­ dences, and it is fortunate that one such survival exists from the Mamluk period: the Hammam Bashtak (Monument Number 244, 1341, fig. 2), which bears a foun­ dation inscription and blazon on its elaborate black and white marble portal.53 Walking through such an entrance one might well have imagined that one was entering a palace, which some prince had gone to enormous expense to embellish. Most baths, however, were far more inconspicuous on the street, bearing only modestly decorated portals. Some baths, such as the Hammam al-Qirabiya near Bab Zuwayla,54 had two entrances on different streets. In the matter of the decoration of bathhouses, we must largely rely on the textual record in the absence of physical evidence. There were

Nicholas Warner.

strict injunctions on the use of human representation about the entrance or inside the baths. Al-Ghazzali, for exam­ ple, places an obligation upon the bather to deface such rep­ resentations, and if they are placed too high up on the walls to do so, to leave and find an alternative bathhouse: only dire necessity could relieve the individual of this obligation.55 Despite this, it seems that in the bathhouse, if anywhere, there was scope for some figurai decoration in the tradi­ tion of the great Umayyad baths. An example would be the fragment of muqamas Fig. 3. Fragment of a fresco from from a Tulunid bath in ala Tulunid bathhouse ‘Askar, Fustat showing a man seated with a cup (fig. 3). Most curious is the recommendation, made by al-Minawi, that the walls of the inner rooms [of the bathhouse] should be painted with trees and fruits, shields, swords, bows, spears, castles, fortresses, seas, ships, wild animals, whales, singing birds, and such things all depicted in paints of different colors. Looking at these pictures will give you strength, since the bath lessens your vigor.56

Another thirteenth-century scholar, al-Ghuzuli, quoting the authori­ ty of others, explained the therapeutic function of painted images in more detail: When in a beautiful picture harmonious colors such as yellow, red and green are combined with a due proportion in their respective forms, then the melancholy humors find healing, and the cares that cling to the soul o f man are expelled, and the mind gets rid of its sorrows, for the soul

_________________________________________________________ Taking the Plunge

becomes refined and ennobled by the sight of these pictures. Again, think o f the wise men o f old, who invented the bath, how with their keen insight and penetrating wisdom they recognized that a man loses some consider­ able part of his strength when he goes into a bath; they made every effort to devise means of finding a remedy as speedily as possible; so they dec­ orated the bath with beautiful pictures in bright cheerful colors. These they divided into three kinds, since they knew that there are three vital principles in the body— the animal, the spiritual, and the natural. Accordingly they painted pictures o f each kind, so as to strengthen each one o f these potentialities; for the animal power, they painted pictures of fighting and war and galloping horses and the snaring o f wild beasts; for the spiritual power, pictures of love and reflection on the lover and his beloved, and pictures o f their mutual recriminations and reproaches, and of their embracing one another, etc.; and for the natural power, gardens

Sadly there are no survivals of such decorative schema today, but this evidence would seem to indicate that representa­ tions, at least of things that ‘had no soul,’ were an acceptable part of the interior decoration of the bathhouse. Only the barest traces of vegetal motives can be seen decorating the walls of the Qaramidan bathhouse illustrat­ ed in the Description de l'Egypte.5% After leaving his valuables with the u'ali ,or keeper, m (who was liable for any loss), the

Fig. 4. Maslakh of a bathhouse

S j f .'

and beautiful trees and bright flowers.57

Fig. 5. Bath clogs inlaid with mother-of-pearl (straps missing)

bather was given a pair of wooden clogs (seen in the foreground in fig. 4) in which to proceed on the often wet and slippery marble floor. Such clogs (still available in markets today) could be the property of the bather, and those belonging to women were often elaborately inlaid with brass wire and patterns of mother-of-pearl (fig. 5). More often, however, the clogs were rented out to the bather by the bathhouse keeper. This has led to an interesting usage, that survives to this day, of the bath clog or slipper as a fertility symbol—fertile due to the promiscuity of its use. The hisba manual directed that the floor of the bathhouse “must be scrubbed with some rough material to prevent the adhesion of lote leaves (used instead of soap) and marshmallow (shampoo) on which it is possi­ ble to slip.”59 Proceeding further, one would have entered a large, welllit space called the maslakh, which would typically contain a fountain, a skylight, and columns. Such is the room shown in the perspective of Pascal Coste (fig. 6) of the Tanbali Baths, still in operation today (Monument Number 564, eighteenth century). People are depicted being given their towels by an assistant prior to their bath, or relaxing after­ ward by smoking pipes, drinking coffee and chatting. Towels were dried on the roof and hung up ready for use from beams inside the maslakh. Here also was to be found a supply of drinking water (“in a large porous

.Taking the Plunge

Fig. 6. The Tanbali Baths, by Pascal Coste

Fig. 7. View of the maslakh of the baths of al-Mu’ayyad Shaykh

Nicholas Warner.

