Abu Bakr Ratib Pasha

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

A large slightly irregular rectangular enclosure measuring ca. 37 x 19 m, with a huge building on the northern side of the enclosure.
In the spacious courtyard are numerous (over twenty) simple masonry mastabas without shahid stelas typical of Muslim tomb markers. Carved marble panels apparently from dismantled cenotaphs are mounted on the S wall of the main building, and some shahids lay on the mastabas. (See section 17). A marble wall-fountain in Ottoman Baroque style, apparently transferred from elsewhere, is also mounted on the wall next to the entrance to the main building.
By the western wall of the enclosure, a straight flight of stone stairs leads from the northern side to a subterranean barrel-vaulted corridor of stone masonry, with walled-up doors leading to burial crypts. The passage is lit by a large square light-shaft, over which stands a pergola of wood on stone piers.
The entrance to main building on the N side of the courtyard is shaded by an elaborate wooden eave on decorative wooden brackets. The door-leaves are of high-quality elaborate geometric paneling, with elaborate brass fittings decorated with floral scrolls and inscriptions. The door leads to a square entrance hall at the W end of the building. This sitting room (equipped with armchairs) is decorated with stucco panels of elaborate arabesque floral scrolls in knotted mouldings frames and a band of stucco floral scrolls around the walls at breast-heighth. On the western wall is a long rectangular panel of Ottoman-style ceramic tiles framed in knotted mouldings and framed by two similar square panels. In the northern wall is a square window with a mashrabiya grille in the mafruka form. The entrance hall is covered with a very elaborate wooden ceiling, with “stalactite” coffers, geometric decoration and an inscription band in the frieze.
The entrance hall opens with a wide opening on the central domed chamber, which it adjoins via a simple narrow room. The dome rests on four pointed arches, two of which open onto the side rooms. The drum is pierced with four windows with qamariyat grilles. The dome interior and drum are richly painted in elaborate colourful geometric patterns. A Kufic inscription band runs around the drum. Internally, the zone –of-transition is formed by two plain triangular planes set at an angle in each corner. Under the dome is a low dais, square in plan and clad with stone tiles, on which lay four plain marble slabs with names (but no dates or other information) in incised calligraphic script.
To the east of the domed chamber is a room separated from it by a wooden mashrabiya screen. The walls of the room are decorated with stucco panels similar to those in the western hall. The windows covered with semi-circular arches are fitted with qamariyat gypsum-and-stained-glass grilles.
External façades are covered with plaster, with windows and blind niches set in rectangular recesses covered with muqarnas friezes, and with elaborate arabesque stucco panels beneath. The recesses are placed sparsely and asymmetrically. The entrance is to the side of the façade. The mausoleum is thus one of the few at the cemetery that does not employ Mamluk-style motifs on a strictly symmetrical Beaux-Arts design.
The reinforced-concrete shell of the dome is covered on the outside with fluted ribs in plaster, overhanging on stalactite corbels and giving the dome a slightly “onion” profile (a form of Persian origin, found sometimes in Mamluk architecture in Cairo: in mausoleums al-Sultaniya [No 288], of Sargatmish [No 218], and of Yunis al-Dawadar [No 139]). The crenellations on the façade are of zigzag-profile form typical of Ayyubid and early Mamluk architecture in Cairo, rather than the late-Mamluk form more typical of the cemetery.