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Max Herz: Al-Rifa'i Mosque at Cairo, Egypt

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Max Herz Pasha Max Herz was “born in Hungary, studied in Hungary and Austria, spent his active life in Egypt, died in Switzerland, and is buried in Italy”.² He considered Egypt to be his “second native land”.³ Herz was born in Hungary in 1856; he studied at the Technical University at Budapest and at the Technische Hochschule in Vienna, showing a particular interest in oriental architecture. After finishing his studies in 1880, he was employed as a draftsman by the Technical Office of the Ministry of Religious Endowments in Egypt.⁴ In 1887, he became a member of the Comité de Conservation des Monuments de l’Art Arabe; he would eventually become the Chief Architect, and therefore de facto leader, of the Comité.⁵ He supervised the restoration and rebuilding of many historic sites, including several mosques. In 1905 Helmi Pasha commissioned him to completed the Al-Rifa’i Mosque, which had been abandoned for almost twenty-five years. He completed the mosque in 1912, and in the same year was honored with the title of pasha. Two years later he was forced to flee from Egypt; following the outbreak of World War I, the occupying British forces expelled everyone of Austro-Hungarian origin.⁶ Herz died in Switzerland in 1919, and is buried at the Cimitero Monumentale in Milan, Italy.

Construction In 1862, Koshiar Hanem, mother of Khedive Ismail, commissioned Husayn Pasha Fahmy al-Mi’mar to replace the small Rifa’i shrine with a dynastic mosque. The shrine to Shaykh Ali al-Refa’i, a medieval Islamic saint, was a pilgrimage site believed to have healing powers.⁷ Construction on the mosque began in 1869, but it was plagued by cost overruns and the khedive’s unhappiness with proposed changes to the plans. Al-Mi’mar died during the first phase of construction, but the final nail in the project’s coffin did not come until 1880, when the Khedive abdicated. Construction halted that same year, and was not resumed until 1905, when Khedive Abbas Hilmi II ordered the mosque to be completed. Max Herz, a Hungarian Jewish architect and member of the Comité de Conservation des Monuments de l’Art Arabe, supervised the second phase of construction, and the mosque was completed in 1912.

Famous Tombs The tombs within the mosque provide a fascinating cross-section of nineteenth and twentieth century Middle Eastern history. Koshiar Hanem, who originally commissioned the mosque, is buried there, as is her son Khedive Ismail and his three wives.⁸ Sultan Hussein Kamel, one of the two Khedives to also hold the title of Sultan, is buried with his wife in the largest tomb in the mosque.⁹ The mosque also contains the mausoleum of the last shah of Iran, Reza Shah Pahlavi, who died in exile in South Africa in 1944. The shah’s body was returned to Iran after the end of World War II; part of the mausoleum is taken up by the grave of his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who died in Cairo in 1980.¹⁰ In contrast to the grandeur of gold and marble that decorates the last shah’s tomb, the tomb of the last king of Egypt is small and simple. King Farouk, who was deposed during the revolution of 1952, died outside of the country in 1965 and his body was returned to Egypt for burial.

Architectural Style After Helmi Pasha commissioned Max Herz to complete the mosque in 1905, Herz significantly modified the original designs, envisioning a structure in the neo-Mamluk style that had originated in the late nineteenth century. Also known as neo-Islamic, the style began to appear as Egypt distanced itself from the Ottoman sultanate, prior to the British occupation of Egypt in 1882.¹¹ It was a conscious attempt to develop a style that was both modern and distinctively Egyptian. Herz employed the style to make the mosque appear more medieval, rejecting a modern symmetrical design.¹² The building’s design echoed that of the Sultan Hasan mosque across the street, including the Mamluk minarets and dome.¹³

Comité de Conservation des Monuments de l’Art Arabe Established by Khedive Tawfiq in 1881, the organization strove to document and preserve Egyptian and Coptic architecture and monuments.¹⁴ Its members were architects and architectural historians who volunteered to create an index of monuments worth preservation and restoration. Herz, as Chief Architect of the Comité, tried to emphasize preservation over restoration, especially in regards to unique monuments. By 1914, the Comité had worked on more than three hundred monuments. Its activities declined later in the twentieth century, and it was formally dissolved in 1961.¹⁵

Cairo, Egypt

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