Jami' al-Maqamat (Aleppo)Aleppo, Syria
The Jami’ al-Maqamat was formerly known as the Mausoleum or Ribat of Qarasunqur but took on the new name at a later date because of its location in the heart of the Maqamat neighborhood, located just south of the medieval city walls through Bab al-Maqam and just west of the Madrasa al-Kamiliyya. The mosque was originally built as a funerary complex for Shams al-Din Qarasunqur I, the governor of Aleppo (d. 1309/709 AH), and included a prayer hall, tomb chambers and a public fountain (sabil). It is tentatively dated to 1303/703 AH by an inscription that appears along with a Mamluk blazon above the fountain.1
The complex is a rectangular building centered on a large square courtyard with a rectangular sanctuary, slightly narrower than the main complex, attached to its south end. One enters from the north through a portal in the form of an iwan surmounted by a minaret, much like the Ayyubid Madrasa al-Sultaniyya, constructed just decades before. This entrance portal is flanked on either side by rectangular rooms and gives onto a three arched portico which forms the north side of the building’s central courtyard.
On the south side of the courtyard, a nearly identical triple arched portico gave onto the prayer hall. The arches of this portico were filled in at some point in the twentieth century. The prayer hall consists of a central bay and two side bays, the central space surmounted by dome resting on a dodecagonal base. The mihrab is located in the central bay while two cenotaphs occupy the two side bays.
Notes:
- Herzfeld, Alep, inscr. 170.
Sources:
Gaube, Heins, and Eugin Wirth. Aleppo: Historische Und Geographische Beiträge Zur Baulichen Gestaltung, Zur Sozialen Organisation Und Zur Wirtschaftlichen Dynamik Einer Vorderasiatischen Fernhandelsmetropole, 411, no. 658. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert, 1984.
Herzfeld, Ernst. Matériaux Pour Un Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum. Part 2: Syrie Du Nord. Inscriptions et Monuments d’Alep, vol. 1, pt. 2, pages 321–322. Cairo: Institut Français d’archéologie orientale, 1954.
Meinecke, Michael. Die Mamlukische Architektur in Ägypten Und Syrien (658/1250 Bis 923/1517), 2:96, cat. 9B/42. Glückstadt: J. J. Augustin, 1992.
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