Dr. Stephennie Mulder Profile picture
Apr 20, 2021 27 tweets 13 min read Read on X
15 years ago I published my first article. It was about the Mausoleum of Imam al-Shafi'i in Cairo, built in 1211 by Sultan al-Kamil, nephew of the great Saladin. Now it is again resplendent thanks to an exquisite restoration by May al-Ibrashy & team. A story for #WorldHeritageDay
In 1180, Saladin had vanquished both the Fatimids and the Crusaders, and his first construction in Cairo - even before building the Citadel - was here, at the burial place of the Imam al-Shafi'i, founder of one of the Sunni legal schools and long a beloved figure in the city.
Imam al-Shafi'i's mausoleum was located in the most southerly of Cairo's ancient necropolises, often called the Cities of the Dead, though then, as now, they were in fact filled with life. theislamicmonthly.com/living-amongst…
The cemeteries are replete with holy sites of pious visitation (ziyāra), and they are also a home for hundreds of thousands of residents of the city, who live among the tombs and serve as their caretakers. Their story was told in Sérgio Tréfaut's 2009 film
Saladin founded a great madrasa complex and for the tomb, an exquisite teak cenotaph. It's a masterpiece of medieval carving and joinery, signed by "'Ubayd the carpenter, known as Ibn Ma'ali", who implored God to have mercy on him and his fellow carpenters. Photo: Bernard O'Kane
And we definitely need one more shout out to the woodworker Ibn Ma'ali, whose work is still absolute perfection after 843 years.
Photo: Ahmed Mansour
Saladin was initially reluctant to expend so much money on the madrasa, but he was *literally* browbeaten by a pious and ascetic Ash'ari sheikh named Najm al-Din al-Khabushani, who is the only one credited in the foundation inscription. Al-Khabushani was kind of an intense guy...
A few years later in 1211, al-Kamil enlarged the mausoleum with an astonishing dome - still today, the largest dome in Egypt and one of the largest domes in the Islamic world, just slightly smaller than the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Photo: me!
Sailing through the sky atop the towering dome is a boat, unique in Islamic architecture. It is said that the building's waqf provided for it to be filled with seeds for birds, and that when Saladin was asked about it, he replied "beneath this dome lies a sea of knowledge".
The vast, hushed space is always filled with pious visitors. They come to pray, to partake of the Imam's baraka (blessing) and to write him notes, letters, and entreaties. It's an immense, solemn, and moving space, replete with the dignity and history of Cairo's rich Islamic past
Yet the mausoleum, like many of the medieval monuments of Cairo, was in a precarious state. Its once-exquisitely-painted tiered muqarnas domes and golden-calligraphed wooden brackets had faded to a dark, dull brown through years of exposure to the city’s notorious air pollution.
There is never enough money to preserve Cairo's extraordinary medieval architectural patrimony - there are so many buildings. I just finished an article on Mamluk architecture and well, imagine a city with nearly a thousand medieval cathedrals preserved. That's Islamic Cairo.
Egypt tends to focus on its ancient Pharaonic past because that's where the tourist dollars are, and of course Egypt has many other challenges. Preserving Cairo's astonishing wealth of medieval architecture falls pretty far down the line most days. bbc.com/news/world-mid…
So imagine my absolute delight when I opened my laptop yesterday to see the interior glowing with a soft, shimmering luminescence it has not known for centuries, and to learn that May Al-Ibrashy and her team have just completed the renovation of the mausoleum.
It's an outstandingly careful, sensitive, and elegant renovation - behind all this beauty there lies ten long years of struggle: with permits, with the indifference of authorities, with fundraising, and with overseeing the completion of the work itself. facebook.com/Megawra/videos…
I am in awe of those who are working to save Cairo's medieval past. Thank you. What a gift to the people of Egypt. 🙏
Photo: Ahmed Mansour
If you'd like to read my article about the Mausoleum of the Imam al-Shafi'i, it's available on @archnet: archnet.org/publications/6…
And to learn more about Imam al-Shafi'i and his place in the hearts of the people of Cairo, highly recommend @kecia_ali's biography! simonandschuster.com/books/Imam-Sha…
The restoration of the mausoleum is part of Athar Lina, a community-focused heritage initiative that aims to establish modalities of citizen participation in heritage conservation based on an understanding of the monument as a resource, not a burden. atharlina.com/projects/al-im…
It was funded by the @USEmbassyCairo's Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation and was implemented by @Megawra.
May al-Ibrashy's participatory, community-focused heritage projects were highlighted in this article in @ahramonline on Monday. Her heroic, community-centered work to preserve Cairo's heritage is an inspiration. This is how it should be done. english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/32…
Yet despite designation as a @UNESCO world heritage site, Cairo's historic cemeteries are still under threat from highway construction by Egypt's @AlsisiOfficial gov't, which has bypassed the recommendations of Egyptian heritage organizations. madamasr.com/en/2021/02/08/…
One of the new flyovers has already been constructed, and directly impacts the historic integrity of the cemetery near the Mausoleum of Imam al-Shafi'i. Despite international condemnation, the @AlsisiOfficial government moves forward with its plans. washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/high…
Egyptians have voiced their disapproval:
That pressure has paid off in the past few months, forcing the government to stop the demolition of two historic areas, al-Hattaba and Arab al-Yasar, just south of the citadel. Athar Lina already has a @FordFoundation project to develop al-Hattaba: atharlina.com/projects/studi…
In the end, we can all play a role in the preservation of cultural heritage. These projects show us an inspiring way forward: in community-based preservation approaches, in publicity and pressure from the public, and in the hard work of a talented team of heritage professionals.
A detailed overview of the history of the building and of the restoration process can be found here: khalifa.atharlina.com/monuments/al-s…

