AL-Rifai Mosque: amazing Islamic Landmark

Consider it a story of his loneliness? Islamic architecture is like a beehive, a chain that will not separate from each other and has no end. Let us delve into knowing some of them, including architecture, design, locations, and naming. 

Let us enjoy the beauty of Al-Rifai Mosque, the most important elements of architecture in Egypt. It is one of the famous ancient mosques in Cairo. Khedive Ismail’s mother, Khosyar Hanem, ordered its construction in the year 1869, and entrusted Hussein Pasha Fahmy to build it in 1880.

Then the construction project stopped for about 25 years until the reign of Khedive Abbas Hilmi II in 1905, to Ahmed Khairy Pasha, to complete AL-Rifai Mosque, so he completed it. In the year 1911, the AL-Rifai Mosque was opened for prayer at the beginning of the month of Muharram in the year 1912.

There are several cemeteries in the AL-Rifai Mosque, including the cemetery of Yahya Al-Ansari and the cemetery of Sheikh Ali Abu Shabak, as well as cemeteries for the royal family in which Khedive Ismail and his mother Khushiar Hanim, Sultan Hassan Kamel and his wife, King Fouad and King Farouk rest.

The name of the mosque is due to Sheikh Ali Abu Shabak Al-Rifai, whose grave is located in the AL-Rifai Mosque now. There are several archaeological mosques in the mosque, such as the Sultan Hassan Mosque, the Mahmoudiya Mosque, the Qaitbay Mosque, the Jawhar Mosque, in addition to the Muhammad Ali Mosque, the Nasser Qalawun Mosque in the Salah al-Din Citadel, and the Mustafa Kamel Museum, so we called it a cell. 

About Al-Rifai Mosque

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Al-Rifai Mosque: It is one of the famous ancient mosques in Cairo, Egypt. Khushiar Hanim, mother of Khedive Ismail, ordered its construction in the year 1286 AH/1869 AD, and assigned Hussein Pasha Fahmi to implement the project.

It is worth noting that

Al-Rifai Mosque was located under Al-Jabal Castle in Awal Al-Rumaila, facing the Sultan Hassan School. In the past, this site was partly occupied by the land of Al-Dhakhira Mosque, which was located towards the windows of the Sultan Hassan madrassa.

In the year 1298 AH/1880 AD, the construction of the mosque stopped, then Khushiar Hanim died during the first phase in the year 1303 AH/1885 AD

The construction project remained suspended for about 25 years until the reign of Khedive Abbas Hilmi II in 1298 AH/1880 AD. In 1905 AD Ahmed Khairi Pasha completed the mosque.

The Mamluk architectural, Max Herz Pasha was the one chosen to complete the construction work and make modifications to the building of the AL-Rifai Mosque after a 25-year hiatus.

He assigned the engineer Hertz Pasha to complete the construction, and he completed it in the year 1329 AH. / 1911 AD, and the mosque was opened for prayer in the beginning as an Islamic architecture mosque in the month of Muharram in the year 1330 AH / 1912 AD.

Rifai mosque contains the tombs of the royal family in which Khedive Ismail and his mother Khushiar Hanim, Sultan Hassan and his wife, King Fuad I, and King Farouk I lie.

The mosque is located in Salah al-Din Square in the Al-Khalifa neighborhood in the southern region of Cairo, and next to it are several ancient mosques, including the Sultan Hassan Mosque.

Al-Rifai Mosque is currently considered an important tourist destination visited by tourists of various nationalities, especially visitors to the tomb of the Shah of Iran, Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, and the tomb of Sheikh Ali Al-Rifai, which attracts followers of the Rifai Sufi order.

The Mosque Site & Location

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The location of the mosque in the past was “Zawiyat Al-Rifai”, where Sheikh Ali Abu Shabak Al-Rifai was buried, and whose grave is in the mosque until now, and from there the mosque took its name. However, after theAL-Rifai Mosque was established, the name was attributed to Sheikh Ahmed bin Ali Al-Rifai, who was buried in Iraq. Ahmed Al-Sayyad found the father of Sheikh Ali Abi Shabak.