water jar marked ‘sweet water’ or ‘for the public to drink’”60), located in Coste’s perspective under a small baldacchino. In the better establish­ ments, coffee, pipes, lote leaves, and rubbing stones would all have been available here before proceeding into the bath proper. The form of the maslakh is normally orthogonal, but that of the baths of Sultan alMu’ayyad Shaykh (Monument Number 410, 1420, fig. 7) was an enor­ mous domed space, ringed by muqamas, with raised iwans on four sides, and a similar baldacchino for potable water. ‘Abd al-Latif adds to his description of the maslakh that there were “special cabinets for persons of distinction so that they do not mix with common persons, and do not appear naked in public.”61 Generally, however, such a standard of priva­ cy was not the norm, though Lane too mentions distinctions of class in the seating arrangements around the maslakh. The next room the bather enters is the bayt al-awwal, or ‘first cham­ ber,’ which may also have been used for disrobing in winter when the maslakh was too cold. It, too, would have had adequate space for seat­ ing on mastabas and socializing. If not already undressed by this point, the client would be given a towel “wide enough to cover the part between the navel and the knee,”62 another for his head, a third for put­ ting over his chest, and a last for putting over his back: all accessories for the coming bath and massage. The number of attendants to a single bather during the course of operations was at least two, and often more. It seems that these attendants were often boys or beardless young men. This is despite various injunctions that they should be “polite pious peo­ ple,”63 and their presence inevitably leads to speculation that sexual services could also have been on offer. Al-Minawi comments that “the person in charge of the baths should prevent the beardless from enter­ ing, otherwise he will be classed with the procurers and pimps on Judgement Day and charged with corruption conspicuous as the sun.”64 As one would expect, the hisba is also firm in its condemnation: “Another reprehensible practice is that of the bath-attendants who uncover the thigh and what is below the navel. Another is that of insert­ ing the hand under the loin: it is against the law to touch the privy parts of others.”65 The bather was required to clean and massage the area between the navel and the knee himself, together with “any other parts of the body that incite lust,”66 and to forbid others from exposing them­ selves. To judge from nineteenth-century practice attested to by Flaubert and other visitors, such prohibition completely failed to have

.Taking the Plunge

any effect. The contemporary situation also reflects this, as many baths today are well-known homosexual haunts. Leaving the bayt al-awwal, the bather emerged in the core of the ham­ mam in a room designated the bayt al-harara, or ‘hot room.’ This was often designed on a cruciform plan with a central fountain of hot water within an octagonal raised surround on which bathers could recline. Around the bayt al-harara were disposed in more or less separate spatial compartments at least two slightly sunken immersion tanks, called maghtas, and two marble basins with taps, called hanafiyas. The tanks would contain water of different temperatures “up to four skins of water and even more,”67 which would cascade into them from an aperture in the ceiling, as can be seen on Coste’s section through the Tanbali Baths (fig. 6). It was to these tanks giving off steam that bathers would first repair, often dangling their feet in the tanks to increase their level of perspira­ tion. The hot water itself provided the means of heating the space, rather than any under-floor hypocaust. The cooler tanks may have been used for complete immersion. The basins were where the actual washing was done, seated on a stool or on the floor itself. These were often located in separate cubicles and had hot and cold water supplied by wall-mounted taps. The bather was lathered by his attendant with soap and Nile water using fibers from a palm tree (used as a sponge) that was imported from Arabia due to its white color. Nile water was used for this operation as well water failed to generate a satisfactory lather. It was brought to the bather in a separate copper vessel and warmed in a tank prior to use.68 By Ottoman times, the design of both basins and taps had become quite elab­ orate. Any waste of water was discouraged, citing the example of the Prophet Muhammad who was always sparing in his use of water.69 The luxury of hot water was disapproved of by the strictly religious.70 The bayt al-harara and all its subsidiary spaces had marble floors, often elab­ orately inlaid in geometric patterns with colored marbles/tiles, fragments of which can still be seen in surviving bathhouses. The use of marble on the floor was encouraged as it reflected the steam and gave the viewer pleasure.71 These spaces were roofed by a series of domes which were pierced with a multitude of glass lights, sometimes multi-colored, set within different shaped plaster openings (diamonds, circles and stars pre­ dominating). In later period bathhouses, the proportion of glass in the vaults or domes that made up the roof seems to increase. If the bather was at the hammam in order to perform the bath of

Nicholas Warner.

purification (ghusl) prior to prayer, he would have commenced his bath by invoking the name of Allah, removing any unclean matter adhering to his body, and performing the ablution for minor ritual impurity (wudu) as he would if he was about to pray. The bather then formulates the intention of performing ghusl (al-niya al-shar'iya) and proceeds to pour water over the head three times. He then “pours water over the body’s right side three times, then over the left side three times, ensur­ ing that water reaches all joints and folds, and rubbing.’’72 The water also had to reach “to the roots of the hairs, under nails, and the outwardly vis­ ible portion of the ear canals.”73 For women, such purification rituals were especially important as they were so closely allied with female sex­ uality and religious praxis. The prohibition on sex, and corresponding abstention from religious obligations during menstruation were incorpo­ rated into the sunna of the Prophet, and such restrictions could only be lifted by the purificatory bath. Such a bath was sunna not only before Friday prayers, but also on the two Eids, on days when there was an eclipse of the sun or moon (which required special prayers), before the drought prayer,74 after washing the dead, after recovering one’s sanity or regaining consciousness after having lost it, and before entering the state of pilgrim sanctity (ihram) or participating in any of the actions cus­ tomary during pilgrimage. Bathing was discouraged during times of fasting and prayer, the former for health reasons and the latter for reli­ gious reasons.75 After the bather had steamed sufficiently, he was put into the hands of the mukayyis or masseur, who proceeded to crack his joints, to knead his flesh, and to rasp his feet with more or less elaborate foot-rasps made from pottery or pumice. Ladies’ foot-rasps were encased in silver, except for the rasping surface.76 The flesh was nibbed with a coarse woollen bag which peeled the dirt off in rolls. For women and eunuchs a silk bag was substituted, since their skin was that much more delicate.77 The degree of cleanliness obtained could be judged by the bather by clapping the hands on the skin, as it was believed that the resulting ring sounds loud­ er when the skin is clean.78 The massage itself could be performed with or without the aid of oil. After steaming and massage, dépilation (rec­ ommended every forty days79) was an option for both sexes. This activ­ ity may have been performed in a separate room called a khilwa,*° using a depilatory called nawra,*] which was a paste made from a mixture of lime and orpiment. The brave were encouraged to remove armpit and

