Egypt's third-largest mosque reopens after 15-year restoration co-funded by Kazakhstan

Egypt’s third largest mosque reopened in Cairo on Sunday morning following a 15-year-long renovation.

The reopening ceremony took place in Old Cairo, an area known for its extensive Islamic relics, and was attended by the Grand Imam of Al Azhar, Ahmed El Tayeb, and the Chairman of the Kazakh Senate, Mäulen Äşimbaev, whose government co-funded the renovation.

Also in attendance was Egypt’s tourism and antiquities minister, Ahmed Issa, and a number of other prominent Egyptian and Kazakh officials. To mark the occasion, Kazakh officials dressed in the country's traditional garb for the ceremony.

Constructed in 1269 at the start of Mamluk rule in Egypt, the Zaher Baybars Mosque was renovated at a cost of more than 237 million Egyptian pounds ($7.68 million), according to an address made at Sunday’s ceremony by Egypt’s religious endowments minister, Mokhtar Gomaa.

Baybars was born in modern day Kazakhstan, which is holding a number of festivities to mark the passing of 800 years since his birth, Mr Äşimbaev said on Sunday.

The Kazakh side contributed $4.5 million to the renovation, which it gave to the Egyptian government in 2008, Mr Gomaa said.

The Kazakh contribution was worth 27 million Egyptian pounds in 2008, Mr Gomaa said on Sunday. Today, it would be worth over 138 million Egyptian pounds.

“The mosque’s opening takes place following around 225 years of being closed and not operating as a mosque,” said Egypt’s Mr Gomaa on Sunday.

The mosque had fallen into disrepair in the 16th century when it was turned into a storage facility by the Ottomans, who at that time were ruling Egypt. It was then used as a military fort during the French campaign in Egypt (1798-1801) when cannons were placed on its walls and its minaret was used as a defensive tower.

When the British invaded Egypt the mosque was used as a military warehouse and then a slaughterhouse.

Restoration work on the mosque included repairing its entryways, which feature the first use of ablaq masonry in Cairo.

Ablaq is an architectural technique that uses alternating rows of light and dark stones. It is heavily associated with Islamic architecture.

The interior walls of the mosque, made almost entirely of red bricks, represent the usual design for mosques of that era, according to the mosque's restoration team.

While some of the areas in the mosque were restored, others were entirely reconstructed because they were too badly damaged.

These included the new wooden gates, fashioned in the style of the Fatimids, a Shiite Islamic dynasty that ruled Egypt before the Mamluks, and the cushion voussoirs – stone wedges – and keel arches placed over the main entryway.

The outer wall was also rebuilt to resemble its former fortress-like appearance, the contractors said.

In 2008, when the renovation agreement between Egypt and Kazakhstan was signed, the mosque’s structure had badly deteriorated because it was built on a particularly low part of Cairo, which made it susceptible to rising levels of groundwater, said Arab Contractors, the state-affiliated construction company which carried out the renovation.

Zaher Baybars

Work on the mosque was stalled by the 2011 uprising that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak, Mostafa Waziri, the secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, said during his address on Sunday.

It resumed in 2018, Mr Waziri said.

Al Zaher Baybars is a prominent figure in Egypt’s history who has been mythologised in the exciting tales of Mamluk rule in Egypt (1250-1517).

“Even though Al Zaher Baybars, a sombre figure, was a Turkic knight, he is widely considered the real founder of Mamluk Egypt,” said Grand Imam Al Tayeb during his address on Sunday.

Spanning an area of 12,600 square metres, the Zaher Baybars Mosque is Egypt’s third largest after Al Hakim Bi Amr Allah and Ahmed Ibn Tulun mosques, both of which are in Islamic Cairo.