Madrasa al-Tankiziyya (Damascus)

Damascus, Syria

The Tankiziyya is a historic madrasa located in the old city of Damascus, just south of the Qasr al-'Azm (Azem Palace) and east of the Hammam Nur al-Din. An inscription dates the completion of the building's construction to 1338-1339/739 AH, and names the patron as Sayf al-Din Tankiz al-Nasiri, the Mamluk governor of Syria. The building must thus be the same as a dar al-Qur'an wa'l-hadith that a number of medieval Arabic sources associate with Tankiz's patronage.1 While parts of the original building remain, the structure as a whole has undergone much renovation and change since its foundation in the 14th/8th c. AH.

The building opens to the north onto a narrow lane. A portal vaulted with a muqarnas hood opens at the western end of the facade, which is pierced by two windows east of the portal. Within the portal, an inscription and an oculus in the form of a stone roundel decorate the space above the door and below the muqarnas vault. 

The portal opens onto a vestibule, which gives on in turn to the side wall of an iwan opening onto the building's central courtyard from its west side. Each facade of the courtyard has an iwan. The iwan on the south side of the courtyard facing the qibla has a mihrab and two corner rooms open off its side walls. One side room also opens off of the east side of the north iwan.

Based on the stonework, Ellen Kenney dates the north and east facade of the building to the foundation period, and believes that the general plan of the ground floor is original. The second story as it stands today, which includes wooden balconies constructed in a style consistent with late Ottoman-period constructions, likely dates to the period of renovation in the early twentieth century.

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