Dar al-Hadith al-Ashrafiyya

It stands beside the east gate of the citadel, at the head of the Asruniyya souq. The Ayyubid sultan al-Malik al-Ashraf Muzaffar al-Din Musa bought the mansion of Emir Sarim al-Din Qaymaz and turned it into a hadith college in 1233 (630 AH). It counts as the second building in the world raised for the teaching of hadith, and it was the first centre of that science in Damascus.

Getting there

Go up towards the citadel from the western end of the Al-Hamidiyah Souq and round to its east gate; you are where the Asruniyya souq begins. The building is sunk into the market. From the street it does not read as a monument, so ask for the door. The Zahiriyah and the Adiliyah are a few minutes north-east, and the three fit into one walk.

Why it matters

Its endowment required that the most learned hadith scholar of the age should head it. Ibn al-Salah was the first. Here he wrote the book on the methods of hadith that is still taught under his name, the Muqaddima. Abu Shama, Imam al-Nawawi and al-Zamlakani held the same chair after him. What came out of this place was a syllabus rather than a building: the hadith tradition of Damascus took institutional shape in these rooms.

What to see

The building still teaches and still holds prayer. It is not a museum. There is a tomb chamber inside, which was repaired during the governorate’s restoration of the quarter. Inscriptions and the patches of later centuries sit one on top of another on the walls. Nothing is labelled. Visiting hours are not a published thing, you ask the keeper, and finding the door shut outside prayer times is normal.

How long it takes

Twenty minutes. The volume to walk through is small; the weight of the place is in standing there knowing what happened in it. Its last shaykh, Husayn Sa’biyya, died on 27 October 2020, and a chain of shaykhs longer than seven hundred years closed that day.

Don’t miss

Damascus has two colleges of this name and they get confused. This entry is about the one against the citadel, the Juwwaniyya. The other, the Barraniyya, stands on the street of madrasas in Salihiyya, right next to the Atabakiyya. Most photographs you will find online belong to the second one, so check the address before you trust a picture.