Another Satur
day morning, another mosque. Well two actually. I had spotted these two great building on the way down to Ibn Tulun and so decided they were worth a visit. There are two fantastically large and dirty building siturated close to one another, you would think they are the same aged but one is about 600yrs older than the other....Cairos ability to cover everything in dust and dirt means they look alike.
On the way down the autostrad was its usual entertaining self (man sitting on meat)
This was the first mosque I had to pay to get in, we had a laugh with the little lady in the ticket office, I apparently do not look like a student or a muslim so had to pay the 25EGP to get in! I read up on them before I went so was ready and armed with lots of info. The first was the Sultan Hassan Mosque, built in 1356AD. It was very atmospheric and I actually saw another tourist! Only one! The main mosque area built around the Sabil has 4 large arches with some great very long hanging lanterns - very hard to get a decent photo. In each corner there was a door for a madrassa (school) for each one of the 4 Sunni schools of islam, Shafii, Malakii, Hanafi and Hanbali. This is one impressive building with some very nice carvings on the walls, Ahmed helpfully told me they were "from the Koran" when I asked what they were. The great arches and lanterns are very photogenic but I needed a real wide angle lens which I don't have yet (hint hint!). I went black and white on some of the good photos Ill post them later.....
Outside of Sultan Hassan
One of the arches and the laterns
More lanterns
More lanterns outside the mosque
We then cross over to the Al-Rifaii mosque built in the late 1800s till 1912. Again an impressive building. The little boab (guard) sensing a little Beksheesh coming his way (tip) opened the mausoleum in the back which has some interesting tombs, including Farouk the king of Egypt and for some reason Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran. Parting with a little Beksheesh we came back out into the sunlight and back home for some rest from the growing heat.
The late Shah of Iran
Farouk, King of Egypt
No comments:
Post a Comment