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More from @stephenniem

May 21, 2022
It was so fun meeting this guy again! @SAMAart on Monday at the opening of the exhibition for the 1st c. BC Roman portrait bust found in an Austin Goodwill, brought home for $34.99 by local antiques dealer Laura Young, who promptly nicknamed him Dennis
How did a Roman portrait bust from a museum in Germany end up in a Goodwill in Texas? Probably brought back in the kit bag of an American soldier after the museum was bombed in WWII, his family likely donated it after he passed away. We’ll probably never know for certain.
The identity of the man depicted is not certain, but thanks to the intrepid research of @lynleyjmcalpine we have a lead
Read 9 tweets
Oct 24, 2021
I have seen Timothée of Arabia caress the spice-laden sands while having messianic visions of a blue-eyed Zendaya in a desert perfume commercial and reader, on the whole, it was magnificent. A few thoughts on #DuneMovie 🧵
Herbert's story turns the Star Wars-style hero's journey and the white savior story on its head, subverting readers' expectations of a heroic superman by writing a mid-20th century critique of empire and imperialism, as @use_theforce_em has argued tor.com/2019/03/06/why…
Villeneuve seems to be following the overall narrative arc of Herbert's novel closely, as he sets up Paul's inevitable fall as a failed messianic/imperial leader. The film ends just at the point when Paul begins his journey into megalomania that will end in imperial autocracy.
Read 15 tweets
Jan 4, 2021
This conversation about @UTAustin athletics raises interesting points. Buckle up, it’s time to talk about the value of the humanities and ask how we got in a situation where it seems logical to argue sports and STEM matter more than history.
First, this argument hinges on the idea that that the monetary worth of a thing is its primary form of value, and that in a free-market, democratic society, monetary investments “naturally” reflect the desires of the people.
That system of value has a name: neoliberalism, an economic and political model that has its own distinctive history – first theorized by economists at the University of Chicago in the 1950s and ‘60s, it was then embraced by politicians in the ‘80s and ‘90s in the U.S. and U.K.
Read 31 tweets
Oct 11, 2020
Congratulations @wendymk for winning Honorable Mention for the Albert Hourani Book Award at #MESA2020! This is only the second time an Islamic art historian has won the prize, and it couldn't go to a more paradigm-shifting book. Read it.
"Professor Shaw’s book is a bold and successful attempt to reconceptualize the historiography of Islamic art outside the current Euro-centric and colonial paradigm."
mesana.org/awards/awardee…
"To do so Shaw takes “Islam” seriously as a category of analysis, arguing that it drives the production of Islamic art, rather than being incidental to it. In the process she places in generative tension the Islamic and Western paradigms for understanding agency and subjectivity"
Read 4 tweets
Oct 11, 2020
There are so many things wrong with this analysis that I'm not sure where to begin. First, Dune is so patently *not* inspired by the fall of Roman Empire - Herbert calls it The Galactic Padishah Empire for a reason. It's not subtle. Not everything in history is Rome, Tom.
The idea that early Muslims would have understood the "fall of Rome" is equally anachronistic. The early Arabs experienced the Roman empire as a continuous & living entity: what we call (equally anachronistically) Byzantium, they called Rome, al-Rūm. hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?is…
And not only did they view the Eastern Roman Empire as a living entity, it was a vibrant source of inspiration: influencing art, scholarship, and knowledge production in the early Islamic period. halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-0081740…
Read 5 tweets
Oct 11, 2020
'Herbert’s future is one where “Islam” is...a part of the future universe at every level. The world of Dune cannot be separated from its language...Even jihad, a complex, foundational principle of Herbert’s universe, is flattened – and Christianised – to crusade.'
'And, of course, writing in the 1950s and 1960s, the jihad of Frank Herbert’s imagination was not the same as ours [but] exhibits...influence of Sufism and its reading of jihad, where, unlike in a crusade, a leader’s spiritual transformation determined the legitimacy of his war.'
'When a director...casts people of colour out of the future, ...casts Islam out of the future, they reveal their own expectations and anxieties. They reveal an imagination at ease with genocide...with a whitewashed future that does not have any of the “mess” of the contemp world'
Read 4 tweets

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