Madrasa and Mausoleum of al-Nasir Muhammad, Cairo

This madrasa and mausoleum was begun by Kitbugha, the Mongol viceroy and regent who briefly usurped the throne from al-Nasir Muhammad in 1295, and completed by al-Nasir when he resumed power; it is dated 1295-1303. ^{1 2} It stands between the Qalawun complex and Barquq's madrasa on al-Mu'izz street. ²

Its most telling feature is the marble Gothic doorway, a Crusader trophy from the church of St George at Acre, first placed in an amir's house, where Kitbugha saw it and installed it in his madrasa. ²

Its three-tier minaret shows some of the most intricate stucco of the period, thought to be by Andalusian or North African craftsmen: lace-like stucco covers the first shaft, with three tall keel-arched recesses with fluted hoods below, lozenges and rosettes above, and a Naskhi band over a blind arcade of lobed arches under the muqarnas cornice. ² The octagonal second shaft was built a century later, and the wooden third with its conical top is Ottoman. ²

As in Qalawun's complex a central corridor divides madrasa from mausoleum; the mausoleum, much smaller than Qalawun's, holds al-Nasir's mother and eldest son. ² The madrasa is a cruciform plan of four unequal iwans round a courtyard with a fountain, teaching all four schools: the qibla iwan (Maliki) and north-west iwan (Shafi'i) are much deeper than the south-west (Hanbali) and north-east (Hanafi). ² The qibla iwan has a ten-metre mihrab with superbly cut stucco attributed to craftsmen from Tabriz; Behrens-Abouseif suggests it was installed after 1303, when hostilities between Mamluks and Ilkhanids ceased. ²