ABSTRACT
The mid-seventeenth-century architectural complex of Ripwan Bey in Cairo is located immediately to the south of Bab Zuwayla outside the Fatimid city walls.1 It is remarkable not only for its size, but also for the variety of its constituent parts and the ingenuity by which these parts are integrated with each other and with their urban context (Figure 11.1). The founder of this ensemble of buildings was one of the most powerful men in the city of his day, who served as Amcr al-lajj (Commander of the Pilgrimage) for an unprecedented twenty-one years. The site he chose to build on is significant for many reasons. It is located at an important crossroads: a point where the ancient north-south axis of the city, variously called the Shari‘ al-A‘tam or the Qaraba, crosses the Darb al-Aqmar, the major east-west route to the Citadel. Both these arteries featured prominently in public ceremonials during earlier periods, and it can be no coincidence that Ripwan, the Amcr al-lajj, favoured adjacency to the processional route of the pilgrimage on its departure and return from the Hijaz when he decided to build. In addition, this area was a manufacturing centre for objects essential for both the pilgrims and those who protected them on their journey: a trade perpetuated in vestigial form on the site even today.
