The Sultan Hassan Mosque and Madrasa (School) is considered stylistically the most compact and unified of all Cairo monuments. It is one of the masterpieces of Mamluk architecture. The building was commissioned by Sultan Hassan bin Mohammad bin Qala'oun in 1356 AD as a mosque and religious school for all four juristic branches of Sunni Islam. It was designed so that each of the four schools of thought - Shafi, Maliki, Hanafi and Hanbali - has its own area while sharing the mosque.