The Crown of Mosques, Amr Ibn Al-Aas Mosque

The Amr Ibn Al-Aas Mosque is the second mosque erected in Egypt after the Sadat Quraish Mosque in Belbeis, Sharkia Governorate. It was established in Fustat by the great Companion Amr Ibn Al-Aas. May God be pleased with him, in the year 21 AH, 641 AD, after his conquest of Egypt, and eighty companions participated in determining his qiblah. Hold Al-Asmar

(The imam of mosques, the leader of the temples, the pole of the sky of the mosques, the riser of the brilliant lights, the home of the friends of God and his party.

In the meeting of the Minbar of Civilization with the famous researcher of Islamic antiquities Abu Al-Ela Khalil, he explains that Amr ibn al-Aas, may God be pleased with him, chose to build a mosque on the eastern bank of the Nile in an area with vineyards, about a hundred meters south of the Babylon fortress. The course of the Nile gradually moved towards the west until it became what it is now, and the current mosque does not include anything from the original old mosque that Amr built other than the area of ​​land on which it was built. mihrab

Whole layout

Abu El-Ela Khalil describes the planning of Amr Mosque as the oldest and most important architectural model for building mosques, which is the style derived from the architecture of the Prophet’s Mosque, meaning the style that consists of a square middle court surrounded on its four sides by four galleries, the deepest of which is the qibla portico. east and adjacent to its wall and leaving between it and the mosque a road about four meters wide, similar to the mosque of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, and his house in Medina

It is beautiful what Abd al-Rahman ibn Abd al-Hakam mentioned in the conquests of Egypt and its news (Amr ibn al-Aas wrote to the Caliph Omar ibn al-Khattab, may God be pleased with them: I have planned – that is, we built – for you a house at the Jami Mosque. And he ordered him to make it a marketplace for Muslims, and this house was known as “the House of Baraka”) as Amr built a bath next to the mosque known as the mouse’s pigeon. And when they saw his youth, they said: Who enters this bathroom! This is a mouse pigeon) And after Amr had finished building a mosque, he took a pulpit for him similar to the pulpit of the mosque of the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, in Medina. Ibn Zuhra on the brilliant virtues – and he was sent to him: Is it not enough for you to stand while the Muslims are sitting under your feet? So Amr broke it.

The story of the minaret

The researcher in Islamic antiquities, Abu Al-Ala Khalil, explains to the Minbar of Civilization that the Amr Ibn Al-Aas Mosque has gained the patronage and care of the rulers and rulers over time. This architecture is that the mosque was too narrow for Muslims, so they complained to a Muslima, so Muslimah wrote to Caliph Muawiyah asking him for permission to do so. Ibn al-Aas until the road between him and the house narrowed, as he provided a Muslima in this architecture of the mosque with a minaret, which later became the basis for the emergence of one of the important features in the design of mosques because Maslama ibn Makhlid built four silos in the corners of the mosque to give the call to prayer and engraved his name on them. He ordered the muezzins to call the dawn prayer. If the middle of the night has passed, it is commanded not to strike a bell at dawn, as it was first.

Al-Kindi mentioned in the Book of Governors and Judges (that the muezzins of the Amr ibn al-Aas mosque used to call for dawn first, and when they finished their ears, every muezzin in the mosques of Fustat called out at the same time, and their ears were loud)

Dar Amr

Abu Al-Ela Khalil refers to the second addition to the mosque at the hands of the governor Abdul Aziz bin Marwan by the Umayyad Caliph Abdul Malik in Marwan in the year 79 AH, 698 AD, so he increased on the side facing the qiblah, where he entered the spacious room that Muslimah bin Makhlid had added in the year 53 AH, 673 AD. He could expand the mosque from its northeastern side because the house of Amr ibn al-Aas was on this side.

Ibn Taghri Barada mentioned in the shining stars (and it is said that he entered the mosque one day at the break of dawn and saw heaviness in his family, so he ordered the doors of the mosque to be closed for them, then he began to inquire about their condition man by man, and he would say to the man: Do you have a wife? He says, “No.” He says, “Do you have a debt?” He says, “Yes.” He says, “Pay his debt.” So he built the mosque after that for a long time.

Correcting the qiblah and entering the pulpits

Abu Al-Ela Khalil explains that the third addition to Amr Mosque was at the hands of the governor, Qara bin Sharik, by the Umayyad Caliph Al-Walid bin Abdul-Malik in the year 93 AH, 711 AD. It took a whole year during which the mosque area increased, as parts of the house of Amr and the house of his son Abdullah were entered in the northeastern side. He also expanded a little from the qiblah direction, and Qara bin Shareek took this opportunity and turned the direction of the qiblah. It slightly deviated from the correct direction.