The mosque is currently located in Salah El-Din Square in the Al-Khalifa neighborhood in the southern district of Cairo.

Al-Rifai Mosque Style

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Label At the end of the style of the AL-Rifai Mosque in the eastern tribal district, it was written: 

“This noble mosque, the mosque of the one who knows God Almighty, Mr. Ahmed Al-Rifai, may God be pleased with him, was completed with the care of God Almighty, according to the order of the Most High Grand Master, the Great Khedive of Egypt, Hajj Abbas Hilmi II, may God honour his state and exalt his word, and that In the year one thousand three hundred and twenty-eighth of the Hijra, whoever belongs to the prophets and messengers, may peace and blessings be upon him and his family and companions. 

Although the name of the mosque is attributed to Sheikh Ahmed bin Ali Al-Rifai, his grave is not there, as he died in the village of Umm Ubaidah in Iraq in the year 578 AH/1182 AD. But the name was inherent in the old zawiya, “Al-Rifai’s Zawiya,” which was the location of the current mosque, in reference to the sheikh buried there, Ali Abi Shabak, one of Al-Rifai’s descendants, and the name was later transferred to the current mosque.

Sheikh Ahmed Al-Rifai 

Sheikh Ahmed Al-Rifai was born as an orphan on the island of Umm Ubaida in Iraq in the year 512 AH. He was sponsored by his uncle, Sheikh Mansour Al-Batahi.

He is attributed to his seventh grandfather, Rifa’a, who immigrated to Morocco to escape the Abbasid persecution of the Alawites in the East.

He settled in Seville, married, and had a large number of children. His grandson, Yahya, traveled to the Hijaz to perform his duties. The obligatory Hajj, so he resided in Mecca for a short period, then moved to Basra and settled there and gave birth to his two sons, Al-Hassan Al-Rifai and Ahmed Al-Rifai. Ahmed received religious education and memorized the Qur’an at a young age, and frequented great scholars such as Sheikh Mansour Al-Batahi and Sheikh Ali Al-Wasti.

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Al-Rifai Mosque Creator:

The creator ordered the construction of the AL-Rifai Mosque by Khushiar Hanim, or Hoshyar Khater Hanim, or Hoshyar Qadin, a woman of Turkish origin who was one of the wives of Ibrahim Pasha, the son of Muhammad Ali Pasha, the governor of Egypt.

She was the mother of Khedive Ismail, son of Ibrahim Pasha, who during his reign was called “Mother Pasha.” She was also the sister of the Sultana.

Bertoniel, wife of the Ottoman Sultan Mahmoud II, and mother of Sultan Abdul Aziz I.

Khushiar Hanim lived in Al-Dubara Palace in the Garden City area, and she died in the year 1303 AH / 1885 AD at the age of over seventy years and was buried in the Riffa Mosque.

Al-Rifai Mosque Design & Engineering

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The author of the mosque’s design was Hussein Pasha Fahmi Al-Mimar, son of Abdul Karim Bey, brother of Muharram Bey, who served as governor of Alexandria and married “Tafida Hanem,” daughter of Muhammad Ali Pasha. He studied in the offices of Egypt and entered the Al-Sawari School there.

Then he was chosen to travel to France on a mission in 1844 in order to join the Egyptian Military School in Paris. Then he entered the Civil Corps Department, graduated from it, and joined the Higher Engineering School in Paris.

When he completed his studies, he returned to Egypt during the reign of Abbas I, at the age of 22, and the governor bestowed upon him the rank of Prince of Alay. He held several prestigious positions, including Director of Alexandria Customs, then Governor of Suez, then Undersecretary of the Endowments Bureau This is the job during which he designed Al-Rifai Mosque and several other buildings.

