two lantern structures (instead of the usual one), a feature that reappeared much later in the minaret of Sultan al-Ghuri at the al-Azhar Mosque and in the minaret of the nearby Mosque of Qanibay ar-Rammah. Additionally, two more minarets were originally intended to stand above the monumental portal of the mosque, very much like in the architecture of Mongol Ilkhanid and Anatolian Seljuk madrasas and mosques around the same period (for example, the Gök Madrasa in Sivas, Turkey, or the Great Mosque of Yazd, Iran), which were almost certainly an inspiration. This would have given the mosque a total of four minarets, which would have been unprecedented in Islamic architecture in Egypt. However, in 1361, during construction, one of those minarets toppled and killed around 300 people, including children in the primary school below. After this, the builders abandoned their construction, leaving only the two minarets adjacent to the mausoleum that we see today. The entrance portal The entrance portal is gigantic by the standards of mosque architecture and is 38 meters high. It was built at an angle projecting 17 degrees outwards from the rest of the wall so as to be visible from the Citadel. Its shape and the layout of its decoration indicate obvious inspiration from the portals of madrasas and mosques in Anatolian Seljuk and Mongol Ilkhanid architecture of the time, particularly the portal of the Gök (Blue) Madrasa in Sivas, Turkey, built in 1271. On the inside of the portal, behind the stone benches and flanking the doorway, are a pair of marble niches filled with geometric patterns reminiscent of Qur'an illumination and culminating in shallow muqarnas hoods (also Anatolian in style). Above these are black marble panels inlaid with white Kufic Arabic inscriptions of parts of the Surat al-Fath (Sura of Victory) from the Qur'an. The Shahada (the Muslim declaration of faith) is inscribed in "square" Kufic higher up above this, while further up is a band of inscription containing another Quranic verse (24:36-37), running along the full width of the inside of the portal, just below the muqarnas canopy. The decoration of the portal was apparently never finished. There are many examples of stone carvings whose initial outlines were drawn into the stone but were never carved out. The broad and impressive muqarnas canopy over the doorway does not appear to be fully carved out either, while above this a section of stone