>> From the Library of Congress in Washington DC.
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>> JOAN WEEKS: So, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of all my colleagues, in particular, Dr. Mary-Jane Deeb, Chief of the African and Middle East Division, I would like to extend a very warm welcome to everyone. I'm Joan Weeks, head of the Near East Section and the sponsor of today's program. We were very pleased to present this program to you on Islamic Architecture and its relevance to daily human needs.  But, before we start today's program, I'd like to give you just a brief overview of our reading room and our division.  This is a custodial division and it's comprised of three sections that build and serve our collections to researchers from around the world. We cover over 78 countries and more than two dozen languages. The Africa section includes all of the countries of South Saharan Africa. The Hebraic section covers all of Hebraica worldwide and the Near East section covers all of the Arabic countries including North Africa, Turkey, Turkic Central Asia, Iran, Afghanistan and the Muslims of Western China, Russia, and the Balkans, and both of the Caucuses. You can see how expansive our coverage is. After the program, we'd like to invite you to fill in the little evaluation forms we've left in your chairs. This gives us an opportunity to see how you like the program and evaluate them. Also, we left little flyers in your seats about our 4 Corners blog and if you sign up for the blog and our Facebook page, you get to hear about our future programs and also see some very interesting posts by our curators. We would also let you know that this program is being videotaped so that if you ask a question at the end, you're implicitly giving our permission to be videotaped. And after the program, we have a lovely surprise. We'd like to invite you to a reception in out Northeast Pavilion behind here. And we want to thank the Egyptian Embassy for providing all of the wonderful food and drink. So, now I'd like to call upon my colleague, Fawzi Tadros to introduce our speaker. Thank you.
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>>FAWZI TADROS: Ladies and Gentlemen, Dr. Heba Abdelnabi received her PhD through the University of Alexandria Egypt in 2004. She received the Fulbright Foundation's scholarship to conduct research and teach at Marymount College, Virginia in 2007 and 2008. There, she taught Islamic art and architecture. Currently, she is teaching Islamic architecture at University of Alexandria, Egypt. Dr. Abdelnabi has published a number of research papers in numerous national and international journals. She has published a number of books on topics related to art, architecture and social life during the Islamic era. She held a number of administrative positions- an executive manager of quality assurance unit and she is currently vice dean for graduate students and research at the faculty of Alexandria. Dr. Abdelnabi will be speaking today on the various structure in Islamic architecture including religious, military, residential, and commercial. Dr. Abdelnabi is a member of the Islamic art historian of the United Kingdom, the Middle East Association and the Arab Historian Association. Please join me in welcoming Dr. Abdelnabi.
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>>HEBA: I'm really honored to be invited today by the Congress Library. Together, I mean the African and Middle Eastern division, in collaboration with the Egyptian Cultural, and the Egyptian Bureau to give a lecture about Islamic architecture. So I'm very thankful to Dr. Fawzi Tadros, Dr. Maidi, Dr. Muhammad-Hamsa, and Dr. Megged Said. Today the lecture will be about Islamic architecture. Actually it will be like an overview about Islamic architecture from the 7th till the 18th century. The aim of the lecture is to answer two main questions. The first question is: were the buildings designed to meet the daily life needs of the people, the Islamic architectural buildings? Were the buildings also designed to meet the needs of the environment? Those are the two main questions I intend to answer, or to try to answer today during this lecture. I thought it would be helpful to start with the chronology of Egypt, the chronology of the Islamic era in general. First, to show you where we can see Islamic architecture, and so when can see Islamic architecture in various countries in the Middle East, and in Asia too, like India, and China, and Pakistan. But actually I will be focusing on Egypt in particular, because most of the examples I will be presenting are about monuments or buildings, Islamic architectural buildings from Egypt. So, I thought it would be useful to start with telling you the chronology of the Islamic era in Egypt, which was Egypt was ... can't hear me? ... Egypt was opened by the Arabs, by the Muslims, during the Rightly Guided Caliphs era. And then it was ruled by the Umayyad, and then the Abbasids, and during that era it was ruled by the Tulanid era or the Tulanid Dynasty, and then it was followed by the Fatimid Era, the Ayyubids, and the Mamluk and the Ottoman. So, I will be presenting examples from those various eras. Each image that will be presented has a caption indicating the name of the place and the era it dates to and the place of building, of course. To start with, I should mention that Islamic architecture has many types of buildings. And those buildings could be classified into 4 main groups: religious buildings, residential buildings, military buildings, and service buildings. And the service buildings, as we will discuss later, could include two types of services: free services, and paid services. That's why we included the commercial buildings in that category too. 

