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Home , Barquq, Khanqah, Zawiya (institution)

DORIS BEHRENS-ABOUSEIF

THE TAKIYYAT IBRAHIM AL-KULSHANI IN

The Takiyyat Ibrahim al-Kulshani (1519-24, Index Ibrahim al-Kulshani is said to have met in Cairo a 332 1), also known as the Takiyyat al-Kulshaniyya, was Khalwati shaykh-perhaps Shahin or al-Damirdash? the first religious foundation established in Cairo after -of Shirwani origin, who helped hirn proeure the the Ottoman conquest in 1517 and the first to be outside Cairo known as Qubbat Mustafa. It had designated a takiyya by its foundation deed. Ibrahim al­ been built by Qaytbay at the village of Marg al­ Kulshani, a Sufi shaykh who escaped the Safavid con­ Zayyat for a shaykh named cAbd al-Muncim al- CAjami5 quest of Azerbayjan to find refuge in Cairo who also functioned as a diplomat, having been sent by was its sponsor. The shaykh had been born in Diyar­ Qaytbay on missions to the Ottoman court. The chief bakir in eastern Anatolia, but at an early age had qadi, cAbd al-Barr ibn Shihna, is also reported to have moved to Azerbayjan where he lived in , under invited Ibrahim al-Kulshani to Egypt. During his stay the patronage of Uzun Hasan, the ruler of the Aq at Qubbat Mustafa, Ibrahim al-Kulshani met Sultan Qoyunlu dynasty, and his qadi cAskar Mawlana al-Ghuri while the latter was out hunting. The sultan Hasan. When Uzun Hasan had gained confidence in gran ted hirn living quarters at the - of hirn, he assigned hirn some diplomatie missions, which Sultan al-Mu)ayyad at Bab Zuwayla. After the gave the shaykh the status of a government official. Ottoman conquest, al-Kulshani built a zawiya in the One of those missions was to escort Shaykh cUmar same quarter. Rawshani, a Khalwati Sufi whom U zun Hasan had The shaykh soon became very popular among the invited to Tabriz. Ibrahim al-Kulshani hirnself sub se­ soldiers and officers of the Ottoman army. As a result quently became a disciple of cUmar Rawshani at his he was suspected by Governor Ibrahim Pasha of aspir­ zawiya, and after Rawshani's death in 1486 succeeded ing to political power and was summoned to Istanbul hirn as teacher at the Muzafariyya . by Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent (1520-66) to As the Aq Qoyunlu dynasty lost its power, however, explain hirnself. While he was in Istanbul he is reported al-Kulshani's positIOn became more and more to have founded three tekkes. In the meantime the precarious, and when the Safavids finally conquered sultan interviewed hirn, and his treatises were Tabriz, he fled to Diyarbakir. This too fell into Safavid examined for heresy. He was later allowed to return to hands in 1507, and he departed for Egypt, which was Egypt, but to satisfy the sultan he dismissed many of at this time ruled by Sultan Qansuh al-Ghuri (1501- the soldiers from the ranks of his disciples. 16). AI-Kulshani was not the first Khalwati Sufi and AI-Kulshani died in a plague epidemie in 1534; by disciple of cUmar Rawshani to settle in Cairo. He had that time he had reached the extraordinary age of more been preceded by Shaykh cAbd Allah al-Damirdash than a hund red years and seems to have acquired con­ and his companion Shahin al-Khalwati in the reign of siderable social standing, for his son Ahmad was mar­ Sultan Qaytbay (1468-96).2 Both of them were said to ried to the widow of the last Mamluk sultan Tuman­ have been of Qaytbay who had gone to bay. AI-Kulshani was rich and powerful enough not to Tabriz and were initiated there by cUmar Rawshani need the financial help of a sponsor; money was always into the of . 3 When they miraculously multiplying under his prayer carpet. returned to Egypt, each ofthem established a zawiya in Although he was also the author of several theological the outskirts of Cairo, al-Damirdash at Khandaq al­ and poetical works, Shacrani, the Egyptian Mawali (today, 'Abbasiyya), and Shahin on the slope hagiographer, described hirn as "an ignoramus who of the Muqattam Hili (Index 212). The connection spoke an obscure language and did not articulate his between these two shaykhs and Qaytbay could have thoughts. " been political, for Uzun Hasan and Qaytbay were both Luckily the takiyya oflbrahim al-Kulshani itself and enemies of the Ottomans. 4 its waqfiyya with a description of the original building, 44 DORIS BEHRENS-ABOUSEIF its dependencies, and its functions have both survived. 6 rather than by institutions sponsored by rulers; rulers The waqfiyya is also the first attested foundation deed had long lost their influence in the political-religious in Cairo to use the arabicized form of the Turkish tekke sphere. 