The maristân of Nûr al-Dîn Zangî

This hospital was the first building built by the Zangid prince Nûr al-Dîn (r 1146-1174) after his arrival in Damascus. It was financed by a ransom paid by a Frankish king. Literary sources indicate that mental illnesses were treated there[1].

To reach this hospital, which was the oldest to be preserved in the Muslim world[2], you enter through a portal, followed by a square vestibule with a conical cupola with both interior and exterior muqarnas (small pointed niches, stacked in tiers), and finally into a courtyard with four îwân (vaulted colonnades, open on one side). He portal is one of the most remarkable features of this building: it is the first in the Muslim world to possess an entrance surmounted by a niche with muqarnas, though still in understated relief. This positive and real innovation, which emphasised this symbolic place of passage, would followed by other great examples in Ayyubid and Mameluke[3] Damascus and also in Seljukid Anatolia[4].

The organisation of the building is around the layout of four îwân. The îwân, originally an Iranian arrangement, made its appearance in Seljuk religious architecture from the end of the eleventh century[5] and probably spread throughout the twelfth century towards the Muslim Near-East conjointly with the development of the Sunni madrasahs, in the tradition of the celebrated Nizamiye[6] (Secular Ottoman courts). Nûr al-Dîn’s maristân was probably inspired by one of these schools of the 12th century, disappeared today. In the Zangid and then the Ayyubid periods, the layout with îwân was adopted for several different types of building (madrasa[7], maristân[8], ribat[hostel]) but it was not until the middle of the fourteenth century that the arrangement could be seen in Egypt (Sultan Hassan complex, Cairo, 1354). The central space, organised around a courtyard with a pool, presents four facades each pierced with an îwân, flanked by two doors, according to a tripartite design found in Iraq from the 8th century onwards[9]. The west îwân follows on from the entrance vestibule; it gives access to two rectangular rooms. Opposite, the East îwân is larger than the three others, and was used for teaching medicine. The southern îwân, transformed into a prayer room in 1284, was decorated with two inscriptions in nashkî dated 1154, inlaid in black stucco (a reminder of the use of tar in the ancient Orient). The north îwân is very plain and just decorated with an inscribed stele from the Mameluke period.

Other elements of the maristân seem to be Iraqi in origin. The square vestibule with its conical dome of muqarnas calls to mind the mausoleums erected in Iraq, that of Imam Dûr in Samarra (1085) being the sole previous example of this type of dome. Nûr al-Din’s mausoleum (1167),  built in the vicinity of the hospital, has the same type of roof. It is interesting to note that at the same time, the cupolas with muqarnas appeared in the Muslim West, for example, at the al-Qarawiyyîn Mosque in Fes (1132-1142). Brick, which is lighter than stone, is found in the vaults of the vestibule and in that of the rooms that annex the îwân.

But the maristân is also characteristic of Syrian and more precisely Damascene architecture. Stone, which is omnipresent in the construction and the decoration as in Umayyad architecture (750-850), has been used in Syria since ancient times.  Elements from antiquity have also been incorporated, the tympanum from the portal and stones in the lower part of the building. The same tendency is visible in the Mameluke restoration[10]. The simple and majestic style of the geometric interlacing that frames the portal is the reflection of a technical mastery that can be seen in many buildings in the region, both Muslim and Christian. The influence of the Great Mosque of Damascus of the Umayyad period is discernible in the geometric and foliage decoration of the stucco grills in the rectangular side doors to the îwân.

[2]The oldest hospital in the Muslim world, no longer extant, was built in Baghdad during the reign of Hârûn al-Rashîd (r. 786-809).

[3]The portal of the madrasah-mausoleum of Nûr al-Dîn (1167) ; Maristân d’Arghun, Syria, Aleppo, 1354-1355.

[4] Khuand Khatun Mosque , Kayseri (Turquie), 1237-1238.

[5]Great Mosque of Isfahan (11th-12thc.), Zawara Mosque (1136).

[6]The word comes from Nizâm al-Mulk (d. 1092) Persian vizier to the Great Seljuks Alp Arslan (r. 1063-1072) and Malik Shah Ist(r. 1072-1092), who himself had several Sunni madrasah built, including one in Baghdad.

[7]Madrasah de Nur al-Dîn, Damascus (Syria), 1167-1168.

[8] Maristân al-Qaymari, Damascus (Syria), 1248-1249.

[9]Main courtyard Ukhaydir Palace (Iraq), ca. 778.

[10] Polychrom Marble elements of the antique and the beginning of the Christian erea have been reused in the southern îwân.