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The “Fatimid” Doors of the Fakahani Mosque in Cairo 231 the “fatimid” doors of the fakahani mosque in cairo 231 JONATHAN M. BLOOM THE “FATIMID” DOORS OF THE FAKAHANI MOSQUE IN CAIRO In 1969, soon after he had arrived at Harvard’s Fine our broad order of Islamic history. It belongs to the Arts Department, Oleg Grabar presented a paper at the Muslim west as well as to the area of the central lands international colloquium celebrating the millennium and it flourished during a period covered by both of our of Cairo in which he proposed a new and provocative broad categories. We ended by putting most of its art in explanation for the prominence of fi gural iconography the Medieval Islamic section and in the central lands for in Fatimid art.1 Following the publication of the article reasons that will be explained in due course, but some three years later, in the fall of 1975 he conducted a early Fatimid objects are discussed under western Islamic lands in the earlier period. This is, no doubt, a shaky graduate seminar on the art of the Fatimids and two accommodation to a reluctant history.6 years after that published a reassessment of Fatimid art.2 Several of the students in that seminar, myself I myself, after many years exploring other aspects included, went on to work further on the subject of of Islamic art, have recently returned to the art and Fatimid art and architecture, and fi ve years later, after architecture of the Fatimids in a book that attempts extensive travel around the Mediterranean, I presented to fi nish what I had begun several decades earlier.7 a dissertation on early Fatimid art in North Africa and One of my conclusions is that the medium of fi ne Egypt.3 Its scope (I covered only the years before 400 woodwork, which scholars have often overlooked, is AH) was limited principally by Professor Grabar’s insis- remarkably important throughout the Fatimid period, tence that I fi nish writing quickly and get my degree. with literally dozens of dated or datable examples that Otherwise, he feared my project might continue for document the evolution of styles of writing, carving, many more years, if not decades. In the following and decoration in religious and secular milieux. (A years I published several articles on various aspects of notable exception to the overall scholarly inattention Fatimid art, some of them extracted from chapters in to this medium is the survey by Ettinghausen, Grabar, my dissertation and some of them representing new and Jenkins-Madina, who discuss and illustrate sev- work, but I never felt that the dissertation itself was eral examples of Fatimid woodwork.8) Just when I had worthy of publication.4 nearly fi nished the typescript of my book, I was asked Professor Grabar himself returned occasionally to by the Nederlands-Vlaams Instituut in Cairo (NVIC) the subject of Fatimid art and dealt with it somewhat to consult on a Getty Foundation-funded project con- uneasily in the revised edition of Islamic Art and Archi- cerning the advisability of restoring the al-Fakahani tecture: 600–1250, the Pelican History of Art volume (“Fruitsellers’”) Mosque. This apparently Ottoman-era he had coauthored with Richard Ettinghausen and mosque has two pairs of Fatimid-style wooden doors, revised with Marilyn Jenkins-Madina.5 The authors had presumably dating from an earlier Fatimid mosque a problem with Fatimid architecture and art, which on the site. These had already been noted by such straddles almost all the categories they had established scholars as Max van Berchem and K. A. C. Creswell.9 for early Islamic art (i.e., architecture/decorative art, Over a century ago van Berchem declared that the early/late, east/west). They placed most but not all of building was “entièrement restaurée à l’époque turque it under the rubric “Medieval Islamic Art of the Cen- et n’offre d’autre intérêt archéologique que la date tral Islamic Lands,” noting in their preface, de sa fondation,”10 while Creswell reported that the To these organizational divisions we made one partial two sets of doors were “decorated with good crisp exception. The rich and brilliant period of the Fatim- Arabesque carving of the Fâ«imide period, and may ids (909–1171) could not, we felt, be cut into separate well be the original ones.”11 A close reexamination temporal or regional components in order to fit into of the doors sheds surprising light not only on a lost 232 jonathan m. bloom Fig. 1. Fakahani Mosque, general view from the street. (Photo: Fig. 2. Fakahani Mosque, main (west) door. (Photo: author) author) mosque of the Fatimid period but also on issues of of the mosque. To the left (north) of the principal historicism and reception, matters that few of us writ- entrance but set well back from the street is the base ing in the 1970s and 1980s had even thought about, of the mosque’s minaret, a cylindrical tower that rises let alone made the focus of our research.12 from the roof of the mosque to its conical top. The The Fakahani Mosque (Registered Monument no. north corner of the mosque is occupied by a water- 109) stands on the east side of Shari{ al-Mu{izz li-Din dispensary (sabºl), with several rooms above it—pre- Allah/Shari{ al-Ghuriyya, about 125 meters north of sumably once a kutt¸b, or elementary school—and a the mosque of al-Mu{ayyad Shaykh (fi g. 1). Built of relatively modern ablution complex (mi¤a{a) extends stone and measuring approximately 30 x 37 meters, the north from the mosque to the east of the second- mosque has fl ights of steps in the middle of the north- ary entrance. The interior of the mosque (fi g. 4) is west and northeast sides (hereafter simply “west” and raised on a high plinth, which contains shops and a “north”) that lead from the street up to the entrances, cistern in the center, and comprises a slightly trape- each of which is closed by a fi ne pair of wooden doors zoidal hypostyle hall measuring 23 x 30 meters, with (fi gs. 2 and 3). The entrance on the main façade is an area approximately 10 meters to a side in the cen- set within a deep porch fl anked by shops on the street ter that is open to the sky and serves as a small inter- level and by subsidiary rooms or halls at the level nal courtyard. The fl at wooden roof of the mosque .
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