Source: The Sabil-Kuttab of Yusuf Agha Dar al-Saʿadat in Cairo
Figure 1 shows the sabil-kuttab of Yusuf Agha Dar al-Saʿadat, a seventeenth-century building in Cairo whose patron was a chief harem eunuch of East African origin in the Ottoman palace in Istanbul. The building stands along Darb al-Ahmar, south of the Fatimid city gate of Bab Zuwayla at easy walking distance. Like many seventeenth- and eighteenth-century monuments in Cairo (and unlike most of their medieval peers), the sabil-kuttab has not been restored, and is in disuse. At the time of its construction, it was one of many buildings of its kind, with a public foundation (sabil) on the ground floor and an elementary school (kuttab) for local children to learn their letters and the Qur’an on the upper floor. Examples of this building type, dating from the fifteenth to the mid-nineteenth century abound in Cairo. Dated 1088 AH/ 1677 CE, the building was part of a much larger endowment that its patron, Yusuf Agha, the Chief Harem Eunuch from 1671-87, bought from its previous owner, commissioning a new inscription and establishing a waqf, i.e. an endowment that paid for staffing and maintenance of the buildings and funded charitable functions. In this case, the water supplied from the fountain, and the schooling offered for children were part of the charity that was provided.
The new owner’s name and the building’s date are noted in an inscription in Ottoman Turkish (figure 2) placed over one of the ground-floor windows. What does the inscription tell us, in addition to the patron’s name, and the building’s date? We are told that the water quality at the fountain is excellent, and that the related school was built to benefit orphans. Further, the connected wikala, a building of stores and residential spaces, is mentioned. It would have provided income for the maintenance of the school and fountain, which were charitable institutions and thus did not charge fees.
Yet a large part of the story is missing. The inscription is silent about Yusuf Agha’s origins in East Africa, where he was captured at a young age to be trafficked in the Ottoman trade with enslaved people that extended south beyond the Ottoman province of Habesh, roughly present-day Eritrea. We do not know the name his parents gave him, nor what ethnic and linguistic group he came from. During the trajectory from his home to the Ottoman palace in Istanbul, he was subjected to castration to become one of the eunuchs coveted for palace service. Once in Istanbul, Yusuf was educated for service in the Ottoman palace, learning Ottoman-Turkish, the court’s language. Eventually, he rose in the ranks become the chief of the Black harem eunuchs. The trajectory from enslaved child to high official of the Ottoman palace is nearly impossible to imagine, more so because Yusuf Agha remained enslaved for at least as long as he was in palace service.[1] The sabil-kuttab in Cairo is an outward sign of elite status – and the absences in its inscription can raise discussions of the limits defined by race and gender that the patron would have faced, and the economic status that would have permitted the presence of enslaved people in Yusuf Agha’s own household in Cairo, where he planned to retire.[2]
[1] At times, harem eunuchs were manumitted when they left palace service: Hathaway, Chief Eunuch, 10.
[2] In 1687, Yusuf Agha fell into disgrace and was forced into exile until 1691, when his property was restored and he was appointed as the overseers of the eunuchs guarding the prophet Muhammad’s tomb in Medina: Hathaway, Chief Eunuch, 117-119.
Contributed by Patricia Blessing. This contribution CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
Discussion Questions
- What can we learn about this building’s patron by reading the foundation inscription?
- By analyzing this building, what can we learn about the patron’s position in Ottoman society? What aspects of his life are not reflected in the building?
- What types of information remain out of reach?
Related Primary Sources
- Eunuchs in Ethiopia
- The Guide Book for Obtaining Divine Favors and Avoiding Divine Punishment
- The Training of Mamluks
Related Secondary Sources
- Hathaway, Jane. The Chief Eunuch of the Ottoman Harem: From African Slave to Power-Broker. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. See especially pp. 105-128.