Before becoming sultan in 1296, the Mamluk Husam al-Din Lajin spent a year in hiding at the dilapidated Ibn Tulun Mosque in Cairo. He vowed to renovate the mosque someday, and an enormous minbar was the result. It was dismantled in the late 19th century and dispersed in several museum collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A copy based on a traveler’s drawing now stands in the mosque.