Hospice Sulaymaniyah

Hospice Sulaymaniyah

Overview:

• The hospice in the Ottoman concept is parallel to the system of ligaments and khanqah that was built before it, with a different name. However, the Ottomans gave this type of buildings another function to be an area for alms and feeding the needy, the poor, and the wayfarers.

• It is a huge building in Damascus, in an area that used to be called “Al-Marj Al-Akhdar” or “Al-Marjah”.

• It was built by the famous Turkish engineer Mimar Sinan, who died in 966 AH by order of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, and engineer Mulla Agha supervised its construction.

• It was named after Sultan Suleiman.

Historic overview:

• The place of the hospice was the palace of Sultan al-Zahir Baybars, known as the “Ablaq Palace” Sultan Suleiman stayed there during his stay in Damascus in the year 932 AH / 1517 AD.

• He demolished it and started in the year 962 AH / 1554 AD to build the Hospice Sulaymaniyah. It was completed in the year 967 AH / 1559 AD, during the reign of Governor Khidir Pasha, and the construction of the school attached to it began, and it was built in the year 974 AH / 1566 AD, during the reign of the Governor Lalla Mustafa Pasha, which is also the year in which Sultan Suleiman died.

• After the establishment of the Syrian University in Damascus in 1934, part of its building was used to teach dentistry, and then it was used as the headquarters of the Civil Police magazine's printing house. During the era of the French occupation, the forces of General Gouraud settled there, and it was later used as an Islamic Sharia school in the year 1948 AD, where the Palestinians sought refuge when they were forced to flee from their homeland. Finally, it was adopted as the headquarters of the Military Museum, and as a museum of folk traditions, where Syrian products are displayed with small workshops to introduce these products; such as the manufacture of glass, silverware, leather, carpets, antiques and other handicrafts.

Architectural description:

• Hospice Sulaymaniyah consists of two groups of buildings, western and eastern, with a total area of about 11,000 square meters.

• The most prominent characteristic of the style of the hospice is its two slender minarets, which resemble obelisks or two pencils due to their extreme slenderness, a style that was not common in Damascus until that era.

Resources:

discover-syria website

marefa website

naseemalsham website

www.u-news website

alaraby website

ubbaha website

loveamascus website

creative-architecture96 website

sana website

Directorate of Endowments of Damascus

mapio website

alittihad website

syrianmodernhistory website

syriaphotoguide website

alraimedia website

alhayat website

islamstory website

furat.alwehd website

aawsat website

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