.Taking the Plunge

pubic hair by pulling it out manually, and the fainthearted by shaving.82 It was recommended that the hair thus removed should be taken out of the bathhouse and buried since it was effectively a part of the body that would be resurrected on Judgment Day.83 The services of a barber could also be called upon in the better establishments, who ideally “should be light of touch, nimble and understanding in the art of shaving and with a sharp razor. . . . He should not eat what corrupts the breath, such as onions, garlic or leeks on the day when it is his turn of duty, so that peo­ ple may not be offended by the smell of him when he is shaving.”84 Shaving the head was considered to cure headaches and to improve the eyesight, and was best carried out on a weekly basis.85 After final rinsing and soaking in a maghtas (tank), and perfuming his person and his cloth­ ing with the vapor of aloe,86 the client was left to recover at leisure in the maslakh, reclining on a bench, drinking coffee, and smoking a narghile (a pleasure not denied to women either). Under no circumstances was he to leave the environment of the bathhouse precipitately, it being sug­ gested that he stay awhile before proceeding home sedately and going to sleep.87 Payment was usually made on leaving.88 The reading of the Quran was forbidden while in the hammam, and it was also considered “offensive to pray in a bathhouse or its outer room where clothes are removed.”89 Only in cases of dire necessity, such as when one would miss an obligatory prayer, was it acceptable to pray in the hammam, and then only after the ground had been purified with water, and the body’s nakedness had been covered.90 For the reli­ gious, speech of any sort, and greetings in particular were also discour­ aged. Al-Ghazzali comments that “if someone greets you in the bath, do not answer him but instead say ‘May God make you sound’ [said when someone is in error].”91 Such habits were paralleled in Jewish law, which defined the religious taboo even more precisely. Jews could read the scriptures, pray, and greet each other (for greetings inevitably con­ tained a mention of God) only in areas of the bathhouse where everyone had their clothes on. No prayers were allowed wherever people were undressing, although greetings were allowed, but even these were for­ bidden where all were naked.92 Al-Minawi recommends that the bather should actually pay to have the bathhouse emptied of other users, or at least make strenuous efforts only to visit it at times when it was likely to be empty.93 If such regimes had been followed, it seems unlikely that the bath would have flourished as a place for social exchange, as it

Nicholas Warner___________________________________________________________

undoubtedly did. What they do reveal is the deep ambivalence felt about bathhouses, which were simultaneously needed to fulfill religious obli­ gations of ritual purity and feared as a temptation of the flesh. During the hours when the hammam was to be occupied by women, all the male attendants were replaced by females (al-ballana), but the sequence of bathing remained essentially the same. The presence of women in baths was a matter of great contention, but that they were present is indisputable. Ibn al-Hajj was firmly of the opinion that women should not go to public baths for a year after the death of their husbands, that is until the period of ‘dissolving sorrow’ (fakk alhuzrt).94 Preferably they should be denied access altogether on the grounds that the bathhouse encouraged loose morals and bad habits.95 This ban was brutally enforced for a time under the Fatimid Caliph alHakim who even walled up some women inside bathhouses for dis­ obeying the prohibition.96 In this he was seconded by the hisba, which claimed that the women [in the baths] are more extreme in their sensuality than the men. They practice newly-invented forms o f lawlessness introduced by the excess o f luxury, and there has been indulgence towards them where they should have been denounced so that the contagion has spread to the center and all about. Clothes have been introduced of a kind which would not have occurred to the imagination of Satan himself.97

The muhtasib must furthermore “visit the places where women con­ gregate . . . such as...the doorways of the women’s bath houses. Any young men found there without lawful business must be punished.”98 If women did visit the bathhouse, then it should be in the company of other Muslim women. If they went in with Jews, Christians, or unbelievers, they ran the risk of having their charms described to all and sundry by those not of the faith.99 In Islam, husbands were obliged, in their wives’ financial support, to supply them with articles for personal hygiene: The wife is entitled to what she needs o f oil for her hair, shampoo, and a comb (it is also obligatory for him to provide deodorant or the like to stop underarm odor if water and soap will not suffice) and the price of water for her purificatory bath (ghusl) when the reason for it is sexual inter­

