Al-Sharafiyya Madrasa is located to the northeast of the Great Mosque of Aleppo. It was founded by 'Abd al-Rahim ibn al-'Ajami and his son Sharaf al-Din 'Abdul Rahman. A waqf was instituted for the madrasa in 1242, the year of its completion. The building is rectangular with the elaborately ornamented entrance portal situated in the middle of the western side, as shown in the reconstructed plan by Creswell. The ground floor consists of a main courtyard (13.16 x 18.47 meters), with a narrow iwan on the eastern side, the tripartite prayer hall on the southern end and circulation to the three upper stories on the northern end. The student residential units are on those stories. Only the portal and vaulted prayer hall remain after years of neglect dating from the fourteenth century to just recently. The madrasa is now part of the al-Bir Organization for charity.
Sources:
Allen, Terry. 2003. "Madrasah al-Sharafîyah". In
Ayyubid Architecture. Occidental, CA: Solipsist Press.
http://www.sonic.net/~tallen/palmtree/ayyarch/ch8.htm#alep.mshar [Accessed August 2, 2005]
Tabbaa, Yasser.
Constructions of Power and Piety in Medieval Aleppo, 136. University Park, PA: The Pennsyvania State University Press, 1997.
Rihawi, Abdul Qader. Arabic Islamic Architecture in Syria, 104. Damascus: Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, 1979.