The plan of a Mamluk religious foundation in Cairo is made up of overlapping motifs.an irregular plan determined by the street grid and boundaries of the site and a second consistent, highly streamlined scheme with a clear spatial hierarchy designed to produce a particular sequential experiment. These patterns are mainly represented by two general configurations. One is a hypostyle prayer hall that overlooks a square or rectangular courtyard surrounded by arcades and the other, four iwans each opening onto one of the four sides of a square or rectangular courtyard accessible from the street by means of a bent entrance. Not only these projects have been introduced in the uneven sites of the densely populated city of Cairo but they too had to be turned towards Mecca.

Two major challenges Egyptian architects from the Mamluk period ingeniously met without sacrificing either the integrity or the purity of the spatial components of the scheme to planning ideals with which this architect was preoccupied.

The two opposing minarets and portals, by flanking-and thus framing-the street, create the effect of a monumental gate that makes the segment of Processional al-Saliba Street, defined by these two parallel facades, part of the Shaykhu Complex.