The story of Cairo . naret of thesmall mosque of Akbugha included in the Azhar buildingsand erected in 1331 was the first minaret built of stone inthe land of Egypt after the Mansuriya of Kalaun ; fromwhich we infer that Kalauns minaret (of 1284) was thefirst stone minaret known to the topographer. He wouldprobably not call the tower of Ibn-Tulun strictly a minaret,and he evidently knew nothing of the stone minarets of themosque of el-Hakim (see below, p. 138). 2 There is a small cupola over the niche, but this, like thepulpit and most of the decoration of the liwan, belongs tothe restoration
The story of Cairo . naret of thesmall mosque of Akbugha included in the Azhar buildingsand erected in 1331 was the first minaret built of stone inthe land of Egypt after the Mansuriya of Kalaun ; fromwhich we infer that Kalauns minaret (of 1284) was thefirst stone minaret known to the topographer. He wouldprobably not call the tower of Ibn-Tulun strictly a minaret,and he evidently knew nothing of the stone minarets of themosque of el-Hakim (see below, p. 138). 2 There is a small cupola over the niche, but this, like thepulpit and most of the decoration of the liwan, belongs tothe restoration by Lagin in 1296. The central domedablution tank is also a later addition, replacing the originalmarble basin resting on columns under a roof. 8$ The Story of Cairo Only when there is a chapel attached to a mosque,containing the tomb of the founder or his family, isthere a dome, and it is no more closely connectedwith the mosque itself than is the grave it covers:neither is necessary to a place of prayer. It DETAIL OF ORNAMENT IN MOSQUE OF IBN-TULUN however, that a large number of the mosques of Cairoare mausoleums, containing a chamber with the tomb ofthe founder, and the profusion of domes to be seen,when one looks down upon the city from the battle-ments of the Citadel, has. brought about the notunnatural mistake of thinking that every mosque musthave a dome. Most mosques with tombs have domes,but no mosque that was not intended to contain a tombever had one in the true sense. The origin of the 84 The Faubourgs dome may be traced to the cupolas which surmount thegraves of Babylonia, many of which must have beenfamiliar to the Arabs [and still more to the Turks],who preserved the essentially sepulchral character ofthe form and never used it, as did the Copts andByzantines, to say nothing of Western architects, toroof a church or its apse. But if there is little originality in the shape of themosque, its pointed arches and its decoration are worthstudying. Pointed ar
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