.Taking the Plunge

course or the end o f postnatal bleeding, though not if the reason is the end o f her monthly period or something else.100

Beyond such bare necessities, it is probable that the occasion of a visit to a bathhouse would have been used by women to dress themselves in their finery for others to admire them. Precious textiles and utensils used on such outings appear in Jewish brides’ trousseau lists as objects of value:101 The variegated equipment needed for a visit to the hammam included a bathrobe, often made o f costly material and imported from Europe, the box with compartments for the chemicals needed for the cleaning o f the body, the scented oils, the makeup, as well as the bowls for the consump­ tion of hot and cold drinks.102

When in the baths, it is likely that women ate specially prepared dish­ es.103 All of which would seem to indicate that the hammam in the daily life of women was little short of a social necessity, that ensured not just their physical but also their social and mental health. The building and maintenance of bathhouses was subject to a number of technical considerations, not least of which was the supply of hot water. The furnace that heated the water—the bayt al-nar—was usually located in direct adjacency to the bayt al-harara, but was not directly accessible from it. In Cairo, functioning bathhouses are still supplied with all manner of rubbish and industrial detritus to serve as fuel for the fur­ nace, and their location is always betrayed by the spread of black soot over neighboring structures. In this manner, things have changed little since the times of Ibn Ridwan who described the presence in eleventh century Fustat of “large hearths for the baths, from which excessive smoke rises into the air. . . . On summer days, especially in the evening, a dusty gray and black vapor rises in the town, particularly if the air is free of any wind.” 104 Al-Minawi directed that the furnace should be located as far away as possible from the maslakh, and that the smoke should be directed to the open air. As for fuel, he equates the quality of the bath­ house with the quality of the fuel: goat-droppings were bad; and the branches of apricot and cotton trees were good.103 What is also common­ ly found today is that the same furnace used to heat the water for the bath­ house also serves to cook foiul (beans)—that staple of the Egyptian diet.106

Nicholas Warner.

The ash from the furnace can also be used as a component in building mortars. The furnace itself would never have been placed directly on main streets, and would probably have been a double-wall structure; the inner wall being occasionally replaced as and when it had deteriorated under the intense heat. To ensure maximum heat retention, it seems to have been common to spread the floor of the furnace chamber with salt.107 Located somewhere on the roof of the hammam was the motive power for the hydraulics without which operations would quickly grind to a halt. This was a bullock driving a saqya, or water wheel, which drew the water, so necessary to the success of the whole enterprise, from a well or a tank filled with Nile water. The water was then directed through a series of channels and pipes on the surface of the roof to the heating tanks, which were usually copper cauldrons, directly over the furnace. ‘Abd al-Latif describes the operation of bathhouse boilers in some detail, saying that there were four of them which contained water of progressively higher temperature and comparing the process to the digestive tract of ruminants with four stomachs to ensure perfect digestion.108 Maintenance of the bathhouse was a matter for constant concern. Fumigation of the entire building was recommended twice a day with “frankincense, mastic or laudanum.“ 109 The muhtasib directed that “the daily supply tank should be cleansed each day of the impurities that gath­ er from the water channels; also the slime which settles at the bottom must be removed at the end of each month, otherwise the water will be corrupted in taste and smell.”110 Such efforts seem to have been effec­ tive, for a sixteenth-century visitor remarked that “the marble [of the baths] in Egypt does not get mossy as in the baths of other lands, [for] they continually take great care to polish it like a clear mirror.”111 Furthermore, it was likely that the tanks for the heating of the water had to be constantly replaced due to their deterioration under the extreme heat of the furnace.112 Since the mechanics of the hammam were rela­ tively sophisticated, new bathhouses tended to be built in the same place as old ones to utilize the same water source and method of dispersal. Thus, of the surviving Fatimid, Ayyubid, and Mamluk bathhouses113 in Cairo today, almost all have undergone various rebuildings or modifications with the passage of time. Other features common to the construction of all public bathhouses in Cairo were thick walls that were made of stone rubble and fired brick, and no external openings within the bath proper, in order to retain the

.Taking the Plunge

maximum heat.114 Heat retention (as well as privacy) was also the motive attributed to the use of corridors that were ‘baffled’ to provide indirect access. Roundels of glass were inserted into the thickness of the domes for lighting: the only practical way of providing light in the absence of advanced glazing technology. It was these glass inserts that led to the domes being compared with “starlit skies.” Varnished plaster and smooth marble surfaces completed the internal finishes of the hammam that were designed for cleanliness and reflection of the heat and steam vapors. The plasters used were traditionally hydraulic lime plasters (a mixture of fired clay or ashes with slaked lime). Contracts for plastering and paint­ ing could be very specific. One such example for an Ottoman bathhouse in Old Cairo115 requires floor-to-ceiling plastering from the entrance to the harara, and the use of two kinds of paint: one as a kind of dado (where the presence of water was expected), and another from thereon up to the ceiling. It was believed that bathhouses were best used after seven years had elapsed from the date of their construction, as this would give the vapors present in the lime plasters and paints used internally adequate time to disperse. Conversely, a bathhouse that was too old would develop cracks in its fabric that would allow the heat out and dan­ gerous air and insects in.116 As for the ideal location of the bathhouse, the best position was thought to be next to a lake, a river, or a garden.117 This can only have been to encourage a feeling of well-being on exiting, and was difficult to achieve in an urban milieu. In fact, all of Cairo’s existing bathhouses are tightly integrated into the fabric of the city around them, and often pro­ vide an object lesson in how to plan a ‘systematic’ building within a highly irregular plot. Most of the documented plans of the bathhouses in the city present them as perfectly orthogonal structures,118 which is very far from the true complexity of their design. Owing to their ritual impor­ tance, baths were frequently built by a common founder at the same time and in close proximity to mosques (fig. 8).119 Aside from these general considerations, there were, however, specific elements in the design of bathhouses that did change over time. The earliest excavated bathhouse (fig. 9) in Cairo,120 from al-‘Askar, Fustat, which has been dated to the Tülunid period and from which some of the decoration survives (fig. 3), is clearly based on the Greco-Roman model of the hypocaust bath. This bath possessed two furnaces, one of which heated the water, and one of which generated the hot air for the

