Publication Date
822-762/ 1421-1361 /2
Type
Other
Language
Undetermined
Digital
Yes
Manuscript
No
Library
Museum With No Frontiers
Record ID
monument;ISL;sy;Mon01;16;ar
Library Location
Facing the northern entrance of the Great Umayyad Mosque, Damascus, Syria
Date
822-762/ 1421-1361 /2
Notes
The Jaqmaqi Madrasa was built facing the northern entrance of the Umayyad Mosque by the ruler of Damascus, Sayf al-Din Jaqmaq al-Arghanshawi. It was built on the foundations of an older school for orphans, the office of al-Nasir Hasan, which was established in 762/1361 and completed and transformed into a khanqah in 769/1367. The decorative elements of the older building, which was destroyed during Tamerlane’s attack on Damascus in 803/1367, were used. 1401. Jaqmaq expanded the previous building towards the south by building a turba, restored the office for the orphans, and added windows to the northern facade. The plan of the school is a rectangle measuring 20 x 17.5 metres, with a hall with two wings and a covered skyscraper. The madrasa, like the Al-Tawrizi Mosque in Damascus, which was built in 826-3 / 1423-20, and the Turbah Al-Ashraf Barsbay in Cairo, which was completed in 828 / 1425, is considered a model of a mosque with a covered heavenly space, compared to the style with a portico that follows the style of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. The heavenly space was included in Mamluk schools in Syria. During the Mamluk period, major cities such as Aleppo and Damascus adopted the styles of Roman architecture that had developed in Cairo, although each city adopted them in a different way and developed them into their own style. The walls of the external madrasa were built with alternating white and black courses, a decorative technique known as ablaq, and one of the characteristics of Damascene architecture. The façade includes a high niche built with finely cut stones, which is exceptional and represents an early example dating back to the first construction phase in the year 762 / 1361. This feature was skillfully developed and applied to many buildings in Aleppo, especially since the beginning of the ninth / fifteenth century, such as the Atrash Mosque, for example. The eastern façade is decorated with a muqarnas niche made of colored stones, where the founder of the building, Saif al-Din Jaqmaq al-Arghunshawi, who died in the year was buried. 824/1421. The building was restored following damage caused by bombing in the 1940s, and today the building houses the Museum of Arabic Calligraphy.
Sample Text
Verena Daiber “The Jakmaqi School” in Discover Islamic Art. Museum Without Borders, 2026. 2026. https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=monument;ISL;sy;Mon01;16;ar
