Qalawun Complex

This guide to the Qalawun Complex in Cairo opens on a construction site that ran day and night for thirteen months, built largely by Mongol prisoners of war forced to raise a monument for the sultan who had defeated them, and the emir who evicted nearby families to clear the ground. It traces sultan al-Mansur Qalawun's vow, made while gravely ill in Syria, to repay a debt he believed he owed once he recovered. Look for the mother-of-pearl inlay worked into the marble near the mausoleum's entrance.