دراسة تفصيلية لمبنى من العهد السلجوقي .. كتاب العمارة العربية الاسلامية

A detailed study of a building from the Seljuk era

Bimaristan Nour al-Din in Damascus

We chose Al-Bimaristan Al-Nuri in Damascus as a complete model that represents Seljuk architecture in terms of its plan, architectural style, and architectural and decorative elements. In addition, it still maintains its original status. This building is considered one of the most important historical buildings in Damascus.

Al-Bimaristan is located in the heart of the old city, not far from the Umayyad Mosque, to the southwest of it.

It is one of three bimaristans built in Damascus (1). The first one was built before him and was known as Bimaristan al-Daqqaqi, then it was called Al-Atiq after the construction of Bimaristan Nur al-Din. It remained active and performed its function until after the eighth century AH, and it was renovated and revived in the year 764/1362. As for the third Bimaristan, it is the Al-Qaymari Bimaristan, built in Salihiya before the year 654 / 1256, and it will be discussed in the chapter on Ayyubid architecture.

Bimaristan Al-Nuri was a hospital on the one hand that treated patients and accommodated those who needed shelter, and provided treatment and medicines (1), and it had a ward for mental illnesses. On the other hand, it was a medical school where lessons were taught to students.

Al-Bimaristan Al-Nouri was the subject of attention in all eras, and it had endowments and its own supervisor, and it continued to perform its function until the beginning of this century, that is, when the Al-Gharba Hospital in Damascus, which is known today as the University Hospital, was built in the year 1900.

In the twelfth century AD, Ibn Jubayr visited Bimaristan Nur al-Din, admired him, described the task he was performing, and said that he was one of the great glories of Islam. Among other things he said:

Doctors come to him early every day, inspect the patients, and order the preparation of medicines and food for them according to what befits each person. The detained lunatics also receive a form of treatment while they are bound in chains.

Al-Bimaristan Al-Nuri was built in two stages: The first included the basic building during the reign of King Al-Adil Nur Al-Din Mahmoud bin Zengi (2) in about the year 1154/549. The second was when the doctor Badr al-Din Ibn Qadi of Baalbek (1) expanded it in the year 637 AH and added rooms around it to accommodate a larger number of patients. Then it was restored by al-Zahir Baybars, then by Sultan Qalawun and his son al-Nasir Muhammad in the late seventh century AH (13 AD), as the inscriptions inscribed on it indicate. The main part of Bimaristan has remained in its original state, and it is what interests us from an architectural point of view as a model of Seljuk architecture.

Scheme:

The Bimaristan consists of a heavenly courtyard measuring 20 x 15 metres, in the middle of which is a rectangular water pool measuring 8.57 metres. It is built of carved stone. Its inner corners have semi-cylindrical curves as a decorative element that was common in the Seljuk and Ayyubid eras.

The courtyard is surrounded by buildings with an iwan in the middle on each side and two rooms on either side. Some of these rooms are square and some are rectangular, and all of them are roofed with intersecting arches.

Entrance to Bimaristan:

The building is devoid of elaborate facades except for the door. It is open on the western façade. It has two wooden shutters covered with copper and decorated with copper nails distributed in geometric shapes. A line is written on the top in Naskh script. On each of the two leaves is a beautiful copper hammer. The two leaves are decorated on the back with wooden inlays. Patterned with floral decorations.

The door has a lintel made of a single stone taken from an old building dating back to the Roman era. Above the door is a façade of stucco decoration from the Nur al-Din era, consisting of a row of niches with lobed arches. We saw this decorative victory used in Umayyad buildings (Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi). The arches are surmounted by finely crafted muqarnas that end at the top by chance.

Next to the door is a square room (5 x 5 metres) that serves as a vestibule. In the language of that era, it was called the “darkah” and is located between the outer and inner doors. This room is considered one of the most beautiful rooms in the building, its care and decoration. It is equipped with two small iwans on its northern and southern sides, covered with an arch decorated with decorations similar to those of the door mentioned above (arches and stucco muqarnas). On the walls of the room are inscriptions and decorations indicating the repair work that took place during the Mamluk era.

The hall is surmounted by a high dome covered by muqarnas from the inside and outside. These external muqarnas make it, along with the dome of Turbat Nur al-Din, a unique model in Syrian architecture.

The Iwans:

Western iwan. It comes at the end of the main entrance to the Bimaristan and is surmounted by a pointed arch, of the pendant type, with muqarnas decorations inside it. In its southern and northern walls are two small doors that lead to two rectangular halls that are considered one of the main halls in Bimaristan. Each of the two doors is surmounted by a pointed arch of the arch type (1).

These two rooms have another door on the courtyard, a rectangle topped with a skylight in the form of a plaster grille decorated with interlaced threads and star shapes and surrounded by a beautiful frame of plant leaves. Thus, all the doors of the rooms open in the interior facades on the courtyard of the Bimaristan. (See photo no. 25).

The most important thing about the southern iwan is its wonderful marble covering. It consists of a flat mihrab with a marble slab at the top, engraved with floral decorations, a frame decorated with carvings, and surrounded by an arch whose vertebrae are made of alternating colored marble. It is carried on two marble columns on which spiral channels are carved, and surmounted by two capitals of the advanced Curantian type. The corners arising from the space between the arches of the mihrab and the rectangle are filled with marble mosaics of the type known as (mashqaf). It is considered an early use of this type of mosaic in Arab architecture. This marble vestibule is surrounded at the top by a band of porphyry stones engraved with ornaments, in the middle of which is a stone on which is engraved a lily within a circle, which is considered an emblem of Nur al-Din (rank), and is seen in most of the buildings built during his reign (Photo No. 26).

As for the eastern iwan, it is the largest of the iwans. Its length is (8 x 7.5 metres) and it was intended for holding doctors’ sessions and giving lectures (1). In the front of the iwan were two wall cabinets, the features of which appeared when the Bimaristan was restored. A contemporary doctor mentioned them and said that they were filled with medical books that he had saved. Nour al-Din Ali al-Bimaristan, and the iwan was connected to the two rooms adjacent to it by two doors that are currently closed, one of which was turned into a mihrab.