Founder and Foundation

[Picture source: © 2009 Stefan Knost]

Hajj Hasan ibn al-Hajj Husayn Ibn Raqban established a medium-size endowment (waqf) in Aleppo’s Banqusa area in 981/1573. Carried out in the first century of Ottoman rule, this intervention in the urban infrastructure was implemented outside the city’s central market district but in a part of the city important for the caravan trade, the backbone of Aleppo’s economy. Unfortunately, we know nothing about the founder or his family. Beneficiaries of the endowment are a public fountain (sabil) and a kind of primary school (maktab) constructed above the sabil. A hammam and eight shops (sing. dukkan) with eight storage areas (sing. makhzan) above the shops were endowed as revenue-generating property.