Adjoining the N.W. façade, erected by Abbâs II. (p. [444]) in the neo-Arabian style, is the Bâb el-Museiyinîn (‘barber’s gate’), built in the time of Abd er-Rahmân, now the chief entrance, where a guide is assigned to the visitor. Adjacent to the gateway, on the right, is the Mesgid Taibarsîyeh, restored by Abd er-Rahmân, containing a superb mihrâb or prayer-recess of 1309, richly adorned with mosaics. On the left is the Zâwiyet el-Ibtighâwîyeh, also of the 14th cent., now the library.
The handsome inner portal, built along with the contiguous minaret by Kâït Bey (p. [458]), leads into the sahn (p. [444]), or chief quadrangle, flanked with five minarets, and always enlivened by knots of students, mostly grouped in their various nationalities. The colonnades, restored in the time of Tewfik (p. [444]), have the Persian keel-arches, in special favour with the Shiites, the walls above which are tastefully decorated with medallions and niches and crowned with pinnacles. The lateral lîwâns on the N.E. and S.W. sides of the quadrangle are allotted to students of different countries and provinces as sleeping-apartments and studies (riwâk). The court of ablutions (p. [63]), behind the N.E. lîwân, dates from the time of Kâït Bey.
The Chief Lîwân, or sanctuary, on the S.E. side of the quadrangle, with its 140 antique and Byzantine marble columns, forms the great lecture-room. No lectures are given on Thursdays or during the fasting-month of Ramadan. The low front half of this great hall, with its four much restored rows of arcades, belongs to the original building. The dome of the vestibule, the broad transept borne by two rows of columns, and the dome of the old mihrâb, all point to the Sidi Okba mosque of Kairwan (p. [374]) as their prototype. The raised inner half of the sanctuary, with its two prayer-niches, was added by Abd er-Rahmân.
The dilapidated Okella of Kâït Bey (1496), behind the S. angle of the university, with its sebîl (p. [445]), has a charming façade.
We next visit the N. half of the old city of the Fatimites. In the Shâria el-Gohergîyeh (Pl. E, 3), in line with Shâria el-Khordagîyeh (p. [446]), we are struck with the façades (on the left) of the Muristân Kalâûn, the Medreseh Mohammed en-Nâsir, and the Barkûkîyeh, on the site of the Fatimite palaces.
The Muristân Kalâûn (Pl. E, 3), a great hospital begun by the Mameluke sultan El-Mansûr Kalâûn (1279–90) in 1285, shows the influence of the European architectural style which the Crusaders had introduced into Syria. The massive portal, flanked with a minaret 192 ft. high, leads into a long corridor. On the left is a small Mosque, partly restored. On the right is the *Tomb of Kalâûn, completed in 1293 by his son Mohammed en-Nâsir (1293–1340), one of the most beautiful Arabian buildings in Cairo. The square hall has a rich timber ceiling; the mosaics of the walls and central pillars are composed of marble and mother-of-pearl, and the superb prayer-niche is enriched with porphyry columns and dwarf arcades. The wards for the sick and lecture-rooms, grouped round the large quadrangle, now partly used as store-rooms and workshops, are sadly disfigured.
The adjoining *Medreseh Mohammed en-Nâsir (Pl. E, 3), dating from 1303, also is in a ruinous condition. It is entered by a Gothic church-portal brought from Acre in Syria. The fine minaret, the sanctuary (on the left), and the tomb of the founder (on the right) show remains of tasteful stucco decoration recalling the Alhambra (p. [79]).
The Barkûkîyeh (Pl. E, 3), the medreseh of the Mameluke sultan Barkûk (1382–99), with its octagonal minaret, has suffered from the gaudy modern painting of the sanctuary and of the mausoleum, in which reposes a daughter of Barkûk. The dikkeh for the prayer-reciter (p. [180]) is modern.
Farther to the N. in the same line of streets is the lively Shâria en-Nahhâsîn, in which is the market of the coppersmiths. On the right is the façade of the Dâr Beshtâk Palace (Pl. E, 3), erected by Emir Beshtâk in 1330, but now entirely altered. At the next bifurcation we come to the *Sebîl Abd er-Rahmân (p. [447]), one of the finest structures of the kind. Upstairs the hall of an elementary school affords from its windows a capital view of the busy Nahhâsîn Street.
Farther on the main street is called Shâria el-Margush el-Barrâni. Immediately to the right is the Gâmia el-Ahmar (Pl. E, 2; ‘red mosque’), built in 1125 by the grand vizier of the Fatimite Amr ben Mustali. The fine façade, recently brought to light in part, with its high pointed niches in square framework alternating with smaller niches in two stories, shows the oldest stalactite vaulting in Cairo, and is therefore historically interesting.