To start with the religious buildings, I will start with the mosque, which is the most important building in Islamic architecture. The earliest mosque in Islamic architecture was the mosque of the Prophet Muhammad Et El Medina. But of course, I can't present an image of the mosque of the Prophet Muhammad Et El Medina now, because it does not represent at all the original shape of the mosque. It was pulled down, rebuilt, renovated, enlarged, several times through ages. So there is a drawing about the mosque of the Prophet Muhammad. It shows how simple the building was. It was like rectangular area, surrounded with a wall built of mud brick. And it had in its southern part a roofed area which was called Sulfa. This roofed area consisted of palm trunks covered with palm branches. This is the area which was devoted for the Muslims to pray in. And when the number of the Muslims increased, they added another roofed area in the Northern part. So they had two places for prayer. The rest of the mosque was like an open space. Actually this mosque was the nucleus of the Muslim community at that time. It was not only a religious place where you could perform the 5 daily prayers, or where you can perform the Friday prayer. It was also the administrative center of the newly established Muslim community. So, there you could see the Prophet Muhammad dealing with the daily issues of the Muslim community. It was also a social place. A place for social gatherings. They could held weddings, social meetings, and so on in that mosque. It was also even used in during times of war. They could have like a tent, in which they could heal the wounded warriors inside the mosque. So, it fulfilled many functions at that time. And during the reign of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, similar simple mosques were established in each of the Islamic capitals. And they were very much similar to the mosque of the Prophet Muhammad. And of course they functioned exactly as the mosque of the Prophet Muhammad. 

By the increase in number of the Muslim Community, that simple building was no longer sufficient for the Muslim Community. So by the beginning of the Umayyad Era, the Umayyad's had a different plan. The Umayyad Caliphs had a very promising building program. They wanted to have large mosques, which can be representing the newly established Muslim empire, and they can compete with the other buildings of the older civilizations. So they started to establish huge mosques. This is an example of those early mosques, which is the great mosque of the mosques. You can notice how huge the mosque is. It is different from the drawing of the mosque of the Prophet Muhammad. It was paved with marble; it was richly decorated, as you can notice. So it is very much different from the very simple mosques in the beginning.  For them it was like the media, which will be presenting the Islamic empire at that time, or the Umayyad Dynasty at that time. At that time, the plan of the mosque was very well established. They decided that the traditional plan or that plan, or what we need in the plan of the mosque, is to be consisting of open court ... if I use the mouse ... it consists of an open court surrounded with 4 roofed areas. Only the roofed areas were used for prayer. Okay? But the open court is not used for prayer.
So this is the plan that we will see almost everywhere in the Islamic countries, and almost in all the eras. 
This is, for example, the mosque of Ahmed ibn Tulun, which is the main mosque which was built in the Tulanid's capital in Egypt, al-Qata'i, during the Abbasid Era. We should understand how it functioned, or how the mosque was used. For the Muslims, they have to perform the Friday prayer. And according to the religion at that time, they had like strict rules saying that the Friday prayer should be held in only one mosque in each city. So according to that, that mosque should be, number 1, be huge in order to inhabit all the Muslim community or populace. Number two, it should be placed, or should be located, in the center of the capital, so it could be accessible from all quarters of the city. Number 3, it should have many doors in order to avoid crowdedness, and to be accessible for as many people as possible who will be praying inside the mosque. All of that we can see here in the mosque of Ahmed ibn Tulun, and all the mosques that were built at the same time. You can notice how huge this mosque was. It was more than 6,000 square meters. And it has 21 doors in all the 3 sides, except for a couple of sides. And even when they noticed that it is not large enough to inhabit all the Muslim community, they added an exterior wall, which added an extra place, which was known as "Zierd" or " the addition". We will see that here in the plan. So we see that the plan of the mosque became like the open court, the roofed areas, which we call at that time "rewalks". Those are the places where the Muslims can pray. Those openings are the doors, and this is the exterior wall, which was even added, to add an extra place for prayer, which is the zierd, or the addition. We notice also that inside each one of the 4 rewalks, there are rows of columns. Those rectangular things are the columns, which were built inside the mosque. And they carry the arches, in order to carry the roof. This is the first function. And it also facilitate organizing the Muslims into rows when they pray. What else do we need inside the mosque? What should be inside the mosque? The first thing that should be inside the mosque is the prayer niche or the kabla direction. A place to indicate the kabla direction. According to the Islamic religion, all Muslims have to face Mecca in prayer. And of course the direction of kabla, or the direction of prayer, would vary from country to another according to its relation to Mecca. For example, in Egypt, the Kabla direction is towards south east. In Iraq it is towards south west. In the United States, for example, it would be towards east, or south east. Okay? So it varies from place to another according to its location in relation to Mecca. So, each mosque has to have an indicator of the kabla, in order to help the people who will pray to know where to stand and what to face. The kabla direction was in the beginning, just a mark on the wall, which was simple and flat. But later, the Muslims started to make the prayer niche in that form, which is a concave prayer niche. Why concave? Because the imam would be facing the prayer niche, and the concave shape of the prayer niche would resonate the sound of the imam.