Nicholas Warner.

Fig. 8. Plan of the baths of Shaykhu in relation to the khanqah of Shaykhu (Monument Number 152); this was a double bathhouse of which one half survives; its plan is adapted to an irregular plot, with one entrance from the street and another from the khanqah

hypocaust, which extended under two rooms that together, made up the bayt al-harara. This dual structure, with one room for ‘dry heat’ (the bayt harr gaff) and another adjacent room for ‘steam heat’ (the bayt harr ratib) was missing from later baths that favored the construction of a sin­ gle room for the ‘steam bath.’ In the Tulunid example, it is the bayt harr

.Taking the Plunge

Fig. 9. The Tulunid bathhouse plan and section

ratib th at rec e iv e d the m ost a rch itectu ral em p h a sis w ith a trip artite n ich e stru ctu re (p erh a p s in h erited from an tiq u e m o d els) into w hich w as bu ilt a

salsabil (in c lin e d m arb le slab) th at c o n d u c te d the hot w ater o v erflo w in g from the b o ile rs in to the tank (maghtas) below , and rele ase d a large a m o u n t o f steam into the atm o sp h ere. T h is later d e v e lo p e d into the stream o f hot w a te r th at fell into the maghtas from ro o f level, w h ile the

maghtas its e lf w as fram ed w ith in fo u r c o lu m n s, if indeed it rec e iv e d any a rch itectu ral c e le b ra tio n at all. By the O tto m an p eriod, the m ost a rc h i­

Nicholas Warner.

tectural consideration was given to the maslakh—which became a spa­ cious hall roofed in wood, a material unknown in earlier bath construc­ tions—rather than the bayt al-harara. As for the hypocaust system, it seems to have entirely disappeared after Tulunid/Fatimid times, perhaps because of the favor in which the ‘sweat room' was held. From the various descriptions of the hammam quoted above, we can begin to appreciate the bathhouse as simultaneously a place of pleasure and penance: a paradise where water flowed in abundance, and a hell infested with djinns and devils. Water was at once the vehicle of ritual purity and the agency of damnation. The historical views121 of the bath­ house range from outright condemnation to tacit acceptance of its regular use by men and occasional use by women under particular circumstances. Nudity, however necessary for the act of bathing, was always a source of anxiety in a culture that highly valued personal modesty. Despite this ambivalence, bathhouses remained popular until the last century, when the numbers of those establishments still functioning in Cairo underwent a steady decline, from about a hundred at the end of the eighteenth cen­ tury,122 to between sixty and seventy counted by Lane,123 to fifty-six list­ ed by Clerget,124 to fourteen counted by this author.125 The arrival of piped water in many private homes from the beginning of the twentieth century certainly hastened this decline, and the last public bathhouse to be built in Cairo on traditional lines was constructed in ‘Abbasiya in 1925.126 By the end of the nineteenth century, travelers to Cairo were already being recommended to satisfy their bathing requirements at European establishments that were built at Helwan or Azbakiya in imita­ tion of their Oriental predecessors. The Murray’s Handbook to Egypt of 1896 presents a picture of the bathhouse that is diametrically opposed to the rapturous description of ‘Abd al-Latif seven centuries earlier: The Cairo baths are hardly worth visiting, because of their general dirt, squalor, and stench. They can certainly not be recommended for the use of any European in search of cleanliness___ For those who desire such a Turkish bath as can be enjoyed in London, there is the Hammam Schneider (for ladies and gentlemen) near Shepheard’s Hotel, where also douches and massage can be obtained with or without medical supervi­ sion. The cold plunge bath, like the rest of this establishment, is chiefly patronized by English residents and visitors.127

.Taking the Plunge

Sources of illustrations Fig. 1. E.W. Lane, An Account o f the Manners and Customs o f the Modem Egyptians Written in Egypt during the years 1833-1835 (London, 1838). Fig. 2. E. Pauty, “Les Hammams du Caire.” Mémoires publiés par les membres de l ’Institut Français d ’Archéologie Orientale 64 (Cairo, 1933) Fig. 3. Courtesy, Islamic Museum. Fig. 4. G.M. Ebers, Egypt: Descriptive, Historical and Picturesque, Irans. C. Bell, 2 vols. (London, 1881-82). Fig. 5. Gayer-Anderson Museum, Cairo; photograph copyright Francis Dzikowski. Fig. 6. Pascal Coste, Architecture arabe, ou monuments du Kaire mesurés et dessinés de 1818-1826 (Paris, 1829). Fig. 7. Pauty, “Les Hammams.” Fig. 8. After a 1:500 ground plan of Historic Cairo prepared by Nicholas Warner in cooperation with the Supreme Council of Antiquities Project of the American Research Center in Egypt under a grant from the United States Agency for International Development. Fig. 9. After A. Yasin, from L.A. Ibrahim and A. Yasin, “A Tulunid Hammam in Old Cairo” in Islamic Archaeological Studies 3 (Cairo, 1988).

