The Story of Qānībāy al-Sharkasī’s Minaret Through Photographs
This photograph is one of the two surviving photographs about the minaret of Qānībāy al-Sharkasī (845/1441-1442) in the Creswell Photographic Collections at the Rare Books and Special Collections Library (RBSCL), the American University in Cairo (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1: V. Giuntini, [Minaret of Qānībāy al-Šarkasī mosque], With manuscript mention at the back of the print: Kânbâï el-Djarkassi (mosquée de): minaret, vue d’ensemble, 1901. Silver print. Courtesy of: Creswell Photographic Collection, Rare Books and Special Collections Library, The American University in Cairo, Album 24.
Keppel Archibald Cameron Creswell (1879-1974) was a British electrical engineer and draftsman who followed his interest in Islamic art and architecture and by the 1930s became one of the most known scholars in the field. The collection at AUC mostly contains Creswell’s own photographs of Islamic monuments in Egypt (starting 1916). A third photograph, taken by Creswell of the mosque of Qānībāy al-Sharkasī (circa 1916 and 1921), now part of the collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, shows the minaret without the upper pavilion (Fig. 2). Let us trace what happened to this pavilion.
Fig. 2: K.A.C. Creswell, General view [of the mosque of Qānībāy al-Šarkasī], Courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1283388/the-mosque-of-the-mamluk-photograph-creswell-keppel-archibald/
This Cairene Mamluk mosque is at the foot of the Citadel, near the Sayyida ‘A’isha square. In 1900-1901, the members of the Comité de conservation des monuments de l’art arabe (1881-1950s) (a committee composed of Europeans and Egyptians and established under the Pious Endowments Ministry) proposed to dismantle the upper part of the minaret due to structural concerns. The marble columns of the upper pavilion, a common feature of several Mamluk minarets, have been already shored with stones for stability and could not be clearly seen (Fig. 1). So in 1901, they dismantled the upper part.
The Comité, prior to dismantling any decorative, architectural, or structural elements of a building, usually documented the condition of the monument in question through architectural drawings and photographs. Published and archival Comité sources reveal that in 1901 the Comité assigned the photographer V. Giuntini to take two views of the minaret: one of its upper pavilion, and another overall shot of the whole minaret. These are the photographs now in RBSCL (Fig. 1).
At the time, the Comité’s plan was to reconstruct the pavilion again, by re-using its own dismantled stones and marble columns as they had done with several other minarets. But this did not happen finally. The Comité’s chief architect at the time, Max Herz (1858-1919) and the Comité engineer P. Rodeck opinioned that the inclination of the minaret’s lower sections would structurally not support the placement of the upper part again. Until today the minaret has remained without its pavilion (Fig. 3).
Fig. 3: [Minaret of Qānībāy al-Sharkasī mosque]. Digital Photograph, 2015. © Matjaž Kačičnik
However, the minaret’s pavilion did not disappear. The dismantled stones were reassembled in the courtyard of al-Hākim mosque in 1912. Today the pavilion can be found, reassembled for the second time with its original stones and marble columns, within the Citadel of Cairo (Fig. 4).
Fig. 4: [Upper pavilion of the minaret of Qānībāy al-Šarkasī mosque, now at the Cairo Citadel], Digital Photograph, 2015. © Dina Bakhoum
Sources:
Dina Ishak Bakhoum, “Mamluk Minarets in Modern Egypt: Tracing Restoration Decisions and Interventions”, Annales Islamologiques 50, ed. Mercedes Volait, 2016, pp. 147-198. https://journals.openedition.org/anisl/2195
István Ormos, Maz Herz Pasha 1858-1919: His Life and Career, 2 vols. EtudUrb6, Institut français d’archéologie orientale, Cairo, 2009, vol. 1, p. 202, footnote 381 and vol. 2, p. 347, fig. 229.
Bulletin of the Comité 18, 1901, “6o Mosquée Kanbaï el-Charkassi”, p. 39.
Bulletin of the Comité 18, 1901, “8° Paiements”, pp. 48-49.
Bulletin of the Comité 18, 1901, 2o Mosquée Kanbaï el-Charkassi”, p. 64.
Bulletin of the Comité 25, “7o Mosquée Kânbâï el-Charkassi”, pp. 37–38.
Archive of the Comité (Idārat al-Ḥifẓ al-‘ilmī, Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, Egypt), Folder no. 154.
https://library.aucegypt.edu/libraries/rbscl/photographs/creswell-islamic-collection
(Dina Bakhoum)
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