The residential complex of the familiy al-Sadat al-Wafaʾiyya goes back to the 17th century (Volait, 2021, p. 94). New living quarters were added to the complex in 1228 AH / 1813 CE by Shams al-Din Muhammad Abu al-Anwar al-Sadat (d.1228 AH / 1813 CE). An upper qāʾa probably built then still exists today and displays two rows of stucco and glass windows, above mashrabīya screens. This room (among others of the complex) was painted by Frank Dillon in c.1873 (IG_100, IG_101, IG_105). In the watercolour (IG_101), Dillon depicted eight of the ten then-extant windows in the niche to the left, and four of the eleven then extant in the right niche. Except for the centre window, the windows depicted in the left niche seem to be the same as today; they all have a large central piece of blank glass in oval or rectangular shape, and a colourful framing with geometric forms. The windows in the right niche, however, only preserve the colourful framing in the upper part; the coloured pieces of the side borders, as can be seen in Dillon’s watercolour, are lost. Also, some of the upper parts of the windows are different and more complex in design than in Dillon’s time.
The typology of the windows, with its curvaceous shapes, corresponds to a type of stucco and glass window that document the increasing impact of the ongoing transformation of Ottoman art and architecture, initiated in Istanbul in the late 16th century, which culminated during the so-called Ottoman Baroque period. It is characterized by larger pieces of glass and strait or curved stucco bars that do not form the outline of figurative motifs, but introduce Baroque shapes (see Bakirer, 1985, p. 152; Bakirer, 2001, p. 12).
The exterior of the qāʾa of Sheikh Sadat is documented in photographs by the Maison Bonfils (IG_477) and Beniamino Facchinelli (1839–1895) (IG_478).

Ahmed, N. (2020). A walk through a lost treasure: The house of Shaykh al-Sadat al-Wafaâ'iyya [Master's Thesis, the American University in Cairo]. AUC Knowledge Fountain. https://fount.aucegypt.edu/etds/1738

Bakirer, Ö. (1985). Ottoman Glass Manufacture and Venetian Impacts. In H. Filitz & M. Pippal (Eds.), Europa und die Kunst des Islam. 15. bis 18. Jahrhundert. Leitung der Sektion: Oleg Grabar (Akten des XXV. Internationalen Kongresses für Kunstgeschichte V) (pp. 147–157). Böhlau.

Bakirer, Ö. (2001). Window Glass in Ottoman Vernacular Architecture. EJOS (Proceedings of the 11th International Congress of Turkish Art), IV(9), 1–29.

Volait, M. (2021). Antique Dealing and Creative Reuse in Cairo and Damascus 1850–1890. Leiden: Brill, 94–101.