Notes 1. Extract from The Book o f the Thousand Nights and a Night, trans. Captain Sir R.F. Burton (London, 1894), 7: 221. Key references for the study of Cairo’s bathhouses are: E. Pauty, “Les Hammams du Caire,” Mémoires publiés par les membres de l ’Institut Français d ’Archéologie Orientale 64 (Cairo, 1933); A. Raymond, “Les Bains Publics au Caire à la Fin du XVIIIe Siècle” in Annales Islamologiques 8, (Cairo, 1969), 129-50; A. Raymond, “La Localisation des Bains Publics au Caire au quinzième siècle d’après les Hitat de Makrizi” in Bulletin d ’Etudes Orientales 30 (Damascus, 1978), 347-60. For a general study see H. Grotzfeld, Das Bad im arabisch-islamis­ chen Mittelalter (Wiesbaden, 1970). For comparative material see M. Dow, The Islamic Baths o f Palestine (Oxford, 1996), and M. Ecochard and C. Le Coeur, Les Bains de Damas 2 vols. (Beirut, 1942, 1943). 2. K.H. Zand, J.A. Videan, and I.E. Videan, trans.. The Eastern Key: Kitab alifadah wa’l-i'tibar o f 'Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi (London, 1964), 183-87. 3. See ‘Abd al-Mohsen al-Khashab, “Ptolemaic and Roman Baths of Kom elAhmar,” Supplement aux Annales du Service des Antiquités de l ’Egypte Cahier 10, (Cairo, 1949). This contains an excellent survey of pre-Islamic baths in Egypt, and a good comparison with later bathing practice. See also Dow, Islamic Baths o f Palestine, 32-38. 4. Ibn Duqmaq, al-Intisar li-wasitat 'aqd al-amthar (Cairo, 1893), 4: 105.

Nicholas Warner.

5. Al-Maqrizi, Kitab mawa 'idh wa-l-i 'tibar bi dhikr al-khitat wa-l-athar, Irans. P. Casanova as Le Livre des admonitions et de Vobservation pour

Vhistoire des quartiers et des monuments ou Description Historique et Topographique de l ’Egypte 2 vols.. Mémoires publiés par les membres de l ’Institut Français d ’Archéologie Oriental Tomes 3 A 4 (Cairo, 1906, 1920), 1: 167, refers to the banning o f public baths in ad 717, for reasons of pleasure and debauchery. 6. Cf. G. Vigarello, Concepts o f Cleanliness: Changing attitudes in France since the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1988). 7. See Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri, 'Umdat al-salik or The Reliance o f the Traveller, trans. Noah Ha Mim Keller, (Dubai, 1991) for basic information about purification, representing an Egyptian Shafi’i fiqh manual o f 1368. 8. Dow, Islamic Baths o f Palestine, 36. Only the Maliki school differs. 9. W. Popper, History o f Egypt 1382-1469 ad translated from the Arabic annals ofAbul Mahasin ibn Taghribardi (Berkeley & Los Angeles. 1958), 4: 149. 10. A.W. Kinglake, Eothen (London, 1905), 309, n.30. 11. E.W. Lane, An Account o f the Manners and Customs o f the Modem Egyptians Written in Egypt during the years 1833-1835 (The Hague & London, 1981), 337. Lane devotes chapter 16 of his book to bathing prac­ tices. Personal experience of still operational bathhouses suggests that this pattern may have altered to men using the hammam at night, and women during the day. 12. M. Jomard. “Description de la Ville du Kaire” in Description de l ’Egypte: Etat Moderne (Paris, 1822), 2: 2, 684. 13. Other examples of the twinned bathhouse (now reduced in size) are the Hammam al-Sukkariya (Monument Number 5 % , twelfth century, rem od­ eled in the eighteenth century) and the hammam o f Shaykhu (not listed, circa 1355). 14. Raymond, “Bains Publics," 140-45. 15. G. Baer, Egyptian Guilds in Modem Times, The Israel Oriental Society Oriental Notes & Studies 8, (Jerusalem, 1964), 63. 16. Raymond, “Bains Publics,” 142. Raymond also estim ates that each bath would serve a com m unity of betw een 3,000 and 5,000 people and derives statistics for the population o f Cairo in this way. See his “Signes Urbains et Etude de la Population des Grandes Villes Arabes à l’Epoque O ttom ane” in Bulletin des Etudes Orientales 27, (Damascus, 1975), 187-88. 17. H.A. Badr and D. Crecelius. “The Waqfiya of the Two Hammams in C airo known as al-Sukkariya” in Le Waqf dans l'espace islamique, (Damascus, 1995), 139 and 146. 18. A.-B. Clot Bey, Aperçu général sur l'Egypte, 2 vols. (Paris, 1840), 1: 306-11. 19. Ibn al-Hajj, al-Madkhal ila tanmiyat al-a’mal bi tahsin al-niyat 4 vols. (Cairo. 1929), 1: 169-70. This and other references to the thought of the

