Today passes the birthday of Abu Al-Abbas Ahmed bin Tulun, founder of the Tulunid state in Egypt and the Levant from the period "254 AH/868 - 270 AH/884", as he was born on this day, September 20, 835, and during his reign he was able to build many The buildings that have become one of the most prominent monuments in Egypt, including the Ahmed Ibn Tulun Mosque, one of the famous archaeological mosques in Cairo, and the third mosques of Islam in Islamic Egypt, after the Amr Ibn Al-Aas Mosque and the Al-Askar Mosque, in addition to being considered the oldest existing mosques in Egypt so far to preserve it. In its original condition, what was the reason behind the construction of the Great Mosque?
The story of the mosque’s construction goes back to the fact that when Fustat narrowed its residents, Ahmed bin Tulun founded the city of Qata’i in 256 AH, and built a mosque in the middle of it that was built in the year 265 AH. With the exception of the direction of the qiblah, it is six and a half acres, and the city of Al-Qata’a is considered the first royal city established in the Nile Valley in the Islamic era. The seat of the independent ruler is completely independent and is not linked to the Abbasid Caliph other than religious affiliation.
According to the book “The Mosques of Egypt and its Righteous Guardians”, by Dr. Souad Maher Muhammad, it came in the biography of Ibn Tulun about the reason why Ibn Tulun built his mosque, that he used to pray Friday in the old mosque adjacent to the police, and when he was tired of building the new mosque in what God gave him from the money that God gave him He found it on the mountain in the place known as the furnace of Pharaoh.
The book “The Mosques of Egypt and its Righteous Guardians” explained that there were many stories and stories that were told about the money or treasure that Ibn Tulun found, and enabled him to build such a great mosque and the rest of its great facilities such as the palace and the Bimaristan. This is just one of the myths that the majority of medieval historians tend to repeat in such fields with the intention of noting that such extreme maintenance cannot be managed by the Caliph or the Sultan unless God Almighty provides him with an unknown unseen sustenance, and that is only in hidden treasures. .
Al-Maqrizi says that Ibn Tulun built a mosque in a place known as Jabal Shukur, between Egypt and the Dome of Air. Al-Maqrizi attributes the building of the mosque to a Christian engineer based on the following story: “When he wanted to build the mosque, he estimated it for three hundred columns, and he was told what you can find or go to churches in the countryside and in ruins. A spring of water, and he was angry with him, beat him, and threw him in prison, so he wrote to him saying, “I build it for you as you like and you choose. There are no pillars except the two perpendicular to the qiblah.” So he brought him and commanded that the skins be brought to him, so they were brought “in order to draw on them the layout of the mosque.” And he gave him one hundred thousand dinars for the maintenance of the mosque, so the Copt put his hand in building in the place where he is, which is a thankful mountain. He carried to him the boxes of the Qur’an and conveyed to him Readers and scholars.
Mon, Sep. 20, 2021
