Interior and Architectural Decoration
[Picture source: © 2003 Stefan Heidemann] [Picture source: © 2003 Stefan Heidemann] A bent corridor leads into the courtyard that forms the centre of the main, western part of the complex. It measures ca. 10 x 12 m. The prayer hall to the south and a large īwān opposite, with their high pointed arches, orient the courtyard on the north-south axis, while the two other sides appear subordinate, with rows of doors and windows on two storeys. At the middle of the courtyard is a basin. While the exterior design is octagonal in plan, the basin itself has a scalloped outline. Its geometry is developed from an eight-pointed star that is modified with half-circles added to each of its sixteen contour lines. The visual effect of the curved sides is lively and variegated. The same design can be seen on the basin in the courtyard of the Madrasat al-Firdaus.
Figure 6: Façade of the prayer hall [Picture source: © 1995 L. Korn] 
Figure 7: Wooden soffit under the central arcade of the prayer hall façade [Picture source: © 1995 L. Korn] The prayer hall follows a scheme that had been established in Aleppo’s Zengid and Ayyubid architecture. Its oblong plan is divided into three segments; the central one is domed while the lateral ones are vaulted with a plain pointed barrel. This way, the bay in front of the mihrab is highlighted by its elevation and the more elaborate architectural form. From the courtyard, however, the dome is hardly visible, as it is hidden behind the screen of the plain rectangular courtyard façade. Three large pointed arcades connect the prayer hall with the courtyard. Wooden beams are inserted into the masonry to divide the arch from the rectangular opening below. Presumably, these wooden elements were meant to have a structural function, as buffers in earthquakes as well as tie beams for the arcades.
Inside the prayer hall, muqarnas cells are used in the central bay’s zone of transition, to mediate between the square of the ground plan to the octagonal drum with rectangular windows in each side, on which the shell of the dome is placed. Apart from this architectural detail, all surfaces of the limestone masonry are unadorned. Probably, the interior walls of the prayer hall were intended to be plastered, as the stonecutting is less exact than on the courtyard façades.
Figure 8: Prayer hall, vault over central part with transition to the dome [Picture source: © 1995 L. Korn] The mihrab, too, stands out from the plain surfaces with its material and sculpting. It is clad with marble panels in different colours; particular detailing can be seen in the three roundels on the apex of its arch and in the spandrels at both sides with their fine marble inlay (or ‘cosmatesque work’). Sculpted moldings surround the whole niche with a rectangular frame and continue through the half-round of the niche as a basis and as a cornice. Between these horizontal moldings, marble colonettes put an accent on the corners of the niche. Their capitals are the most richly sculpted elements in this room (and in fact on the whole building). Considering their ornament and proportions, these capitals should be classified as spolia from a Crusader building. Parallels can be seen in the capitals that were used for the mihrab of the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, when it was restored under Saladin after 1187,[1] and in capitals that were re-used in the Mosque-takiyya of Aṣlān Dada in the Suwayqat ʿAlī of Aleppo, although this may have been a secondary re-use.[2]
The marble decoration of this mihrab, too, has counterparts in other Ayyubid buildings in Aleppo. The closest parallel can be found in the so-called ‘Madrasa Kāmilīya’ extra muros, a building that can also be dated to the 630s/1230s and was perhaps also founded as a khānaqāh.[3] In the courtyard façade, wooden soffits are added on the underside of the beams in the arcades, decorated with an interlaced star pattern. This remnant from the wooden fittings can serve as a reminder that the architecture of this building was not meant to be as austere as it stands now, reduced to its stone components, but that ornamented wooden door shutters and textile hangings were originally there to enliven its appearance.
The doors and windows on the lateral façades of the courtyard belong to cells that most probably served as residential space for the inhabitants of the khānaqāh. These small rooms were just enough for one or two persons to sleep, or perhaps to retreat in ascetic exercise. One of the doors on the eastern side of the courtyard, however, gives access to a corridor leading to a second courtyard, an almost square half-covered hall with a large opening in the centre of its groin vault. It serves as a light well for the adjoining cells and an īwān of reduced size. The corridor from the central courtyard seems to have continued beyond this wing, probably to give access to another part of the khānaqāh, but it is now blocked. The same is the case with the eastern side of the entrance corridor behind the portal. What may originally have been the north-eastern quadrant of the complex is now occupied by a neighbouring building. It can only be speculated whether it contained more cells for inhabitants or perhaps a larger residential unit either for guests or for the head of the khānaqāh.
