The Al-Maqamat Mosque

Outside Bab al-Maqam, in the middle of the Maqamat quarter that spills south of the walls. The building was founded not as a neighbourhood mosque but as a tomb complex for Shams al-Din Qarasunqur al-Mansuri, governor of Aleppo: prayer hall, tomb chambers and a fountain gather around one court. Qarasunqur defected to the Ilkhanids in 712/1312 and left Aleppo; he was never buried in the tomb he had built for himself. The building still carried his name for a long time, and the name it has now comes from the quarter.

Getting there

Leave by the gate and keep going south. The Maqamat quarter begins immediately outside Bab al-Maqam and the mosque sits at its centre. The fabric here is not that of the walled city — this is the outer town that grew beyond the gate under the Mamluks.

How long it takes

Twenty-five minutes. The court is wide, and the prayer hall and the tomb chambers are walked separately.

What to see

The plan reads clearly, more clearly than in most Mamluk buildings. A rectangular structure is set around a large square court, with the prayer hall running lengthwise along the south end. The entrance is on the north: a portal in the form of an iwan, with the minaret above it. The fountain stands near the door.

Do not miss

The inscription above the fountain. The date of the building comes from it: 703/1302, next to a Mamluk blazon. The date of the complex is read from the stone of the fountain, not from a foundation plaque.

Where things stand

The quarter lies outside the walls, and the southern edge of Aleppo was heavily damaged in the fighting between 2012 and 2016. We found no verified dated record of the building today; ask in the quarter whether the door is open.