Development over time and the institution’s endowment

[Picture source: © 2005 Jean-Claude David]

Dayfa Khatun established the institutions as a madrasa for the Shafiʿi School (madhhab) and at the same time a khanqah, an institution for Sufis. It seems as well that she had planned to establish a burial place for her family.

At a later unspecified date, but according to Sibt Ibn al-ʿAjami shortly after the foundation, the communal Friday prayer was introduced in the madrasa, transforming it into a Friday mosque (jamiʿ) and adding a new aspect to this already multi-functional institution.[1] A minaret was added much later, probably during the late Ottoman or even post-Ottoman period, emphasizing its role as a communal mosque for its neighborhood that the institution probably fulfilled during most of the last centuries.[2]    

Information about the institution’s endowment is unfortunately sparse. Its size and imperial patronage demands a rich waqf. The historical sources mention that the lands of the village Kafir Zita, located between Aleppo and Hama, was part of this endowment, as was two-thirds of a mill located in that same village.[3] We possess some information about the endowment during the 18^th and 19^th centuries. A waqf account document from the year 1165/1751-52 informs us that the original property of the endowment from the times of Dayfa Khatun was still preserved more than five hundred years later. The farm (mazraʿa) of Kafr Zita accounts for the biggest share in the endowment’s revenues, with 80 piasters; the remaining revenues of 12 piasters are obtained from the ground rents (sing. hikr) of the mill (tahun) in Kafr Zita and gardens (sing. karam) as well as one house (dar) close to the madrasa. This is most probably the land around the madrasa that historians Ibn Shaddad and Sibt Ibn al-ʿAjami mentioned as the waqf’s property. We may thus assume that the institution did not acquire additional assets since its foundation (unlike most neighborhood mosques in Aleppo, cf. Sharaf Mosque and Mushatiyya Mosque for example, that could acquire new assets). Nonetheless, the account document shows well-functioning institutions; it is still called madrasa (“Madrasat Firdawsiyya”), and employs a professor (mudarris) for a rather high salary of 24 piasters. Other employees are an imam, a preacher (khatib), as well as three non-religious positions – =a qayyim (janitor), a mutawalli (administrator), a nazir (inspector).[4] It still employs a mudarris more than five centuries after its foundation, and the position of ‘khatib’ affirms its role as Friday mosque for the surrounding neighborhood.

Another waqf account dating from the year 1252/1836-37 indicates some evolution: The waqf property is rather similar; no additional assets seem to have entered the endowment. On the expenses side, no mudarris is listed and the institution is now labelled ‘Jamiʿ al-Firdaws’ (Firdaws Friday Mosque).[5]

It is not clear where the madrasa’s original burial place, intended to house the tombs of Dayfa Khatun’s family, was located. But at a later date, two graves were introduced into the room east of the prayer hall, one of them – according to an inscription mentioned by historian Ghazzi – is the tomb of Imam ʿAli ibn Abi Talib, transferred from Najaf by Sayf ad-Dawla al-Hamdani in 317/929-30. The inscription is dated 1310/1892-93. Herzfeld remarks that Sayf ad-Dawla took control of Aleppo only in 333/944-45 and concludes, with Ghazzi, that the transfer of ʿAli’s coffin to Aleppo is against all historical evidence.[6] 

Ghazzi lists the area around the madrasa as one of Aleppo’s neighborhoods called ‘Harat al-Firdaws’ with 15 houses and 92 inhabitants in the early 20^th century.[7]