User:Thorinerb/sandbox

Khanqah of Baybars II Street Façade
The entrance façade of the Khanqah is rather narrow and has two main sections, the portal on the right and the exterior wall of the mausoleum vestibule on the left. While the face of the building is fairly plain, the portal is ornate in contrast so as to emphasize its depth. The two sections of the street façade are not aligned. Doris Behrens-Abouseif says that this is because the mausoleum was added after the portal, however, Leonor Fernandes argues that the portal and mausoleum were added to the Khanqah concurrently.

The location of the portal was strategically chosen to allow a full window to the mausoleum vestibule for passersby while making sure not to block the minaret for pedestrians headed in the direction of Bab al-Nasr. The façade utilizes an ablaq pattern which is only interrupted by a tiraz band with the foundation inscription in a cursive script. The inscription starts on the southwest side of the portal and covers roughly 30 meters of the façade and about 5 meters of the northeast wall. Part of the inscription containing Sultan Baybars' royal titles was destroyed by al-Nasir Muhammad when he regained control from Baybars II. The principal feature of the portal is a tall, round arch above the foundation inscription with cushion voussoirs and a tall recess behind. The recess itself has a wooden coffered ceiling and behind it is a semi-dome resting on two muqarnas pendentives. The door itself is brass revetted with silver and copper inlay creating a geometric pattern. Beneath the door, a pharaonic stone bearing the cartouche of Ramses IX is used as a sill; a feature common in medieval Egyptian mosques. The pharaonic sill was likely installed so that visitors would renounce the false gods of ancient Egypt before prayer. On either side of the recess and its flanks is a niche with conchs containing ablaq marble in a sunrise pattern. The corners of the flanks have engages marble colonettes with Gothic capitals. Above the niches on either side of the door are white marble inscriptions on a black marble background. Also appearing on both sides of the entrance is the first example of maksalas (stone benches) which then became a staple of Mamluk architecture.

The exterior wall of the mausoleum vestibule has five tall recesses, each with two stacked iron grilled windows and tiers of muqarnas on top. The central recess larger than the other four and the arch around it has more decoration. The bottom window in the central recess is an Abbasid artifact brought from the Dar al-Khalifa in Baghdad by Abu'l Harith al-Basasiri and legitimized Baybars' rule by hearkening back to the splendor of the Abbasids.