12 As the hagiography of Shaykh Shacrani to refer to a religious foundation. To describe the role shows, the shaykhs spread a personal, esoteric type of the takiyya played in Cairene religious life according to Sufism adapted to the requirements of the masses of historie and waqf sourees. one has first to look at com­ people who venerated the numerous shrines that were parable institutions in the Mamluk period. Variation in scattered along the fringes of Cairo's urban core. 13 the terminology attached to both Mamluk and U nder these circumstances the Khalwatiyya Sufi order Ottoman religious foundations in Cairo complicates the was introduced to Cairo during the last decades of effort, for different institutions sometimes used the Mamluk rule. same term, and similar institut ions different ones. Although the foundation of Ibrahim al-Kushani is The Mamluks ruled Egypt long enough (1250-1517) designatcd a takiyya in its waqfiyya, the shaykh's for important changes in social and politicallife to have biographers usually call it a zawiya, the term generally occurred. By the end of their 267 years of reign, the used in historie sources for individual Sufi foundations, khanqah, madrasa, zawiya, and even masjid no longer but rarely applied in architectural epigraphy. 14 There is had the same functions they had filled three centuries at least one contemporary zawiya that was so called in earlier. 7 The khanqah8 was originally a monastic its waqfiyya, however, and this was the zawiya of institution, sponsored by members of the ruling dass, Shaykh Hasan al-Rumil5 (1522-23, Index 258). The in which Sufis could retreat and worship as long as they foundation of al-Kushani was very much like it and can remained dedicated exdusively to religion. In time, therefore be called a zawiya as weIl. Both were built by it also introduced the teaching of law, thus enabling its shaykhs, both induded living quarters for a Sufi com­ Sufi community to become professional scholars and munity, and both held the for the founder. The administrators, but at the expense of the original prin­ term takiyya in the waqfiyya thus seems to be a borrow­ ciples of sedusion and connected with earlier ing from Turkish used as a synonym for zawiya. Sufism. There may be an other reason for the use of the two Toward the end of the fourteenth century, the terms, however. Other institutions in early Ottoman madrasa-khanqah, such as that of Sultan Barquq9 Cairo known as takiyyas were all built by members of (1384-86, Index 187), became the common form of the ruling dass. 16 The Takiyyat Sulayman Pasha, or religious foundation. As a college for Sufi students with Takiyya Sulaymaniyya (built in 950/1543, Index 225), a Friday mosque attached, it integrated Sufism into is called in its inscription a madrasaY It was popularly urban life by dedicating itself to scholarship as weIl as known as al-takiyya al-Sulaymiiniyya, however, and that is mystic practice and attaching itself to a jamiC, in con­ also the phrase used by the historian Shalabi. 18 The trast to the earlier Sufi masjid, which offered no Friday founder, Sulayman Pasha, was a governor of Egypt. sermon. Although the term khanqiih became rare in the Another governor, Iskandar Pasha, built a Friday late Mamluk period while the term madrasa remained in mosque with a takiyya (965/1557), wh ich has not sur­ common use, by its end neither word meant wh at it had vived. 19 The takiyya, according to the waqfiyya originally designated. The khanqah of Sultan al-Ghuri attached to the jamiC, was dedicated to Turkish Sufi was not monastic; it had no living quarters; and its students, as was its Hanafi-rite shaykh who taught Sufis lived and worked outside it except for the daily Islamic law and theology. The Sufis in this takiyya !lUrjiir session. Similarly later Mamluk waqf documents were expected to devote themselves exdusively to no longer refer to a madrasa as having astriet teaching learning and worship, and the institution was very program in law, as was common in the fourteenth cen­ similar to the madrasa-khanqah of Sultan Barquq at tury; it seems to have become nothing more than a Fri­ the end of the fourteenth century. day mosque. 10 Mahmud Pasha, another governor, erected a The zawiya was also modified as the role Sufism and (1568, Index 135) attached to a jamiC for Sufi shaykhs played in society changed. In the late­ sixty non-resident Sufis who attended daily I;urjiir ses­ Mamluk period Sufi shaykhs, by then recognized as sions with their shaykh and received salaries. This scholars, sponsored and jamiCs. 11 By the eve foundation is comparable to many of the of the Ottoman conquest, religious life in Cairo was Mamluk period and also to the khanqah of Sultan al­ dominated by Sufi shaykhs with large followings, Ghuri. It had no living quarters, but interestingly, the