martyns blog

Housing a Head:
The Mosque of Vizier Salih Tala'i (1160 AD)

July 11, 2006

With my visit to the mosque of the Vizier Salih Tala'i I complete my round of the Fatimid mosques of Cairo. This one was originally constructed to house the head of al-Husayn—the grandson of the prophet Muhammad and son of Ali. This is the Husayn who is mourned by Shi'as every year on the day called Ashura. The images of Shi'as striking and bloodying themselves are part of the annual mourning for Husayn, who was killed at the battle of Karbala in 680 AD. The Fatimids were Shi'as, and sought to bring the head of Husayn to their own capital city. The story is told by Maqrizi:

This mosque is among those constructed in the time of the Fatimids. It is outside The Zuweila Gate. Ibn 'Abd al-Zahir said: Salih Tala'i ibn Razik, when he feared for an attack by the Crusaders against the shrine of Imam Husayn, God be satisfied with him, since it was in the city of Askalon [i.e. in the Levant], determined to transfer it. He had built this mosque to bury the head in it, but when he finished it the Caliph would not allow that, and said: "It will not be anywhere except inside the palaces. The caliph built the shrine which is there now, and buried the head inside it. [2:293]

So the mosque was part of an aborted plan to create a house for the head of Husayn. The Caliph apparently decided that this particular head was too important for a vizier's mosque.. and gave it a special place within his own palaces. Today the head is still in the same place. The palaces are gone, but a mosque was put up to house the shrine.. and so far as I know this is the only mosque in Cairo which tourists are not allowed to enter..

It is worth noting that there are many claimants to the head of Husayn in the Muslim world. The Encyclopedia of Islam lists the following: 1) Najaf (in Iraq), 2) outside Kufa (Iraq), 3) Karbala (Iraq), 4) Medina (Arabia), 5) somewhere in Damascus, 6) al-Rakka (Syria), and 7) in Cairo at the mosque of Husayn. So if you want to pay your respects you have some choices to make.

The exterior is hardly covered with decorations, but various medallions and designs adorn the walls.. making them lively to look at.. much more so than on an early mosque such as that of ibn Tulun. It is tempting to call Fatimid mosques the most aesthetically pleasing of Cairo's mosques. The goal is not to dazzle, but to present a well-ordered space dotted with designs.

Evident here is a detail that is often no longer visible: the presence of places for shops beneath the mosque. These are a feature one reads about often in descriptions such as those by Maqrizi. When a Sultan or any wealthy person built a mosque or other religious structure, he set aside properties whose profits were dedicated to the upkeep of said structure. Many mosques were even built with places for shops underneath the mosque itself.. at the original ground level. I associate these kinds of dedicated properties much more with the Mamluk system, and it is possible that these were built and added later in the history of the mosque (which was extensively restored after the 1303 earthquake). But nevertheless, they are clearly present:

The interior of the mosque has been rebuilt, but there are places where the restorers have left original stucco designs:

This mosque has a square open courtyard surrounded on all four sides by an arcade with columns. The qiblah side of the mosque is "thicker", in that it has a succession of columned rows, ending in the prayer niche pointing the way to Mecca.

It was again interesting to notice the make-shift addition of a women's prayer area. I still can't decide if this is an advance or not on past practices.. But no woman is going to distract a man from behind that partition!

The mosque itself is situated right in front of the Zuweila Gate, which is unique for its twin minarets.. markers for the mosque of Sultan Mu'ayyad, located right behind the gate (the subject of a future blog). The minarets give this gate a memorable front:

This stone gate was added a good bit after the mosque of Salih Tala'i, but it was built up in the same place as the earlier Fatimid gate. In fact to the right of this gate one can glimpse some of the ruins of the old Fatimid brick wall.. which would have overlooked this mosque: