Jerusalem Mamluk Regional Building Style as Demonstrated at Maqam al-Nabi Musa

Maqam al-Nabi Musa, situated just off the route connecting Jerusalem to Jericho and to Amman further to the east, was a meeting place for thousands of pilgrims that gathered around the shrine during the mawsim (festival). Sultans, clerks, muftis, and wealthy families, who sought the saint's blessing, put efforts into building facilities for those pilgrims. The earliest products of those donations, still identifiable on the ground, are the mausoleum built by the order of Sultan Baybars (r. 1260-1277) in the early days of the Mamluk era and the manara (minaret) and the riwaq (open arcade) added by the order of Sultan al-Ashraf Qaytbay (r. 1468-1496) toward the end of that era. Both building phases bear the imprint of local masons who were active in building Mamluk Jerusalem. Those masons developed their own regional style that differed from that of their counterparts in major Mamluk centers like Damascus and Cairo. A concomitant theme in this article is thus regional styles in architecture.