Development Over Time and the Mosque’s Endowment
[Picture source: © 2007 Stefan Weber] [Picture source: © 2007 Stefan Weber] Structural changes have certainly happened in the last 500 years since the major Mamluke reconstruction, but are not easy to identify.
The importance of the Sharaf Mosque during the entire Ottoman period is reflected in the development of its waqf. We find the first detailed information about the mosque’s endowment in an endowment-register (vakif tahrir defteri) dated 992/1583-84 listing the endowments in Aleppo province. We shall trace the development of the mosque’s waqf in some detail, because it is typical for most neighborhood mosques in Aleppo during the Ottoman time. In 992/1583-84 we find five objects, two pieces of land, one shop (dukkan), one half of a garden (bustan), and a quarter of the Hammam al-Jawhari in Bab Qinnasrin neighborhood, all, except the hammam, close to the mosque (der qurb jamiʿ). The document is silent about who endowed these assets and when, but we may suppose that the persons mentioned in the inscriptions were involved in that. The Hammam al-Jawhari, responsible for a large portion of the mosque’s revenues, dates from the second half of the 14th century, like some of the tombs in the mosque’s courtyard; this might be another indication for the existence of an earlier mosque building.
From the middle of the 18th century, information starts to get more abundant. The mosque now possess five houses (dar), one shop (dukkan) and a stable or warehouse (istabl). All these assets are close to the mosque, sometimes in its direct vicinity. The quarter of the hammam is no longer part of the waqf, maybe it had been exchanged for another object (istibdal). The pieces of land do not appear any more as well, they might have been rented out with hikr (ground rent) contracts, explaining the existence of such revenues. A part of it might have been turned into the Christian graveyards; in this case, their foundation could be dated after 992/1583-84. Up to the middle of the 19th century, the number of assets belonging to the waqf remain very stable, but due to the favorable economic development in the northern suburb, its revenues grow disproportionately.[1]