Another thing, which is very important inside the mosque, or specifically inside the jama. The jama is the congregation in mosque, where the Friday prayer is held. So it is the large one that we mentioned before. The jama should have a member, or pulpit. The pulpit is the place where the imam can preach the worshippers, before starting the prayer and it is an essential part of the Friday prayer. So they added another furniture, or we can call it another element, inside the mosque, which is the pulpit. The pulpit as you can notice, is a raised place, or a raised seat for the imam, ascended by a flight of steps. And on top of that place, there is a dome, also to resonate the sound. Not that only, but they even added another huge dome above the area of the prayer niche, and the pulpit together, above the square which occupies the prayer niche and the pulpit, because the pulpit is usually to the right of the prayer niche. So they added a dome above that square in order to resonate and magnify the sound. But still, could you imagine in a mosque as the mosque of Ahmed ibn Tulun, which I showed you the picture of. Do you imagine that the people who are praying in the back rewalk, at the end of the mosque, would listen to the imam? Would hear the imam? Probably not, because it is very huge. So they probably would not hear the imam. That's why they added another element inside the mosque which was called Dikket Imobiluh. Dikket al-mubaligh is a platform, either made of wood or made of marble carried on a group of columns, and ascended by a flight of steps. And on top of that place, there used to be a man who will scold al-mubaligh, who repeats whatever the imam is saying. Here is the prayer niche, and next to it is the pulpit. So the imam would be standing here, and the man, or the al-mubaligh, on top of the dikket, would be seeing the imam and would repeat whatever the imam was saying. So the people at the back of the mosque would hear him, or at least see him. How they would see him, this dikket was located at the end of the kabla rewalk, overlooking the open court. So they would see him through the open courts. 

What else do we need inside the mosque? We also need a fountain, which was usually located in the center of the open court, in order to perform a volution, and to provide drinking water during summertime, which are very hot, of course, in the Middle East. We also need the minaret. The minaret is a very high tower, which was built on top of the building, on top of the mosque, on its ceiling. It was used by the Mu'asin, who was responsible to call for the prayer. And by that mean, all the people from all quarters of the city would hear the call of prayer, and would come to the mosque for prayer.

