Bahnasī - Mamluk art: the splendour and magic of the Sultans

Front cover

Madrasa and Mosque of Sultan Qaytbay, Dome of the Mausoleum,
9th/15th century, North Cemetery, Cairo.

Museum With No Frontiers Exhibition Trails

ISLAMIC ART IN THE MEDITERRANEAN | EGYPT

Mamluk Art

The Splendour and Magic of the Sultans

Museum With No Frontiers

First edition

2001 Ministry of Culture, Arab Republic of Egypt & Museum With No Frontiers (texts and illustrations)

2001 Electa (Grijalbo Mondadori S.A.), Madrid, Spain & Museum With No Frontiers

2001 Al-Dar Al-Masriah Al-Lubnaniah, Cairo, Egypt

Second edition

2010 Ministry of Culture, Arab Republic of Egypt & Museum With No Frontiers (texts and illustrations)

2010 Museum With No Frontiers

ISBN: 978-3-902782-03-8

All rights reserved.

Information

www.museumwnf.org

www.mwnfbooks.net

Museum With No Frontiers
Idea and overall concept
Eva Schubert

Head of Project

Enaam Selim, Cairo

Coordinator of the Curatorial Committee
Abdullah Abdel Hamid El-Attar, Cairo

Curatorial Committee

Gaballah Ali Gaballah, Cairo
Abdullah Abdel Hamid El-Attar, Cairo
Enaam Selim, Cairo
Mohamed Hossam El-Din, Cairo
Salah El-Bahnasi, Cairo
Mohamed Abd El-Aziz, Cairo
Atef Abdel Hamid Ghoneim, Cairo
Medhat El-Manabbawi, Cairo
Ali Ateya, Cairo
Tarek Torky, Cairo
Gamal Gad El-Rab, Cairo

Catalogue

Introductions
Salah El-Bahnasi, Cairo
Mohamed Hossam El-Din, Cairo
Mohamed Abd El-Aziz El-Sayed, Cairo
Tarek Torky, Cairo

Presentation of the Itineraries
Curatorial Committee

Technical texts
Tarek Torky, Cairo

Technical supervision

Sakina Missoum, Madrid

Photography
Sherif Sonbol, Cairo

General map
Jos Antonio Dvila Buitrn, Madrid

Sketches
Mohammed Rushdy, Cairo
Sergio Viguera, Madrid

Monument plans

Mohammed Rushdy, Cairo
akir akmak, Izmir
Ertan Da, Izmir
Yekta Demiralp, Izmir
Sergio Viguera, Madrid

General Introduction
Islamic Art in the Mediterranean

Text
Jamila Binous, Tunisia
Mahmoud Hawari, East Jerusalem
Manuela Marn, Madrid
Gnl ney, Izmir

Maps
akir akmak,
Izmir Ertan Da,
Izmir Yekta Demiralp, Izmir

Translation
Sarah Walker, Madrid

Copy editor
Mandi Gomez, London

Layout and design
Augustina Fernndez,
Electa Espaa, Madrid
Christian Eckart,
MWNF, Vienna (2nd edition)

Local coordination

Production Manager
Tarek Torky, Cairo

Production Assistant
Amal Mohammed Tawfik, Cairo

International coordination

Overall coordination
Eva Schubert

Curatorial committees, translations, editing and production of the catalogues (1st edition)

Sakina Missoum, Madrid

Acknowledgements

We thank the following institutions for their support:

Ministry of Culture, Arab Republic of Egypt, Cairo

Supreme Council of Antiquities, Ministry of Culture, Cairo

Foreign Cultural Relations Department, Ministry of Culture, Cairo

Archaeological Sites in Egypt, Supreme Council of Antiquities

Centre for Documentation of Coptic and Islamic Monuments, Supreme Council of Antiquities, Cairo

Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo

Governorate of Cairo

Governorate of Alexandria

Governorate of Kafr al-Shaykh

Governorate of al-Beheira

Tourism Promotion Authority, Cairo

We would also like to thank:

The Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation
The Spanish Ministry of Culture

The Federal Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, Austria

The Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Cultural Activities (National Museum for Oriental Arts, Rome), Italy

The Secretary of State for Tourism, Portugal

The Museum of Mediterranean and Near-Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, Sweden

as well as

The Regional Government of Tyrol (Austria), where the MWNF Exhibition Trails pilot project was set up

and Doctor Christian Rgnier, Attach to Parisian Hospitals, International Society for the History of Medicine.

Photographic references

See , and

Ann & Peter Jousiffe (London), (Aleppo)

Archivos Oronoz Fotgrafos (Madrid), (Alhambra, Granada)

Plan references

R. Ettinghaussen and O. Grabar (Madrid, I, 1997), (Mosque of Damascus)

Z. Snmez (Ankara, 1995), page 27 (Mosque of Divrigi and Istanbul) and (Mosque of Sivas)

Sergio Viguera (Madrid), (Minaret styles)

Blair, S. S., and Bloom, J. M. (Madrid, II, 1999), (Mosque and Madrasa Sultan Hassan).

R. Ettinghaussen and O. Grabar (Madrid, I, 1997), (Qasr al-Khayr al-Sharqi)

A. Kuran (Istanbul, 1986), (Khan Sultan Aksaray)

The opinions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect the opinion either of the European Union or of its Member States.

Preface

In 1996 Museum With No Frontiers (MWNF) initiated a comprehensive programme to research, document and increase knowledge and public awareness of the history and cultural legacy of Islam in the countries surrounding the Mediterranean basin. This book is one of the outcomes of this programme, which involves hundreds of scholars and is carried out in cooperation with institutions from all the countries concerned. Important initial funding from the European Union made it possible to set the basis for a sustainable network of public and private partners implementing attractive projects in the field of culture, education and tourism.

When the MWNF programme was first launched, the topic of Islamic art and architecture was familiar only to experts and there was an implicit understanding that cultural heritage in the Mediterranean meant the legacy of the classical civilisations. Thanks to the launch coinciding with the establishment at the end of 1995 of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, a joint initiative of the European Union and its Mediterranean neighbours, the MWNF programme took off quickly and became a pioneering venture to disseminate knowledge about the world contribution of Islam.