What's a Khankah?:
The Madrasa-Khankah of Sultan al-Zahir Barquq (1384-6)

July 1, 2006

In the top band of these carved wooden doors you can make out the Arabic for: al-Mawlan al-Sultan al-Malak al-Zahir Barquq.. and as one might expect, he is the person who built the structure that houses these doors. The structure has an odd name: a Khankah.

At the opening of his section on the Khawanik of Cairo, Maqrizi tries to explain the origin of the word for his readers:

Khawanik is the plural for Khankah, which is a Persian word that means "House." It is said that its origin is "Khanqah"—that is the place in which the king eats. The "Khankah" came about in Islam in the area of 400 AH. It was made so that Sufis could retreat in it to worship God Most High. [2:414]

That works as a thumbnail definition. These are places in which Sufis—Muslim followers of the mystical path—could live and study. As Maqrizi continues with his introduction to the Khawanik, he briefly sketches the history of Sufis (from Qushayri) and describes the first Sufi community in Basra. In so far as Sufism developed its own niche within Islam, the Khankah represents the large-scale establishment recognition of that place. As we have seen, this structure was built by the Sultan.. on an important piece of land on the street known as Bayn al-Qasrayn.

The interior on the qiblah side is once again dazzling. It is a somewhat smaller version of the mosque of Sultan Hasan.. and the visitor can quickly assimilate the new details to other Mamluk era mosques. There is a square central courtyard, in the middle of which is a domed fountain for ablutions. The square is surrounded on each side by four large arches, under which is an open porch where religious instruction would take place. Since this large structure also served as a madrasa (school), the training here would have been according to the traditional legal schools. It is useful, then, to recognize that the Sufi training was folded neatly into the traditional Islamic educational system.

The qiblah side of the square takes on a life of its own and is highly decorative. Note that beautiful ceiling! (a modern restoration). Once again the huge Aswan granite columns appear, taken originally from some Pharaonic temple. Iin this case they could well be re-used after having been taken from the constructions of a former Sultan. This style of column creates some of the grandest affects in Cairo's mosque architecture.

To the side of the main mosque is a separate mausoleum, lying under a large dome. Buried here is his daughter Fatima.. a far cry from the more ornate burials markers that would come later (perhaps influenced by the Turks?). Meanwhile the dome towers above:

Most exciting for me on this visit was the chance to see some of the rooms in which the students would have lived. These large religious complexes would have housed many students.. according to Behrens-Abouseif this one had 125 theology students and 60 Sufis, "with living quarters for the teachers and stables for their mounts." So it was a hive of students.. bustling with activity no doubt. That is hard to imagine as one walks around in these echoey chambers. Below is an example of a dorm room:

Not a lot to go on there as far as imagining life here. Maqrizi's description of this particular Khankah is quite brief, but on another Khankah, he provides a glimpse of life in a place like this:

...the number of Sufis there was around 300 men, and each one of them got on Tuesday flat loaves of bread (weighing 3 rutls), a piece of meat (weighing 1/3 rutl) in broth, and he got for them some sweets each month also. He divided between them some soap and he gave to each of them annually some money for clothes (40 dirhams).. [2:416]

So it was not exactly the sweet life. I imagine there must have been some way for students to supplement that allowance.

Interestingly, the young man who showed me around this building is a student at al-Azhar.. the bastion of Egyptian religious education. He was off for the summer, and was highly interested in his tip.. even asking me for it when we were unseen by his co-workers.. so that he would not need to share! He got his nice tip, but it now occurs to me that this is an example of how religious students find ways to supplement fairly meager rations.

Above is a picture from one of the windows of that small room, looking down upon the entrance hall for the religious complex. I particularly admire that marble floor. The only sound now is the dull noise of the construction going on outside.. but once this would have been alive with noise and voices.