Site and Urban Network
[Picture source: © 2011 Stefan Weber] [Picture source: © 2011 Stefan Weber] The Khusrawiyya complex (see fig. 6) occupied a prominent location in the old city, at the southern foot of the citadel hill in front of the citadel gateway, southeast of the main axis of the central covered market (suq). Originally, the governor’s palace stood nearby; this was replaced by an Ottoman hospital at the end of 19th century, later converted into the Carlton Citadel Hotel in 2010.
Among the numerous properties the Khusrawiyya was endowed with were several shops and caravanserais in the surrounding of the complex. These were destroyed by the earthquake of 1237 AH / 1822 AD except a so-called qaysariyya, the – today partly damaged – Khan al-Shuna [1], adjacent to the north of the Khusrawiyya complex.[2]
The vast open area east of the Khusrawiyya and south of the citadel respectively was once one of the most crowded public spaces of the city and occasionally served as a marketplace – in Ottoman times, it hosted the Friday Market (Suq al-Jumʿa) [3] During the yearly pilgrimage season it was frequented by travellers on their way south to Damascus, as the gathering point of the pilgrimage caravan to the holy city of Mecca on the Arab peninsula.[4]
Figure 6: Khusrawiyya, view of the complex from the Citadel, Khan al-Shuna and modern cafes [Picture source: © 2000 Julia Gonnella ] Footnotes
[1] Al-Tabbakh, Iʿlam al-Nubalaʾ, 3:158.
[2] Al-Ghazzi, Nahr al-Dhahab, 1:95.
[3] Watenpaugh, The Image of an Ottoman City, 41.
[4] See Kafescioğlu, “In the Image of Rūm,” 71.