During his studies in France, he became known as Kojak Hussein Bey to distinguish him from Hussein Bey, the son of Muhammad Ali Pasha, who was a classmate of his. He was later known as Hussein Pasha Fahmi Al-Mimar.

He died in 1891. Architect Max Herz Pasha was the one chosen to complete the construction work and make modifications to the building of the mosque after a 25-year hiatus. Herz Pasha is a Hungarian engineer who was born in one of the provinces of Hungary, which currently belongs to Romania, in 1856.

He lived in Egypt from 1880 to 1914.

He joined the technical office of the Egyptian Ministry of Endowments in 1881, and in 1890 he became the engineer responsible for the maintenance of Islamic monuments and architecture. Coptic in Egypt.

He reached the rank of pasha and was a member of the committee for the preservation of ancient Arab antiquities. He is the first director of the House of Arab Antiquities (currently the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo).He died in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1919. 

Al-Rifai Mosque History

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Al-Rifai Mosque is located under Al-Jabal Castle in the beginning of AlRumaila, facing the Sultan Hassan School. This site was in the past, part of which occupied the land of Al-Dhakhira Mosque, which was located opposite the windows of the Sultan Hassan School, which was established by Al-Dhakhira King Jaafar, the governor of the police, the governor of Cairo, and its accountant in the year 516 AH/1122 AD, and it was also on the site.

A corner known as the White Zawiya or Al-Rifai Zawiya, which contained the graves of the two sheikhs (Ali Abi Shabak, Yahya Al-Ansari). In the year 1286 AH / 1869 AD, Dolatlu Khushiar Hanim, mother of Khedive Ismail, ordered the renovation of Zawiya alRifai. So I bought the places adjacent to it and ordered their demolition.

I entrusted Hussein Pasha Fahmi, agent of the Endowments Office, to prepare a project to build a large mosque to which would be attached the burial places of her family and two domes for Sheikh Ali Abi Shabak.

Al-Ansari, and Khalil Agha began implementing the project, and work continued until the building rose by about two metres. Due to the necessity of introducing modifications, I stopped the building and presented Khushiar Hanem with modifications suggested by the engineer Jay, but she did not accept them.

Then I presented other modifications to avoid errors in the construction. Hussein Pasha Fahmi Al-Mimar took over discussing them, and began implementing them. after his death. A picture showing the layout of the mosque and the cemeteries.

Al-Rifai Mosque Interior 

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When developing its design, the architects of Al-Rifai Mosque tried to match the Sultan Hassan Mosque next to it in grandeur and height, even though they faced some difficulties that were criticized by archaeologists and which Herz Pasha remedied, making the mosque, when completed, one of the best mosques built in the twentieth century, most lavish in decoration and mastered in craftsmanship.

The interior area of the mosque is 6,500 square metres, the part designated for prayer is 1,767 square metres, and the rest of the space is allocated for burials and annexes. The mosque has two minarets built on circular bases, like the minarets of the Sultan Hassan Mosque. As for the entrances, they are towering and surrounded by stone and marble columns with Arabic capitals.

Al-Rifai Mosque lintels are decorated with marble, and their entrances are covered with decorated and gilded arches and ceilings. The facades have copper windows of a special design. In the middle of the western side is the royal entrance surrounded by stone columns with ornate marble bases. To the right of the interior of this door is the tomb of King Fouad I in the western front corner of the mosque.

Al-Rifai Mosque was covered with colored marble, and adjacent to it is the tomb of his mother, Princess Faryal. Facing the inside of the door is a room decorated with colorful engravings and inlaid with marble. It contains the tomb of Sheikh Ali Abi Shabak Al-Rifai. Above it was erected a dome whose stalactites were decorated with gold and colours. In the middle was a fine wooden cabin inlaid with walnut and ebony. 

Four doors opened on the sides of the room leading to the mosque. Between the two front doors is a room containing the grave of Sheikh Yahya Al-Ansari In the middle of the eastern wall is the local mihrab, lined with fine marble and flanked on both sides by white and green columns. On the sides of the mosque and in its middle, niches were erected with ornate marble pillars and gilded capitals at their corners.

