Historical overview

[Picture source: © 2009 Stefan Knost]

Religious endowments (pl. awqaf) were established to achieve individual pious or social goals. Usually we distinguish between charitable endowments (awqaf khayriyya) -- which immediately benefit religious or social institutions, like mosques, madrasas (Islamic colleges), zawiyas (Sufi lodges), or hospitals -- and family endowments (awqaf ahliyya or dhurriyya), which initially benefit the offspring of the founder but ultimately attain a charitable purpose, usually supporting the poor. Since medieval times, waqf increasingly became the chosen tool to undertake large urban infrastructural projects. Nur al-Din al-Zengi (died 1174) was one of the first to use the waqf institution to rebuild Syrian cities after centuries of decline and destruction.[1] Succeeding dynasties like the Ayyubids and Mamluks subscribed to this policy as well, but the Ottomans imbued it with new life by using it for their imperial projects.

During the seventy years following the Ottoman conquest in 1516, four huge endowments profoundly changed the shape of Aleppo’s central market area. The first, that of Khusraw Pasha, was finished in 1546, and consisted for the most part of commercial structures, developing the region around the kulliya (mosque, madrasa and imaret) next to the citadel. Another governor of the city, Muhammad Pasha Dukakin Zade, established in 1556 an important waqf around the Jamiʿ al-ʿAdiliyya west of the Khusraw Pasha complex. Khan al-Jumruk and some other buildings in Aleppo are part of Grand Vezir Sokollu Mehmed Pasha’s endowment of 1574, which included many assets in different parts of the empire. The last endowment, established around the Bahramiyya mosque in 1583 by governor of the city Bahram Pasha, included also assets in other parts of the city, like the luxurious Hammam Bahram Pasha in al-Judayda in the northern suburb.[2]

These patrons intended to develop and upgrade the trade-related infrastructure of the central market. No comparable investment can be observed in the eastern suburbs. This makes the Waqf Raqban an important subject of study, despite its much smaller size.