The Sinaniyya Souq

Part of the group of buildings the Ottoman governor Sinan Pasha put up in 1590. The Sinan Pasha Mosque, from the same endowment, stands a few steps away. The souq is counted as the first of the covered markets of Damascus: the idea of one long roofed line, repeated later at Hamidiyya and Midhat Pasha, was tried here first.

Getting there

It runs from Bab al-Jabiya to the head of the Nahhatin souq, near the Bab al-Saghir cemetery. Turn south at the western end of the Midhat Pasha souq and this is the first long line you meet. Walking it end to end takes under ten minutes; the line is 105 metres long.

What became of the roof

When the souq was built, 18 arches of small stone carried its cover. In a later period iron and zinc replaced the arches. That cover wore out in turn, and by 1916 only a small part of it was left. So the first covered market of Damascus is now largely open to the sky; to see a roofed stretch you have to look for the surviving piece.

What to see

The crafts are still worked. Brooms, sieves and riddles, censers, household tools of wood and straw are made here, in workshops behind the shops that pass from father to son. Between them are grain shops, coppersmiths, and stalls selling water pipes and eastern dress. Halfway along stands a small inn converted from an old Damascene house, with a bakery beside it; past the middle there is an old workshop making the well-known Damascene halawa.

Don’t miss

The sieve maker’s bench. The hoop is bent from wood and the mesh is strung by hand, and the work is done open to the street — one of the few places in Damascus where you can watch this trade being practised.