The Al-Murshidiyya Madrasa

It sits on the line of the Jaddat al-Madaris in Salihiyya, on the street now called the Friday market. Built in 1252 as a funerary college for Khadija Khatun, daughter of the Ayyubid ruler al-Muazzam Isa, who is buried in its courtyard. Its square minaret is the only 13th century minaret still standing in Damascus.

Getting there

Halfway along the madrasa street at the foot of Qasioun. The Sahibiyya lies to the north, the Atabakiyya and the Jaharkasiyya to the south, a few minutes apart on foot. The street sells vegetables and food by day and clothes in the evening. At busy hours the minaret is hard to fit in a frame, so come before the stalls are set out.

What to see

The minaret. A square shaft of dressed stone, sharp at the corners, with no ornament and no projecting balcony; the mass runs straight up, and the narrow slit windows sit at a different height on each face. The dome of the tomb stands beside it, and the ring of arches at the drum reads clearly from the street. The plan itself is bent in a way found nowhere else in the city: both the tomb and the prayer hall had to face true south, and the builder could not keep the two on one axis.

How long it takes

Fifteen minutes. It stopped working as a college long ago and the building is normally locked; going inside needs permission from the Directorate-General of Antiquities. A shut door costs you little, because the minaret that makes this a stop is visible from the street anyway.

Don’t miss

No other minaret from the 13th century survives in Damascus, and that is the reason to look up here. The stone courses of the square shaft change colour, which you notice once you cross to the far pavement. Then the grave itself: Khadija Khatun lies in the open courtyard she paid for, not in a closed tomb chamber.