.Taking the Plunge

fourteenth-century jurist Ibn al-Hajj are taken from the excellent study by H. Lutfi, “Manners and Customs of Fourteenth-Century Cairene Women: Female Anarchy versus Male Shar’i Order in Muslim Prescriptive Treatises” in N. Keddie and B. Baron Women in Middle Eastern History (New Haven, 1991), 99-121. 20. L.A. Ibrahim and A. Yasin, “A Tulunid Hammam in Old Cairo” in Islamic Archaeological Studies 3 (Cairo, 1988), 50, n.43. For a description of a richly decorated Fatimid bathhouse attached to a ‘funerary villa’ see R-P. Gayraud and X. Peixoto, “Istabl ‘Antar (Fostat) 1990 - Rapport des Fouilles” in Annales ¡slamologiques 27 (Cairo, 1993), 228-29. 21. S.D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities o f the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents o f the Cairo Geniza 6 vols., (Berkeley, Los Angeles, & London, 1967-1993), vol. 5 (1988), 43. 22. L. Fernandes, “The Foundation of Baybars al-Jashankir: Its Waqf, History and Architecture” in Muqamas 4 (Leiden, 1987), 26. 23. L. Fernandes, “Mamluk Politics and Education” in Annales ¡slamologiques 23 (Cairo, 1987), 90, n.3. 24. Raymond, “Bains Publics,” 142. 25. Lane, Manners and Customs, 341. A survey of still functioning bathhouses in 1992 revealed that baths cost between one and three Egyptian pounds. See Observatoire Urbain du Caire Contemporain, Typologie et fonction sociale des hammams du Caire aujourd’hui. Supplément à la Lettre d’information Numéro 30 (Cairo, October 1992), 15. 26. The therapeutic value of bathing in the Nile, as late as the mid-nineteenth century, is attested by the fact that the Viceroy of Egypt Sa‘id Pasha had a bathing kiosk constructed on the river, into which a bath suspended on a chain could be lowered. See The Illustrated London News, October 30, 1858, 406. 27. V. de Chabrol, “Essai sur les Moeurs des Habitans Modernes de l’Egypte” in Description de l ’Egypte: Etat Moderne (Paris, 1822), 2: 2, 435. 28. A. Raymond, Artisans et commerçants de Caire 2 vols., (Damascus, 1973-74), 2: 369-70. Raymond uses the location of sabils and public bathhouses in late eighteenth century Cairo to derive basic population figures. His study shows that the most heavily occupied sections of the city at the time were al-Qahira itself, and the built up areas to the south and west. 29. Ibn al-Ukhuwwa, The M a’alim al-Qurba fi Ahkam al-Hisba, trans. R. Levy, Gibb Memorial Series 12 (London, 1938), 14. In Jerusalem, the muhtasib was required to check that separate towels were used for Muslims and the dhimmi: see Dow, The Islamic Baths o f Palestine, 2. 30. Raymond, “Bains Publics,” 148. 31. Le Comte Estève, “Memoire sur les Finances de l’Egypte” in Description de l ’Egypte: Etat Moderne (Paris, 1809), 1: 362. 32. Al-Khashab, “Ptolemaic and Roman Baths,” 4, comments on the Greek habit of the bride having a special bath before her wedding. This is a habit

Nicholas Warner.