Now we come to the second building or the second type of religious buildings, which is the madrasa. I mentioned that the mosque was functioning as the nucleus of the Muslim community, and actually it fulfilled all the needs of the newly established community. Elementary education was even held inside the mosque. You would see things like that. The sheik, or the imam, would be sitting next to one of the pillars, and the students would be gathering around him in a circle. That's why they call that system of education the Halakah education. Halakah is the equivalent word to circle in Arabic. Okay? So they call it the Halakah education. So those could be young children, and could be also adults who are listening to highly educated sheik or imam. This system of education was called Halakah, was called also rewalk, referring to the place where the education was held, or the teaching was held. It was also called Zoiah, because they could take a corner of the rewalk in order to have their listen. Some of the most, actually, only the large mosques had a similar Halakah, but for adults. And that was a sort of informal higher education, or informal type of higher education. It was free of charge, but yet it was depending on that sheik or the imam. It depends on his time, his availability. So it was not established as a formal system of education. By the 10th century, the Muslims realized they needed a formal system of education for higher education in particular. That's when they separated the education from the mosque. Or they took the education outside of the mosque. They started what we call the madrasa. The Suljuks, or the Suljuk Sultans, are those who started the building of the madrasa. The earliest madrasa was built in Baghdad, which was called El Muston Cerea madrasa. And after that, the Ayyubids followed the same traditions of the Suljuks and they brought the idea of buildings the madrasas into Egypt. So they started- the madrasas started during the Ayyubid Era. Salah ad-Din Ayubb was alone responsible for building 10 madrasas in his reign. And his successors followed him in the same tradition. And it became a very popular building during the Mamluk period in particular.

The plan of the madrasa was different from the plan of the mosque in order to fulfill the function of the madrasa, which is different from the function of the mosque. What was the function of the madrasa? The madrasa, according to the suljuks, was intended to provide formal system of higher education, and it was also intended to be a way to stop the Shiite spread in the Muslim countries. So the Suljuks intended to teach the Sunni laws inside the madrasa. And in the Sunni law, we have 4 schools of thought, which are: the Shafi'i, Hanafi, Hanbali, and Maliki. That's why when they started erecting the madrasas, most of them were following that plan which we call the cruciform plan, which consists of an open court surrounded with 4 ewinds. It's not rewalk this time, those are called ewind. What is the ewind? The ewind is like a huge room, overlooking the open court, and it opens to the open court as you can see. So it could be like a classroom for a group of students. By the way, this is the largest ewind in Islamic architecture in Cairo, which is the Kabla Ewind of the Madrasa of Sultan Hasan. This was visited by Barack Obama by the way. It was intended to be the largest in Islamic architecture in order to compete with Ikistra Ewind, which had the reputation of being the largest Ewind in architecture. The madrasa was functioning as a boarding school. So, both the teachers and the students' lives inside the madrasa. In order to accommodate with that, the madrasa should have residential rooms for both the teachers and the students. The madrasa should also have a kitchen, bathrooms, stables for the donkeys or the animals of the teachers and the students. Okay? Sometimes even in large madrasas they had a small hospital, in order to serve the students and the teacher living inside the madrasa. So it has all the services they might need.

Actually, I should mention one thing also. It was free. It was a system of education that is free of charge. Moreover, it was funded by the patron. By the way the patron, or the person who built the madrasa, they were usually sultans, amirs, high officials, wealthy merchants, or judges, things like that who would have initiation to build a madrasa. And they fund everything. They set the rules for choosing the students. They set their administration regulations inside the madrasa. They set how the fund will be distributed inside the madrasa. And both the teachers and the students will get stipends for being in the madrasa. They would receive 3 daily meals, 3 hot meals per day. They would receive clothes in the beginning in the beginning of summertime, and the beginning of winter time. All that was more like incentives to learn at that time. It was very successful, especially in the Mamluk period. 

How about elementary education? This was the form of education for adults. How about elementary education? Elementary education was separated from the mosque at the same time as the madrasa, and it functioned inside another institution which was called al kuttab. It could be private kuttab, it could be government funded kuttab, and it was like a very simple room, where students gathered to learn Quran- the reading, recitation, and memorization of Quran. In addition to basics of grammar, and basics of math. This is the kuttab from outside, and the other kuttab from inside. By the way, my master's degree was about the katatib in the Mamluk Era in Egypt. Of course you notice that their education was more like religious education. Okay? Either in the kuttab, or in the madrasa. But some of the large madrasa provided classes for chemistry, physics, medicine, but those were limited and according to the will of the patron, as I mentioned.

