Historical and Architectural Importance

[Picture source: © 1978 Michael Meinecke]

Compared to congregational mosques constructed in Cairo during the reign of sultan an-Nasir Muhammad[1], the mosque of Altunbugha al-Nasiri is rather humble in scale and ornamentation. Its decoration is deeply rooted in local traditions and the mosque became formative for later Mamluk mosques in Aleppo. Thus the muqarnas vaulting, ending in a ribbed cupola of twelve segments in front of the mihrab, finds its predecessors in the prayer hall vault of the Madrasa ash-Sharifiyya in Aleppo with a ribbed cupola of 16 segments, dated to 658/1260[2]. However, it also has contemporary parallels on the northwestern portal of the mosque of al-Nasir Muhammad at the citadel in Cairo, dated to 728/1318[3].

The interlacing bands on the arch front of the portal also recalls local Ayyubid forerunners, like the one of the mihrab of the Madrasa as-Sultaniyya in Aleppo, dated to 620/1223[4].

Herzfeld remarks that the former decoration of the mihrab, which is documented by his photographs, also recalls in a simplified way the mihrab of the Madrasa as-Sultaniyya, showing narrow recessed arcades in the niche and columns with Corinthian capitals in the corners. However, no marble intarsia was used on the Mamluk mihrab. He furthermore compares the mihrab with the one in the Madrasa Ẓāhiriyya[5], dated to 610/1213–14[6], which also shows the recessed but larger arcades in the niche and columns with Corinthian capitals in the corners. Nowadays these features are hard to retrace as the mihrab has been resurfaced.

The decoration of the minaret with an alternating cusp and chevron frame around the windows of its upper register also refers to pre-Mamluk examples[7]. However, it is almost contemporary to the Minaret of al-Dabbāgha al-ʿAtīqa (c. 1300[8]), where also a similarly decorated frame can be found around windows.[9]

Meinecke emphasizes that the entire ceiling of this mosque is cross vaulted, a feature which had already been implemented in Aleppo on the Great Mosque in 684/1285[10]. He highlights the mosque of Altunbugha as exemplary of a later group of riwaq mosques with a two nave qibla wing entirely vaulted with an additional cupola spanning the bay in front of the mihrab, starting with the Mosque of Mankalibugha ash-Shamsi in 764/1362-63[11]. In any case, Meinecke points out this vaulting as a characteristic feature of Aleppine mosques, a feature that, as he argued, was exported to other parts of the Syrian province in Mamluk times by itinerant craftsmen[12].

Concerning the hitherto rather unusual design of the octagonal minaret, Meinecke looks beyond Aleppo and traces it back to the octagonal stone minaret of the Great mosque in Urfa/ar-Ruha (before 587/1191-92)[13]. According to Meinecke, the earliest octagonal minaret documented in Mamluk Syria was the minaret above the portal of the Zawiya Shaykh Ali Bakka in Hebron 702/1303, which is divided into two zones[14]. The minaret of the mosque of Altunbugha al-Nasiri is the second instance of such an octagonal minaret appearing[15]. Starting with this minaret, this form becomes very common in Aleppo[16].