Jerusalem (built 691), so that they became one of the characteristics of the style. For constructional reasons, however, this method of building was not always adhered to, and in the mosque of Tulun (fig. 55) in Cairo (879), the first mosque in Egypt, built of original materials, we find an important departure. The arcades, instead of running at right angles to the Mecca wall, are built parallel with it, on account of the great thrust of the arches, all built in brick (fig. 56). The wood ties would have been quite insufficient to resist the thrust, and in the case of this mosque were probably used to carry lanterns.
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| Fig. 54.—Plan of Mosque of ʽAmr. Old Cairo. | |
| 1. Kibla. | 5. Fountain for Ablution |
| 2. Mimbar. | 6. Rooms built later. |
| 3. Tomb of ʽAmr. | 7. Minaret. |
| 4. Dakka. | 8. Latrines. |
The mosque of Tulun is the earliest example in which the pointed arch appears throughout, and it forms the leading and most characteristic constructional feature of the style in its subsequent developments in every country, except in Barbary and Spain, where the circular-headed horse-shoe arch seems to be preferred. As it is also the earliest mosque in which the decoration applied is that which was by inference laid down in the Koran, some allusion to the restrictions therein contained, and the consequent result, may not be out of place. The representation of nature in any form was absolutely forbidden, and this applied generally to foliage of all kinds, and plants, the representation of birds or animals, and above all of the human figure. The only exceptions to the rule would seem to be those found in the very conventional representations of lions carved over the gateways of Cairo and Jerusalem and in the courts of the Alhambra. It was this restriction which produced the extremely beautiful conventional patterns which are carried round the arches of the mosque of Tulun, and are found in the friezes, string-courses and the capitals of the shafts, and when these patterns form the background of the text of the Koran in high relief, in the splendid Arabic characters, it would be difficult to find a more beautiful decorative scheme in the absence of natural forms. As the mosque of Tulun was built by a Coptic architect, and its decoration is evidently the result of many years of previous developments, it is probably to the Copts that its evolution was due. The second type of decoration is that which is given by geometrical forms, and either in pavements or wall decorations in marble, or in the framing of woodwork in ceilings, or in doorways, the most elaborate and beautiful combinations were produced. The third type of decoration is one which in a sense is found in the origin of most styles, but which, restricted as the Mahommedans were to conventional representations, received a development of far greater importance, and in one of its forms—that known as stalactite vaulting—constitutes the one feature in the style which is not found in any other, and which, from the western coast of Spain to the east of India, at once differentiates it from any other style.
A complete account, with illustrations of the origin of the stalactite will be found in the Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects (1898) The earliest example is found in the tomb of Zobeide, the favourite wife of Harun al-Rashid, at Bagdad, built at the end of the 8th century. This tomb, octagonal in plan, and of modest dimensions, was vaulted over by a series of niches in nine stages or levels rising one above the other, and brought forward on the inside, so that the ninth course completed the covering of the tomb. It was built in this way to save centreing, each niche when completed being self-supporting. There is a second tomb at Bagdad, of later date—the tomb of Ezekiel,—constructed in the same way, except that in each stage the niches are built not one over the other but astride between the two, and this is the way in which in subsequent developments it always appears to have been built. Its application to the pendentives of the portals of the mosque at Tabriz and Sultaniya was the next development; and when some two centuries later it is found in Europe, in the palaces of the Ziza at Palermo, dating from about the beginning of the 11th century, it has lost its brick constructive origin, and, being cut in slabs of stone, has become simply a decorative feature. Its earliest example in Egypt is in the tomb of ash-Shafi’ī at Cairo, built by Saladin about 1240. Here and in all subsequent examples throughout Egypt and Syria it is always carved in stone. In the Alhambra another material was employed, the elaborate vaults being built with a series of small moulds in stucco. In the ceilings of the mosques at Cairo it was frequently carved in wood, and consequently lost all trace of its origin.
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| From Coste’s Architecture Arabe en Caire. Fig. 55.—Plan of Mosque of Tulun, Cairo. |
Two other decorative features, but having a constructive origin, are (1) the alternating of courses of stone of different colour, probably derived from Byzantine work, where bands of brick were employed; and (2) the elaborate forms given to the voussoirs of the arches of the Mecca niche.
Having now described the principles which ruled the plans of the mosques and formed the motifs of their architectural design, it remains to take the principal examples in the various countries where the style was developed.
Although the tendency of modern research points to Persia as the country in which the first development of the art took place, and we have already referred to two tombs at Bagdad, in which the earliest examples of a stalactite vault are found, so far as remains are concerned nothing can be traced earlier than the work of Ghazan Khan (1294), whose mosque at Tabriz, half in ruins, is the earliest example.
It is to Egypt therefore we turn first. There still exist—and sometimes in good preservation—mosques and other buildings in Cairo of every period showing the development of the Mahommedan style, from the 9th to the 17th century. Owing to the magnificent material at their command—for unfortunately more of it was taken from the ancient Egyptian monuments than from the quarries—a much purer style was evolved than in Persia; and owing to the absence of rain those ephemeral structures built in brick and covered with stucco, which in other countries would long have passed away, retained the crispness of their flowing ornament, which is still as sharp and well defined as when executed. We have already referred