Another religious building is the monastic mosque, or the khanqah. The khanqah was built in response to sophism, which started to be witnessed in the 4th century of Islam or the 10th century. Again, the building of the khanqah was created or started by the Suljuks, and from them, Ayyubids took the idea and presented into Egypt. Sufism is some way or another close to monastism. It is a way of thinking where you abandon life and just devote your life for worship. So the people who are living inside the khanqah are not working, so they should have been funded by the government. This is a place where they can live, and they can receive their education. And at the same time they are self-sufficient. So they would do all the required work inside the khanqah without needing anything else from outside.
The khanqah was following either the plan of the madrasa or the plan of the mosque. But the most essential part inside the khanqah was the halaweit. The halaweit are the small rooms where the Sufis can alienate themselves in order to worship. So they were very small rooms, and it was also just like the madrasa in terms of regulations and the functioning system. So they also have their own kitchen, bathroom, everything they might need of services.

Another religious building is the mausoleum, or the burial place. In Arabic, we call it maktfin, or torbah. Okay? In the beginning of Islam, the mausoleum was a separate place which was usually outside of the city. But by the end of the Ayyubid Era, they started to attach the mausoleum to a religious building, either a madrasa or a khanqah. What is the reason behind that? Number one, to commemorate the name of the deceased person in the city between the people so he could be remembered by the people, not in a remote place outside of the city, that's number one. And number two, to benefit from the prayers of the people who are benefiting from the free services offered to those who are using the building. As I mentioned, the madrasa was free. So all the services are provided by the patron. So the people, or the students, would always be praying for the patron who provided them all of those free services. So, in Egypt it would be very regular scene to see each mosque attached with a mausoleum like this one. And this huge building contains the burial place of the founder. They use the place for reciting the Quran 24-7, all day long. And the people passing by the place would be listening to the Quran being recited all the time, and of course that also brings blessings to the deceased person.

Those are normal scenes from Islamic architecture that we can see in Egypt. Each mosque, each madrasa, attached with a mausoleum especially in the Mamluk periods.

Now we come to the second type of Islamic architecture building which is military buildings. Military buildings were witnessed in Egypt as early as the Fatimid Era. Only the Fatimids felt that they need military architecture. Why? They built the 4th Islamic capital in Egypt, which is Ohara. After Al-Fustat, Al-Askar, and Al-Qata'i. So this was the 4th capital, and this capital was the residence of the caliph, the high officials, and the army. So, they felt it should be protected. As a result they surrounded the city with walls built of mud brick in the beginning, and then renovated to be built of stone. And those walls were penetrated with 8 doors that were closed at night in order to protect the people inhabiting the city
Those walls and gates were like fortified gates, so they would look like castles, or they would like towers like that. And they were named with the names that could bring good luck, or good fortune. For example, this is the gate of victory, Belbanash. And this is Belbatua, or gate of opening. So all are names to bring good luck, of course for the sultan or the caliph. During the Ayyubid Era, it was, that particular era was the epic, or the apex of building architecture because of the struggle against crusades at that time. So Salah Al Din Ayubb built the castle of Salah Al Din Ayubb, which was built on top of the Moqattam Hill, in the center of the capital. And this citadel was actually divided into two parts: the northern enclosure wall, which was built during the era of Salah Al Din himself, and it was totally military in spirit and in function. But then after the death of Salah Al Din, some of his successors like the sultan Al-Kamil, decided to have the citadel as the seeds of rulership, the place where he can rule the country from. So they added the further enclosure wall, and they added palaces, administrative centers, gardens and whatever they might need. And it continued to be used as the seat of the governor of Egypt since the reign of Al-Kamil till the building of Adim Palace in the modern time in Egypt.

