Urban Setting

The Madrasa Sulṭānīya[1] was located opposite the southern face of the citadel. Its entrance was oriented towards the citadel gate. Freestanding at least since the first half of the 20^th century, the original situation of the madrasa in its urban context can hardly be reconstructed. The irregular plan of its southern wing indicated that the layout of the building had to respect existing limits, constituted either by other buildings or by a street.

On the eastern side, the Madrasa Sulṭānīya was not far from the line of the old city wall, which ran southward from the moat of the citadel. A gate named al-Bāb aṣ-Ṣaghīr was located just south of the moat provided communication between the city and the eastern suburbs. Sometime between 575/1189 and 611/1215, aẓ-Ẓāhir Ghāzī had a court of law (dār al-ʿadl) built just outside the gate, i.e. east of the Madrasa. When the fortifications of the city were extended to the east (begun under aẓ-Ẓāhir Ghāzī and finished under his successor al-ʿAzīz Muhammad, before 634/1236), the section of the old wall east of the Madrasa became obsolete. No traces of this wall or of the dār al-ʿadl survived to the 20th century, and their exact locations are disputed: Eddé assumes that the old (inner) city wall ran c. 100 m east of the Madrasa Sulṭānīya, whereas Tabbaa’s reconstruction places the old city wall immediately east of the madrasa.[2]