Architectural Description

Plan Layout

The dense urban fabric has hindered the traditional axial entrance to the mosque. Instead, the mosque’s courtyard is reached by two entrances from the east and west. Both of them lead to the mosque through long corridors with ascending steps (Fig. 5, 6, 7, 8).

The courtyard has an irregular plan, nearly trapezoidal, due to the constraints of the surrounding plots and the odd alignment of the mosque itself vis-à-vis the qibla. The sole regularity can be noticed in the setting of the ablution fountain, which is aligned axially with the mosque’s preceding portico and portal. The fountain’s Ottoman design is unprecedented in Aleppo. The round basin is sheltered by a wooden domed canopy resting on six columns (Fig.9). A garden-cemetery lies behind the mosque.

The square prayer hall is covered by a hemispherical dome and preceded by a double portico. (Fig. 10) The dome is very similar to that of the neighboring Husrev Pasha’s mosque (al-Khusrawiya); sitting on a pierced by sixteen small windows, supported by engaged pilasters and flying buttresses and covered with lead (Fig.11, 12). The inner preceding portico is five bays wide and covered by small domes while the outer one is 11 bays wide and covered by a flat roof (Fig.13, 14). The outer portico wraps around the inner portico and overlooks the back cemetery through two large arched openings. The rigidity of the ashlar façade of the outer portico has been softened by the large round openings in the spandrels between the arches, the polychrome masonry of the arches and the exquisite muqarnas adorning the columns’ capitals (Fig. 15, 16, 17, 18). The graceful minaret, typical of Ottoman design, is on the northwestern corner of the mosque, structurally separate from the prayer hall. (Fig. 19)

The façade of the prayer hall is designed symmetrically with the portal in the middle flanked by windows and a pair of mihrabs with raised prayer platforms. The portal blends both Ottoman design and local building traditions in a rich combination that makes it one of the most beautiful examples in Aleppo. Similar to the other Ottoman portals, the doorway is set within a deep niche surmounted by a muqarnas hood and flanked by two small side niches and engaged colonnettes (Fig. 20, 21). On the other hand, it is built entirely with polychrome masonry in the local manner and surmounted by a typically Mamluk, conch-shaped muqarnas hood that differs from its triangular Ottoman counterparts. The portal is further embellished with local elements such as the delicate muqarnas hoods of the side niches, the decorative shields, the muqarnas capitals and carved motifs of the colonnettes (Fig.22, 23). The windows, on both sides of the portal, are set within rectangular frames and their pointed-arched tympana are covered by decorative underglaze-painted tiles (Fig. 24). The tiles feature blue, turquoise and tomato red floral ornamentation against a white ground, with central rectangular frames containing white inscriptions against a dark blue ground (Fig.25). As no evidence of tile-making in Aleppo has yet been found, at least in the sixteenth century, the tiles are assumed to have been made elsewhere. Scholars agreed that most probably they were imported from Iznik, especially because of their densely composed saz-leaf and arabesque design and the use of intense tomato red in their color scheme. [13]

Inside the prayer hall, the central dome rises on eight pointed arches. Four squinches are used as transition elements at the corners and they are supported by large muqarnas-ornamented corbels (Fig. 26, 27). The hall is mainly lit via ten lower casement windows topped with decorative underglaze tiles similar in style to the ones in the prayer hall’s northern facade (Fig. 28). The windows are located within deep recesses, of which the lateral ones are equipped with small mihrabs. In addition, there are three small arched windows in the upper level, one on each side, and eight small round windows, two in each corner squinch. Instead of an arched window, an upper gallery with a projecting balustrade is located above the entrance (Fig.29). The prayer hall contains the usual elements: the mihrab, minbar and muezzin's tribune, which all combine Ottoman conventions with local materials and techniques. They are especially remarkable for their polychrome marble and stone ornamentation (Fig. 30, 31).

Functional and Physical Modifications

The mosque did not witness major changes and retained many of its original features before the recent armed conflict in the city (2012-2016). The earliest known interventions took place in the mid eighteenth century according to the Ottoman inscription on the southern side of the southwestern recess inside the prayer hall. According to the inscription, the mosque was repaired and renovated in 1747-1748. [14] In the beginning of the twentieth century, the waqf’s administrator conducted several restorations which may have been necessary after the severe earthquake of 1882. According to al-Tabbakh, the administrator first took over a section of the back garden of the mosque to build the small Khan al-‘Adili in 1919. Few years later, in 1923, the wooden roof of the mosque’s outer portico was replaced by a new one supported by iron beams and new ablution spaces were added to its west. [15] An additional prayer hall (ḥijaziyya) was built on the western side of the courtyard in 1960. [16] The latest interventions were carried out by the General Directorate of Islamic Endowments in the 1970s which incorporated several maintenance works and reconstructing the roof of the outer portico using reinforced concrete. [17]

Footnotes

[13] Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, 477 and Millner, Damascus Tiles, 180. Necipoglu noted that comparable ceramic tiles employing tomato red in their color scheme were used in the mosque of Behram Pasha (1565 - 1573) in Diyarbakir and stated that the ones in a-Adiliyya Mosque are of a higher quality. According to Millner, the design of these tiles is reminiscent of some tiles used in the tomb of Hurrem Sultan (1559) and the mosque of Rustem Pasha (1561) in Istanbul.

[14] For the complete Ottoman text of the inscription and its Arabic translation see ʿUthman, Dirasat Naqaʾish, 58.

[15] Al-Tabbakh, Iʿlam al-Nubalaʾ, 3: 170.

[16] ʿUthman, Al-Handasa al-Inshaʾiyya, 267.

[17] ʿUthman, Al-Handasa al-Inshaʾiyya, 267.