Al-Shaykh ‘Abd al-Ra’uf al-Segini

Description (The direction towards Mecca (Qibla) is described as eastern and other directions are named accordingly)

A slightly irregular, roughly rectangular walled enclosure with the entrance gate from the street placed approximately in the middle of the longer, eastern wall, the southern section ow which is hidden behind another enclosure. The façade is topped with a cavetto cornice decorated with lancet-shaped leafs possibly inspired by Pharaonic architecture, and a cable moulding. Over the cornice is a crenellation of geometric stylized palmette shapes. The entrance portal is taller than the rest of the front wall and flanked with two pilasters without capitals, with double mouldings intercrossing in a way vaguely resembling Mamluk knotted mouldings. The entrance door is placed in a recess topped with a slightly flattened (elliptical) arch and framed with a continuous torus moulding around the recess, with a palmette in the key. The door is framed by similar moulding forming engaged colonettes with extremely simplified vaguely floral geometric decoration on capitals. The tympanum of the arch is entirely filled with a marble slab bearing an inscription (see point 17 below). The double-leaf panelled wooden entrance door have carved decoration clearly inspired by Art Deco. There is a single window to the left of the portal and two windows to the right side, covered with segmental arches with huge console-like keystones with simplified floral decoration. The windows are filled with rather elaborate wrought iron grilles that bear no resemblance to Islamic art. The panelled window shutters are plain and undecorated.
Between the two windows to the right is a rectangular recess of a wall-fountain topped by a cornice similar to this on top of the façade, and with a cantilevered stone ledge at the bottom. Apparently it featured a decorated marble slab at the back, which is now missing.
The entrance leads to a platform placed between two simple, undecorated single-storey buildings in the south-eastern and north-eastern corners of the enclosure, separated by a wrought-iron railing from the funerary courtyard in the western part of the enclosure, which is four steps lower. The simple pattern of the fence is Art Nouveau- inspired. A similar fence encloses an empty section of the courtyard in the north-western corner, while by the northern perimeter wall is a raised platform with three limestone tomb markers. They were originally uninscribed, but are fitted with modern marble inscription plaques.
Asymmetrically placed within the enclosure is an elaborate uninscribed limestone cenotaph, with geometric decoration of simplified floral motifs. The cenotaph is surrounded by a wrought-iron fence of the pattern similar to the others in the enclosure and is covered by an openwork wrought iron canopy in a similar style. There are also modern brick-built tomb markers in the enclosure, and two shafts leading to crypts, fenced with wrought iron railings.