Now we come to the third type of buildings, which are the residential buildings. There were three types of buildings, of course according to the economic status of people. On top of those, were the palaces. Only the elites and the wealthy people of the country could afford to live in a palace. And then the house, only wealthy people could afford to live in a house, but the house could inhabit a huge family, up to 400 persons in some cases. And for the common people, or the middle class, they would live in a place call Rabah. Rabah is like a large building with rooms that could be rented, and in each floor there is a bathroom, and all the people renting on that floor would be sharing the bathroom together. Okay? This is the residential building, or this is the residential accommodation for the military class.

The house was very much similar to the palace, but it was smaller in size. So, all the components of the house were similar to the components of the palace. What are those components in relation to the needs of the people? We should have an open court. I think you've noticed that the open court is very essential in Islamic architecture. It is the nucleus of each building. Most of the buildings have the open court, and we will see later why it is important. So, the center of the building, or the house, would be the open court, and all the parts of the house would be surrounding that open court. We need a reception hall for the guests. That's what we need inside the house. We need a reception hall for the guests. We need a sitting place for the people, the house owner and his family, okay? So this would be call Makhad. Makhad is the sitting place in Arabic, and it is overlooking the open court so that the owner of the house, or the family, or the parents, would be supervising the children who might be playing in the open court. In addition to many other rooms used as bedrooms, and they were very simple in terms of decoration, except for the ceiling which was usually wooden ceiling richly decorated with floral decorations and inscriptions. Of course, we need a kitchen inside the house. We also need bathrooms inside the house. Those are the components of the residential building.

Now we come to the fourth type of buildings which is the service buildings, and the commercial buildings too. Here we will be differentiating between two types of buildings. Buildings providing free service, and other buildings which are providing paid services. Let's start with the bathroom. As I mentioned, only the wealthy people can afford to live in a palace or a house. And only those who have their own bathroom, but the common people, or the middle class would be sharing a bathroom with others. So having a public bathroom was very important at that time. And those public bathrooms were used for all people. Even the wealthy ones. They would use the public bathroom. And they go to the bathroom at least once a week, and there they can have bathing, massage, cleaning, all the services you could imagine in the bathroom. And by the way you can still see the bathroom functioning in some of the Islamic countries such as in Turkey, and in Morocco. They are still existing and they are still functioning actually. The bathroom would be divided into three main sections. The first section, which is called the cold room, where you can take off your clothes and take a shower with the cold water. And then the second room where you can find places for massaging. And then the third room where you can find a bath tub with very hot water and you can have your bathing there.

Of course this is not a free service. That was a paid service. Another service, which is free this time. It's the sabil. The sabil is a place that provides water free of charge to any passerby. This was very essential in hot countries like in Egypt. For example, imagine the temperature during summertime, and going from place to another in the hot days, of course you would need a drink. So that place would provide you a cup with cold water free of charge. What is the sabil? It's a very simple building. It consists of one room. This is the room above the ground level, but there is a system below it which is under the ground. And the system was filled with water, of they can provide their daily needs by Al Saka, or the one who carries water and brings to the sabil. Inside the sabil, a man used to work who's known as Misamilati. His duty was to clean the sabil, and fill the basin in front of each of the windows. Of course the sabil should have as many windows as possible in order to help so many people. So in front of each window there would be a basin. The duty of the Mismimilati is to fill that basin with water, and to hand water in cups through the window to the people. That's the basin, okay?

Another service, which was offered at that time, and the architecture was responding to that need of the society, was the wikala. This is another service. It is like a hotel, but for merchants in particular. The wikala could be seen inside the city. Again, it consists of an open court, and it has storage room in the lower level, or the ground level, where merchants can save their merchandise. And then in the upper levels there are rented rooms that could be used by those travelers or those merchants. Similar to this building was the khan, but the khan was built outside the city on the travel routes. But it has the same plan. And also similar to that, is the market. But instead of renting a room, they would rent a shop instead. So that's the market from inside. 

Then we come to the last service building, which is the hospital, or the bimarstan. It is actually a unique building, because it offered free medical service. And the place is open to everyone, regardless their nationality, their economic status, their social status, their religion, their sex. It was open to all the people, and it provided everything. It provided them food, it provided them the medicine. Even if a poor patient died inside the hospital, they would take care of his burial, and do all the necessary things to be done.

