The Jami al-Qarafa Mosque or Qarafa Mosque , was the second major mosque built by the Fatimid dynasty in their new capital of Cairo after their conquest of Egypt in 969. It was located in the Qarafa , the great necropolis of Cairo and Fustat .
7-525: The mosque was built in 976 by order of Al-Sayyida al-Mu'iziyya (also known as Durzan) , mother of the Caliph al-'Aziz (r. 975–996), and her daughter Sitt al-Malik. It occupied the site of the older mosque of the Dome ( Masjid al-Qubba ), and apparently was very large. The historian al-Maqrizi says it was one of the most beautiful buildings of its day. A possible layout was described by Jonathan Bloom in his "The Mosque of
14-593: A slave, or jariya , to the Fatimid harem . It is said that, because of her beautiful singing, she was also called Taghrid ( lit. ' Singing As A Bird ' ). Although many Fatimid sources were destroyed, material evidence and literary sources exist that confirm the vastness of her patronage. In 976, Durzan inaugurated the first phase through the building of the Jami al-Qarafa Mosque with her daughter, Sitt al-Malik. As Cortese and Calinedri argue, this inauguration of
21-477: The Jami al-Qarafa Mosque marked the first of the two main phases of Fatimid female architectural patronage. Durzan also sponsored a qasr (palace), a bath, a watering pool and a mausoleum. Delia Cortese and Simonetta Calderini have noted Fatimid women’s patronage of public monuments and the link between piety – or religious propaganda – and charity during the delicate early stage of Fatimid rule. In 973 she moved to
28-487: The Qarafa", although Yūsuf Rāghib pointed out problems with this reconstruction in his "La mosquée d'al-Qarāfa." In Bloom's opinion, the mosque had a central aisle, wider than the others and with a higher roof, that led a dome over the spaces before the mihrab . This was similar to the mosques of al-Azhar and al-Hākim bi-Amr Allāh. The courtyard provided a place where the elite of Cairo would meet on Friday evenings in summer, and
35-451: The covered qibla part of the mosque gave them a meeting place in the cooler weather. State festivals would be held at the mosque in which food was distributed to all classes of people. According to Ibn al-Zayyāt, it was an especially holy mosque, one where people would seek refuge in times of trouble. When a great fire burned down most of al-Fustat in 1168 the mosque was almost completed destroyed, with only its green mihrab being preserved. It
42-508: The main consort of Fatimid Caliph al-Muizz and the mother of the Fatimid imam-caliph al-Aziz . She was known as the first patroness of Fatimid architecture . Durzān also founded the second great Fățimid mosque of Cairo , a congregational mosque (no longer extant) located in the Qarafa . Durzan was born in the city of Mahdia , on the coast of modern-day Tunisia , in 955, and was brought as
49-447: Was later rebuilt as the Jami' al-Awliyya, but was little used after al-Qarafa became depopulated following a crisis in 1403. Notes Citations Sources This article about a mosque or other Islamic place of worship in Egypt is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Al-Sayyida al-Mu%27iziyya Al-Sayyida al-Mu'iziyya , mainly known as Durzan , was
#896103