that seems to have been maintained, albeit under rather different circum­ stances, in Siwa Oasis until recently. See A. Fakhry, The Oasis o f Siwa: Its Customs, History and Monuments (Cairo, 19S0), 12. 33. Lane, Manners and Customs, 342. 34. Clot Bey, Aperçu, 2: 42. 35. Lane, Manners and Customs, 537. 36. Lane, Manners and Customs, 167. 37. Clot Bey, Aperçu, 2: 42. 38. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 5: 96. 39. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 5: 43. 40. Ibn al-Hajj, al-Madkhal, 1: 278-79. 41. Al-Maqrizi, Khitat, 263. 42. Ibn al-Ukhuwwa, Ma'alim al-Qurba, 51. 43. Lane, Manners and Customs, 338. See also 224 for a similar prayer to be uttered before entering a toilet. An archival photograph of the entrance to the Hammam Bashtak shows an appliquéd inscription hanging above the door with the words: “You Opener of Doors [God], open the door for us.” See M. Herz, “Le Hammam Bashtak” in Bulletin du Comité de Conserva-tion des Monuments de l ’Art Arabe vol. 19 (Cairo, 1902) Appendix, 154-68. 44. E.W. Lane, Arabian Society in the Middle Ages: Studies from the Thousand and One Nights (London, 1987), 38. 45. ‘Abd al-Ra’uf al-Minawi, Kitab al-nuzha al-zahiya ft ahkam al-hammam al-shar'iya wa-l-tibbiya, ed. ‘Abd al-Hamid Saleh Hamdan, (Cairo, 1987). 18-19. Al-Minawi was bom in 1545 in Cairo where he lived until his death in 1621. For a similar, but later, work see Ahmad ibn Muhammad Kawkabani (1662-1738), Hada'iq al-nammam fi-l-kalam ‘ala ma yatalaqu bi-l-hammam (Sana'a, no date). 46. Al-Minawi, Kitab al-nuzha, 42. 47. Quoted with reference to Maghrebi hammams by A. Louis, “Hammam” in Encyclopaedia o f Islam vol. 3 (Leiden, 1971), 146. 48. Ibn al-Ukhuwwa, Ma ’alim al-Qurba, 51. 49. Clot Bey, Aperçu, 2: 347. 50. Burton, Nights, 3: 52. 51. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 5: 97. 52. M.W. Dois, Majnun: The Madman in Medieval Islamic Society (Oxford, 1992), 69, 482-83. 53. Translated by Herz, “Le Hammam Bashtak,” 116-17. There is also an untranslated inscription on the portal of the Hammam al-Baisari, or Bath of Sultan Inal (Monument Number 562, 1456). 54. A still extant but unlisted Ottoman bathhouse, noted by Pauty, Hammams du Caire, 57. 55. Al-Ghazzali, L ’Obligation d ’ordonner le bien et d ’interdire le mal (vol 2, bk 19, Ihya 'ulum al din), trans. L. Bercher, (Tunis, 1961), 68. Al-Ghazzali permits the depiction of trees but not animals.

.Taking the Plunge

56. Al-Minawi, Kitab al-nuzha, 60. 57. Quoted by T.W. Arnold, Painting in Islam: A Study o f the Place o f Painting in Muslim Culture (Oxford, 1988). See also D. Behrens-Abouseif, Beauty in Arabic Culture (Princeton, 1999), 136-37. 58. Description de l ’Egypte: Etat Moderne, vol. 1, plate 49. 59. Ibn al-Ukhuwwa, M a’alim al-Qurba, 52. 60. Ibid. 61. Zand and Videan, The Eastern Key, 183. 62. Ibn al-Ukhuwwa, M a’alim al-Qurba, 52. 63. Al-Minawi, Kitab al-nuzha, 36. 64. Ibid. 65. Ibn al-Ukhuwwa, M a’alim al-Qurba, 53. 66. al-Minawi, Kitab al-nuzha, 34. 67. Zand and Videan, The Eastern Key, 183. 68. Lane, Manners and Customs, 341. 69. Al-Minawi, Kitab al-nuzha, 34. 70. Ibn al-Ukhuwwa, M a’alim al-Qurba, 51. 71. Al-Minawi, Kitab al-nuzfui, 49. 72. Al-Misri, ‘Umdat al-salik, 82. As this is a Shaft‘i interpretation of fiqh, details of the procedure would vary in other madhabs. See ‘Abd alWahhab Khallaf, al-Fiqh ‘ala al-madhahib al-arba’ (Cairo, 1937). 73. Al-Misri, ‘Umdat al-salik, 82. 74. Al-Misri, ‘Umdat al-salik, 217. 75. Al-Minawi, Kitab al-nuzha, 32, 46. 76. Lane, Manners and Customs, 340. 77. Al-Minawi, Kitab al-nuzha, 76. 78. Burton, Nights, 7: 222, n.2. 79. Ibn al-Ukhuwwa, Ma ’alim al-Qurba, 78. 80. Ibrahim and Yasin, “A Tulunid Hammam,” 36. 81. Al-Minawi, Kitab al-nuzha, passim. 82. Al-Minawi, Kitab al-nuzha, 38. 83. Ibid. The same applied to trimmings from finger nails. 84. Ibn al-Ukhuwwa, M a’alim al-Qurba, 52. 85. Al-Minawi, Kitab al-nuzha, 77. 86. De Chabrol, “Essai sur les Moeurs,” Description de l ’Egypte: Etat Moderne, 2: 2, 435. 87. Al-Minawi, Kitab al-nuzha, 51. 88. Lane, Manners and Customs, 341; Burton, Nights, vol. 2, 223, n.l. 89. Al-Misri, 'Umdat al-salik, 120. 90. Al-Minawi, Kitab al-nuzha, 40. 91. Al-Ghazzali, al-Ihya’, 1: 139, quoted in al-Minawi, Kitab al-nuzha, 33. 92. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 5: 100. 93. Al-Minawi, Kitab al-nuzha, 31. 94. Ibn al-Hajj, al-Madkhal, 3: 235. 95. Ibn al-Hajj, al-Madkhal, 2: 172.

Nicholas Warner

96. M. Canard, “Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah” in The Encyclopaedia o f Islam 3 (Leiden and London, 1971), 78-79. A parallel occurs in the sixteenth cen­ tury. when the first Ottoman Qadi 'Askar of Egypt banned women from leaving home for fear that they might corrupt the soldiery. The ban was relaxed after time to allow visits to relatives, the cemetery, and the ham­ mam. See D. Behrens-Abouseif, Egypt’s Adjustment to Ottoman Rule: Institutions, Waqf, and Architecture in Cairo