The Takiyya al-Sulaymaniyya
Sinan’s only building in Damascus: an Ottoman complex on the Barada with twin pencil minarets. A handicraft market fills its courtyard today.
- Opening hours
- Daylight hours — outside prayer times
- Entry
- Free
- Duration
- 60 minutes
- Best time
- Morning, courtyard in shade and the market just opening
- Period
- Ottoman
- Address
- Barada riverside, beside the National Museum, Damascus
A foreigner in the Damascus skyline. Suleiman the Magnificent commissioned it, the architect Sinan designed it, and it was finished between 1554 and 1560 — and its two pencil-thin minarets appear on no other building in this city. Damascene minarets are square and heavy; these came from Istanbul.
Getting there
On the bank of the Barada, west of the old city. It is a walk from the centre, and it shares a block with the National Museum.
What to see
The walls are banded in black basalt and white limestone — the local stone language applied to an Ottoman plan. The complex was founded as a dervish lodge and a soup kitchen: pilgrim caravans bound for Mecca set out from here, and travellers stayed in the courtyard. A madrasa was added beside it later.
Do not miss
The courtyard now holds a handicraft market: mother-of-pearl inlay, brocade, copper. Most visitors look at the mosque and leave without seeing the workshops under the arcades.
Tips
- The workshops under the arcades are what most visitors skip
- No other building in Damascus has twin minarets; shoot from the south end of the courtyard
- The National Museum is next door — both fit in one half-day