The bimarstan was following the same plan of the madrasa, which is an open court surrounded by 4 ewinids, in order to facilitate the segregation of patients according to the deceased. I think by now we can to a conclusion that those buildings, each and every one of those buildings was fulfilling a need for the society, or fulfilling a need for the people. But how about understanding the needs of the environment? Was that also witnessed in Islamic architecture or not? Let's see. We noticed that the open in the mosque for example. Let's start by the mosque. Let's start by the mosque. We should have an open court in addition to the roofed areas. And the open court was very necessary in order to provide lighting and ventilation for the other roofed areas. Moreover, the roofed areas usually have high ceiling for the same reasons- for providing lightning and ventilation. Water was very essential inside the mosque, in order to provide drinking water, and to moisture the air inside the place. In the madrasa, the same applies. Water was very essential inside the madrasa. So each madrasa would have either a well, a water well, or a sabil inside the madrasa. They had their own standards for the rooms of the teachers and the students. Each room should have at least one window, either overlooking the open court, or overlooking the street like this case, in order to be very well ventilated. And as for the kitchens, bathrooms, and stables, they should be located on the south of the madrasa. Why on the southern side of the madrasa? Because most of the wind in Egypt is north or northeastern wind, so the wind will take the bad smells away from the madrasa, not into the madrasa. 

As for the kuttab, which inhabited a large number of children all the time, it should be an open place with so many openings. But at the same time, its ceiling would be protecting the children from the sun during their study. Another unique thing is the standards they followed inside the house. The entrance of the house for example should be a bent entrance, which means if you are standing in front of the entrance of the house, you wouldn't be able to see anything in the interior. You wouldn't be able to see the people inside the house. Why? To provide the privacy for the people, and at the same time, to protect the interior of the house from the dust in the street. And of course having the open court would be essential to provide lighting and ventilation to all the parts of the house. I'll have just two minutes.

Another thing which is very unique also in the house was the use of Mushrabaya. The Mushrabaya is to cover the windows, and it is made of turnid wood. So it is like pierced wood, that can purify the air which is coming into the room and at the same time providing privacy for the women behind the windows so no one can see them. The use of high ceilings, also to provide cooling for the reception hall, which is the hall for guests. The use of marble. Some of the reception halls had a fountain in them. And the fountain, of course, was made of marble and was having running water in summertime, also to provide moisturing for the air in the summertime. The open logia, or the open place, the sitting place for the family, was built in the northern side of the house in order to be facing the north or the northeastern wind, as we mentioned which was the common wind in Egypt. Of course, also to be the perfect location for sitting during summer nights and days. 

