Publication Date
981/ 4-1573
Type
Other
Language
Undetermined
Digital
Yes
Manuscript
No
Library
Museum With No Frontiers
Record ID
monument;ISL;sy;Mon01;20;ar
Library Location
Damascus, Syria
Date
981/ 4-1573
Notes
The Silk Khan was built in the year 981/3/1574 by order of the ruler of Damascus at that time, Darwish Pasha, as an endowment for the Druishiya Mosque. It was first called Qaysariyya Darwish Pasha, then it was renamed based on its function and became the Silk Khan. The location of the building is almost square, occupying an area of about 2500 square meters, and includes 27 covered shops within its external walls. The main entrance in the northern wall leads to a heavenly space with an area of about 300 square metres, and it is surrounded by two rows of rooms that contained silk workshops and their shops. The heavenly expanse is paved with black stones with a rectangular basin in the centre. This khan follows the style of Damascene khans, and is therefore equipped with two floors that can be accessed via stairs on both sides behind the entrance. The upper floor includes rooms lined up on both sides of the corridor, except for the eastern side, where the rooms are lined up along the side of the courtyard only. All rooms are roofed with cross or bed vaults, and above the entrance there are three rooms roofed with bed vaults, including the guard’s room facing the outside, and the khanji room facing the courtyard. The building was covered with forty-four domes extending over the corridor, and three sides of the khan faced pedestrian walkways, and its walls were characterized by ablaq columns, a feature that distinguishes Ottoman Mamluk architecture in Damascus. The plan of the Harir Khan, with its heavenly courtyard and water basin, is a model for khans in the Arab-Islamic world, and it follows the traditional Ottoman building principles that include a heavenly courtyard and corridors covered with traditional small domes, but it must be taken into account that any None of the Mamluk khans in Damascus has reached us, and therefore it is not possible to know the influence of the Mamluk khans on these Ottoman commercial structures. Unlike the khans of the commercial roads, which were mainly used as resting places, the khans of the cities were wholesale centers. The Silk Khan had multiple functions: it was a resting place, it also included workshops and a center for commercial exchanges, and it served as a headquarters for selling the products that were manufactured in the khan, and for selling the raw materials used in the manufacturing process. The local elites, especially the rulers, were inspired by the architectural activities of the sultans, and began an active campaign of construction before the end of the tenth / sixteenth century, centered in two areas: the mosques and the structures attached to them in the west of the city, while the markets expanded by building a number of khans to the southwest. From the Umayyad Mosque. The Silk Khan was the first large Khan to be built within the city walls, and its construction was the beginning of a qualitative shift in commercial activities in the area southwest of the Umayyad Mosque.
Sample Text
Verena Daiber "Khan Al-Harir" in Discover Islamic Art. Museum Without Borders, 2026. 2026. https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=monument;ISL;sy;Mon01;20;ar
