Structuring Sovereignty: Islam and Modernity in the Mosque of Muhammad ‘Ali Pasha

Abstract

The monumental Alabaster Mosque of the Ottoman-appointed governor of Egypt Muhammad ‘Ali Pasha (r. 1805–1848) has been varyingly examined as a visual representation of the Pasha’s political ambitions, modernizing spirit, nationalist aspirations, and cosmopolitanism. Scholars have generally sought to explain the significance of Muhammad ‘Ali’s mosque through such structuring concepts as modernity and nationalism, but questions remain as to why Muhammad ‘Ali sought to embody his political agenda and personal ambitions by monumentalizing a place of worship. What about the mosque as an Islamic object and a place of worship was significant for conceptualizing modernity and nationalism in early-nineteenth-century Egypt? By approaching the mosque as a structuring institution of Islam, this article highlights the distinctiveness of the mosque as a site and an object through which Muhammad ‘Ali negotiated varying conceptions of sovereignty, power, and national identity at a time of transition in Egyptian history.

Keywords:

• mosque
• Muhammad ‘Ali Pasha
• modernity
• Egypt
• sovereignty
• Islamic architecture

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Dana Katz, David Sacks, Noah Salomon, Jeremy Walton, and Steve Wasserstrom for their constructive comments on an earlier draft of this article and to Barry Flood for his erudite response to a conference presentation of this papers. Thanks also to Ateha Bailly, Conor McCornack, Sophia McKean, Delainey Myers, Tehniyat Naveed, and Sarkawt Sabir for their assistance in finalizing this article for publication. Thanks to Thomas Landvatter and Sara Cordoba for photographing parts of the Muhammad ‘Ali Mosque for publication in this article.

Notes

1 Given that the Pasha was a Turkish-speaking Ottoman of Albanian origin, he likely pronounced his name as Mehmed ‘Ali. I have, however, decided to keep the Arabic transliteration of his name because the mosque in Cairo that is named after him and is the subject of this article has come to been known, both in Egypt and outside of Egypt as well as in Egyptian historiography, as the Muhammad ‘Ali Mosque. There is some confusion around the year of Muhammad ‘Ali’s birth. In interviews with foreign visitors Muhammad ‘Ali often gave 1769 as his birth year in order to associate himself with Napoleon Bonaparte and the first Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, who were born in the same year. However, as Khalid Fahmy has explained he was more likely born in 1184 AH or 1770-71 CE (Fahmy 2009).

2 The exact time when construction on the mosque began is not clear. In his pithy al-Ahram article, “A Mosque and an Imperial Dream,” Nasser Rabbat (18-24 August 2005), reports that “in a note attached to his sketches, Coste says that the foundations for his mosque were excavated in June 1827.” In his seminal essay, “The Mosque of Muhammad ‘Ali in Cairo” in Muqarnas IX (1992, 41), Mohammad al-Asad cites Amin Sami (1928), 341, citing al-Waqa’i’ al-Misriyya, no. 2, 9 Jumada II 1244 (17 December 1828) to say that construction on the mosque began in “late 1828.” ‘Ali Mubarak (1888, 7), however, dates the start of the construction of the mosque to 1246 AH (1830 or 1831 CE). ‘Abd al-Wahhab ([1946] 1994, 381) similarly dates the beginning of construction on the mosque to 1830.

3 There are also some qur’anic inscriptions above the windows surrounding the walls of the mosque, which are in the Thuluth script and are dated 1267 AH. In March 2019, the number one in 1261 was missing from the inscription of Shihab al-Din’s poem, but this date has been recorded in Mubarak (1888, 81).

4 He also included Turkish inscriptions in the mosque.

5 This inscription is in Nasta’liq calligraphy and dates to 1261 AH (1844/45) (‘Abd Al-Wahhab [1946] 1994, 387).

6 I am grateful to Dr. F. Barry Flood for drawing my attention to the significance of alabaster in Muhammad ‘Ali’s mosque (Flood 2016).

7 Next to Muhammad ‘Ali’s mosque, there is a royal mosque that was built by the Mamluk sultan al-Nasir Muhammad in 1318–1335 and was used for congregational prayers and public religious ceremonies at the Citadel (Mubarak 1888, 7; Rabbat 1995, 263–276; Behrens-Abouseif 2007, 173–178).

8 This association of the mosque with the heavens and the divine is also noted in the poetry inscribed around the mosque which identify the building as “umm al-janna” and “umm al-makramat.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kambiz GhaneaBassiri

Kambiz GhaneaBassiri is a Professor of Religion & Humanities at Reed College. He specializes in Islam in America and in modern and classical Islamic history in the Middle East. He is the founding co-editor of the Islam of the Global West book series published by Bloomsbury Academic. He was named a Carnegie Scholar for his book, A History of Islam in America, and a Guggenheim Fellow for his current book project on the mosque in Islamic history. He also served as one of five national scholars who developed the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Library Association Muslim Journeys Bookshelf.