In the year 94 AH, 713 AD, Qara bin Shareek added a wooden pulpit to the Mosque of Amr, followed by the introduction of the pulpits in the villages of Egypt. In Baghdad, Saleh bin Ali expanded the mosque from the northwestern corner and entered the house of the great companion Al-Zubayr bin Al-Awam and added a door to the mosque in c.

His northern house was known as the Kohl Gate because it was located opposite Kohl Alley.

The story of the mosque sparkling.

Abu Al-Ela Khalil continues, pointing out that the fifth increase in the Amr Ibn Al-Aas Mosque is considered the largest and most recent. It was made during the reign of the governor of Egypt, Abdullah bin Taher, by the Abbasid Caliph Al-Ma’mun in 212 AH, 827 AD, where Abdullah bin Taher added a new area to the mosque from the south side, equivalent to the area Which it was on, and the area of ​​the mosque has become what it is now 120 m length, 112 m width.

In the courtyard of the Amr ibn al-Aas Mosque, Osama ibn Zayd al-Tanukhi, who was responsible for taxation – meaning taxes, was built in Egypt in the year 97 AH. In his succession, Suleiman ibn Abd al-Malik, a building with a dome known as the Bait al-Mal to preserve the state’s money, deposited orphans’ money to protect them from loss.

In 378 AH, during his succession, Al-Aziz Billah, the second Fatimid caliph in Egypt, the Minister Yaqoub bin Kilis built a fountain (a fountain) under the Bait Al-Mal and installed in the fountain marble beads for water – that is, Aziyar. (The mosque is of old construction, unadorned. The people of Fustat take it as a place for a picnic, so they sit around it and eat their food, the boys go around them with pots of water, the boys play in its bowl, and the sellers sell in it all kinds of nuts and cakes, and the people cross it with their feet from door to door to bring them closer to the road, but I found in it a lot of comfort and peace without a view that necessitates that, so I knew that it was a secret deposited by the companions, may God be pleased with them, standing in its courtyard when it was built)

In the year 702 AH, 1303 AD, the country was hit by a devastating earthquake that cracked the walls of the mosque, so Prince Salar, during the reign of the Mamluk Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad ibn Qalawun, built a large building for the mosque from which there is now a plaster mihrab that is still seen in the main facade of the mosque from the outside, in addition to some stucco windows in that wall. The mihrab has a strip of Arabic writing in the beautiful thuluth script, the name “Salar”, and very precise and creative vegetal decorations.

The two minarets and the mihrabs

In the Ottoman era, the Amr Ibn Al-Aas Mosque witnessed the reforms of Prince Murad Bey in 1212 AH, 1797 AD. About that, Al-Jabarti mentions in the wonders of antiquities in translations and news (when Prince Murad Bey saw the destruction of the Amr Mosque and the fall of its ceilings, he thought of renovating it and spending great money on it, so he built its pillars and built its structure and erected its columns And he built two minarets, and they are the two remaining until now, and he furnished them all with the Fayoumi mat and hung lamps with it. Murad Bey proved the history of this architecture in historical panels above the western doors and the large and small mihrabs in the qibla portico. The qibla wall has two mihrabs dating back to the era of Murad Bey.

Tomb of Abdullah bin Amr

Located in the northeastern corner of the Qibla hallway is a shrine attributed to the great companion Abdullah bin Amr bin Al-Aas, who died and was buried in his house in 65 AH when the Umayyad Caliph Marwan bin Al-Hakam came to Egypt to extract it from the governor of Egypt, Abd al-Rahman bin Jahdam al-Fihri by Abdullah bin Zubair when he was pledged allegiance. Caliphate in Makkah Al-Mukarramah

Al-Kindi mentions in the Book of Governors and Judges (No one was able to go out with his funeral to the cemetery because the soldiers rioted against the Caliph Marwan bin Al-Hakam, so he was buried in his house). Passers-by and Ibn Taghri Barada mentioned in the Book of Al-Nujoum Al-Zahirah that in the year 93 AH, the governor, Qara bin Sharik, made an increase to the mosque from the eastern side, so he took some of the house of Amr bin Al-Aas and his son Abdullah in the mosque and took from them the road between the mosque and between them, and the tomb of Abdullah bin Amr remained unknown. And the landmarks, because it was not customary or acceptable to bury the dead inside mosques until the Ottoman era, so Prince Murad Bey built a large building in the mosque. Perhaps he wanted to revive the presence of the tomb of Abdullah bin Amr inside the mosque. In memory of the mosque’s founder, who died on the eve of Eid al-Fitr, i.e. in the last days of Ramadan.