Rescue of the Crow’s Son Legacy: Conservation of the Mausoleum of Amir Sa‘d al-Din Ibn Ghurab

Written by Agnieszka Dobrowolska 

The “City of the Dead” in Cairo is a unique urban and social environment. Unlike cemeteries in the West, the vast Muslim cemeteries have always been meant to be a city for the living too. The mausolea of rulers and princes were huge multifunctional complexes that comprised mosques endowed as religious schools, Sufi convents, and various charities, as well as extensive service facilities, and permanently employed a considerable number of people. Many of these monuments are world-class masterpieces of Islamic art. Nowadays, the area is home to a numerous and vibrant community, although it is underprivileged and under-serviced. 

Since 2014, the Cairo-based consulting office ARCHiNOS Architecture has been working in the Qaitbey area of the cemetery with the double purpose of preserving its precious heritage and of reintegrating it with the lives of the people of the neighborhood. The project, funded primarily by the European Union and the Drosos Foundation, includes work in a huge lot that was once part of the Sultan’s private-use section of his funerary complex and which ARCHiNOS intends to open to the public as an archaeological park together with the adjacent earlier structures. 

ARCE had already been involved in the enterprise when its Egyptian Antiquities Fund awarded ARCHiNOS a grant for conservation of the tomb of Amir Mankalibugha, which was carried out in 2018 – 2019. Then, ARCE came to the rescue again when it funded work on the mausoleum of a man whose name translates to “Son of a Crow”: Ibn Ghurab. 

Photo left: The mausoleum of Ibn Ghurab in November 2022. Credit: George Fakhri

Photo: right: Interior of the mausoleum in November 2018 . Credit: Credit: Jarosław Dobrowolski

Al-qadi (judge) Amir Sa‘d al-Din Ibn Ghurab was an intriguing character even by the standards of the turbulent Mamluk history. Born in Alexandria to a converted Coptic family, he managed to gain the confidence of Sultan al-Zahir Barquq and became controller of his private treasury at the age of twenty. Ibn Ghurab remained in the service of Sultan Barquq’s son and successor al-Nasir Farag and was promoted to ever-higher offices. He changed his dress to that of a Mamluk, and finally attained the highest military rank in the Mamluk hierarchy though he did not belong to the caste, a rare feat in the Mamluk’s closed ranks.

When al-Nasir was deposed briefly in 1405, Ibn Ghurab hid him in his house and supported financially. He later boasted that he had deposed the sultan, then brought him back, and had he wanted, he could become sultan himself. Ibn Ghurab died of natural causes at the age of thirty, and is buried in a small domed mausoleum in what is now known as the Desert of the Mamluks. Built before 1405 at the beginning of the Burgi Mamluk period (1382 – 1517), the mausoleum is in a conservative style that resembles the preceding Bahri Mamluk era with its fluted dome sitting on a simple stepped base and its honeycomb-pattern windows. The architecture is rather simple, but the craftsmanship of stone and brick masonry is of very high quality. 

Some seventy years later, the illustrious sultan al-Ashraf Qaitbey built next door his enormous funerary complex, a masterpiece of Islamic art. 

Conservation work in progress, October 2022. Photo: Mahmud Badawi

Time took a heavy toll on the Son of the Crow’s mausoleum. By the 2010s, the whole surrounding area had been covered with layers of rubble and refuse 3-4 meters deep. The entrance door was buried underneath, and the interior was inaccessible save for the dogs who burrowed their way inside. The building was also in precarious structural condition. A small grant from the Barakat Trust in July 2019 – February 2020 helped to avert impending collapse, but the building was still in dire need of conservation. The ARCE/AEF-funded work commenced in November 2021 and was completed in October 2022. 

Interior of the mausoleum in November 2018. Photo: Jarosław Dobrowolski

It comprised two components: conservation of the fabrics of the building and its decoration, and excavations in the immediate surroundings with the aim of opening the area to the public. As is the case with all conservation work by ARCHiNOS, the objective was to preserve and protect the existing original material. Interventions were based on surveys, studies, and recommendations of structural and conservation experts, and backed by full documentation. With experience gained on long-lasting previous work, ARCHiNOS team structurally consolidated the building’s masonry, and conserved its fabrics and decoration, including fragmentarily protected carved stucco decoration and remnants of ceramic tiles band. 

The effort was literally crowned with the installation of a crescent finial, where the replacement for the missing one was donated by the Metalwork Department of the Faculty of Applied Arts of Helwan University. 

A small self-guiding exhibit has been installed inside, explaining the building and its history and designed consistently with displays set up in nearby monuments. 

The project’s crowning moment: 30 August 2022. Photo credit: Mahmud Badawi 

The work was headed by Agnieszka Dobrowolska, a conservation architect who first directed a conservation project for ARCE in 1996-1998, then continued with more. 

 The recent work at the tomb of Ibn Ghurab is an example of how an ARCE/AEF involvement in a larger, primarily EU-funded project can be a meaningful contribution to grafting together historic preservation with work benefitting the local community. 

To learn more about the fascinating Qaitbey neighbourhood, visit www.aliveinthecityofthedead.com  

More about ARCHiNOS and its work can be found at www.archinos.com