The necessary marble was brought from Beni Suef, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Germany and Belgium.

On the Al-Rifai Mosque side of the mihrab is a large pulpit whose fillings were inlaid with tooth, ebony and walnut wood, and its helmet and muqarnas were decorated with gold. 

It is represented in splendor by the Qur’an chair. The money bench is made of marble and is set on marble columns decorated with gilded engravings A picture showing the pulpit and the mihrab As for the sea side, it has six doors, four of which connect to the cemeteries and two connect to two spaces between those cemeteries. 

In the eastern chamber there are four graves, all of them belonging to the sons and daughters of Khedive Ismail, one of which belongs to the late Ali Jamal al-Din, the second to Mrs. Tawhida Hanem, the third to Mrs. Zeinab Hanem, and the fourth to the late Ibrahim Hilmi.

 Above this room is a dome whose stalactites are decorated with colors, and to the left of this dome on the western side is one of the two bays, including He reaches the second dome, which contains two graves, one of which belongs to Mrs. 

Khushiar Hanim, the mother of Khedive Ismail and the founder of the mosque, and the second belongs to Khedive Ismail. This is followed by the second spacious dome, from which it leads to the third dome, which contains the graves of Khedive Ismail’s wives, namely Shohrat Faza Hanim, Jananyar Hanim, and Chesham Afat Hanim.

Connecting to this dome is a room containing the tomb of Sultan Hussein Kamel, son of Khedive Ismail. It is surmounted by a coloured ceiling and its walls are covered with types of luxurious marble. 

These tombs were furnished with luxurious carpets, copper chandeliers and lamps were hung, and Qur’an chairs inlaid with nib and silver, gilded Qur’ans, incense burners, and silver candlesticks were placed in them.

Discovering Al-Rifai Mosque: FAQ

What Is Al-Rifai Mosque’s Historical Significance?

Al-Rifai Mosque stands adjacent to the Cairo Citadel and serves as a reflection of 19th and 20th-century Islamic architecture. It houses the tombs of Egyptian royals and important figures like King Farouk and Reza Shah of Iran.

When Was Al-Rifai Mosque Built?

Construction started in 1869 and concluded in 1912. The extended period was due to halts and changes in design, reflecting the political and architectural shifts of the time.

Where Is Al-Rifai Mosque Located?

You’ll find the mosque in central Cairo, Egypt, right next to the historic Sultan Hassan Mosque. It’s easily accessible and a prominent part of the cityscape.

What’s Unique About Its Architecture?

The mosque blends Mamluk and Ottoman styles, featuring grand domes and intricate ornamental motifs. Its size and detail make it a stunning example of Islamic architectural evolution.

Can Visitors Enter Al-Rifai Mosque?

Yes, visitors are welcome. It’s open to tourists who can explore its interior, view the royal tombs, and admire the intricate craftsmanship.

Is There a Dress Code for Visitors?

Modest dress is recommended. Women should cover their hair, arms, and legs. Men should wear long pants. Scarves are usually available at the entrance if needed.

Are Guided Tours Available?

Guided tours are not officially organized by the mosque, but many local tour companies include it in their Cairo itineraries. Guides can add context and history to your visit.

How Does Al-Rifai Mosque Relate to Sultan Hassan Mosque?

It’s located right next to Sultan Hassan Mosque, creating a striking architectural contrast. While both are historical, Al-Rifai is more recent and represents a different era and style.

What Are the Visiting Hours of Al-Rifai Mosque?

Typically, the mosque is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, but hours can vary during religious holidays, so it’s wise to check beforehand.

Are There Any Entry Fees to Al-Rifai Mosque?

An entry fee is usually required for tourists, which goes towards mosque maintenance. Pricing might vary, so consider checking current rates ahead of your visit.