The sabil- they also have their own standards for the health, and for the health of the mosomalati who works inside the sabil. They had very strict regulations in terms of the clean linens, the cistern, the cups, the basin, and how they provide the water for the people. So, all of that to keep the healthy condition of the place. They even have a unique thing which is a small basin below each one of the windows. So if you have some remaining water in your cup, you wouldn't throw them or get rid of them. You would pour them in the basin, which would be used for drinking of animals. The same regulations that applied in the house would be applied also in the wikela, and the khan, which were like residential places but for merchants or travelers. And last but not least, is the hospital. As I mentioned, the segregation was very important to reduce infection. So they would segregate between the patients according to the disease they have. And also they have very strict regulations in terms of preparing and preserving food, drinks, and medicine in order to avoid contamination of food and medicine, and to reduce the infection. So actually we can conclude that they understood very well the needs of the environment. They understood very well the needs of the society, the daily life needs of the people, and one of the architects in Egypt known as Hassan Fatri, actually was inspired by Islamic architecture to create modern houses and modern places, who would be functioning in today, and fulfilling the needs of the people exactly as the Islamic architecture fulfilled the needs of the people. I hope I didn't take too much time, and thank you very much for listening.
^M00:49:48
[applause]
^M00:49:52:
>>FAWZI: Anybody have questions?
^M00:50:00
>>AUDIENCE MEMBER: (inaudible)
^M00:50:34
>>HEBA: I think it was easier for them to build in rectangular square buildings. It was easier to handle the available space inside but this is in terms of the building. As for the city, the normal thing for cities in Islamic architecture was to build the round shape cities. So, the cities would be circular while the buildings would be rectangular or square... Yes, please.
^M00:51:06
>>AUDIENCE MEMBER: (inaudible)
^M00:51:36
>>HEBA: Yes, sure. As for prayers- during the time of the Rightly Guided Khalifs, women used to pray behind men, but they were not separated from the men. So, just behind them. But, after that, during the Ummayid era, we have no record that they were also separated from men. So, probably they would have been praying behind the men and it happened like that all the time probably until the Ottoman time when we started to see a sort of a separation by providing a specific place for women to pray in- separated from the place for men. This is for prayer. As for education, we have records of historians telling us that families were sending their children, I mean female children, the girls. They would send them to private katatib to receive education. Okay? So, children, I mean the girls were also taught, but probably they were taught only the elementary education, so they received only the elementary education and the of course those are the wealthy family only, but the common people who are in the middle class, it would be hard for them to send their girls for- to receive education in the kattab. But, during the Mamluk period I told you that my thesis was about the katatib in the Mamluk period. I realize that during the Mamluk period, there were some katatibs for girls only and some other katatibs for boys and some of the elite of the society would continue to send their girls to a specific sheik or teacher in order to give them higher education. So we have records about women who were reciting the Quran or telling hadis after the prophet Mohammed or a famous woman who were historians so that appeared but only in medieval times in Eesef Egypt which I can tell about. Thank you. Yes?
^M00:53:58
>>AUDIENCE MEMBER: (inaudible)
^M00:54:18
>>HEBA: Yes, sure. They are preserved actually the ministry of tourism together with the Ministry of Archaeology are paying or doing so much effort to preserve those buildings, especially in Cairo. We have more than 500 Islamic buildings in Cairo. You know that Cairo was known as the City of Southern Minarets because it chose to have more than a thousand buildings of Islamic architecture, but the number was reduced. But, they are doing so much effort to preserve those buildings and paying so much to maintain them and some of them are offering guiding tours or guided tours also. But, the problem about Islamic architecture is that it is mingling with the community- it is, if you want to see the Islamic architecture, you would go to the narrowest streets of Cairo and you would go to inhabited districts or neighborhoods. So, it is not in a separate tourism area, but it is within the city.
^M00:55:25
>>AUDIENCE MEMBER: (inaudible)
^M00:55:42
>>HEBA: No, actually they moved away. The effort of Hassan Fatri, the architect that I mentioned. To my knowledge, the only effort to revive the Islamic architecture. It happened in a specific period during the Ottoman period. There was a revival to the Mamluk architecture in particular. That's what they called newmamlakstein which appeared by the end of the Ottoman period but in the modern times, they abandoned that type of architecture and they prefer of course the modern architecture. To my knowledge, as I mentioned, it was only the effort of Hassan Fatri who was trying to revive it again.
^M00:56:24 
>>AUDIENCE MEMBER: (inaudible)
^M00:57:09 
>>HEBA: Yeah, we actually have a problem in Islamic architecture in Egypt that most of the time, the architect was anonymous person. We don't know him. He did not record his name. He did not mention anything to help us identify him. So, most of the time, he was anonymous. Unless we found, for example in the madrasa of the Sultan Hasan, we found the name of the architect and the decorator. On the minaret of the madrassa on - on the minaret of iron chaif, we found also the name of the architect. But, those were just a few examples of names that we managed to find. Other than this, they remained anonymous.
^M00:57:49
>>AUDIENCE MEMBER: (inaudible)
^M00:57:52
>>HEBA: Probably yes. Probably they were considered as craftsmen, not like the elite of that society. So they were not recognized. Even Sunan. Sunan the elder and Sunan the younger had their own architecture in Egypt- had their own fingerprints in Egypt. Maybe by the Ottoman period, that they paid attention to mention the name of the architect and to commemorate him in history and in architecture too.
^M00:58:25
>>Fawzi: Thank you very much. There is a reception right now.
^M00:58:32
[applause]
^M00:58:37
>> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc dot gov.