Architecture
The main door on the northeast side opens into a three-bay portico before the courtyard. A shallow rectangular pool occupies the center of the courtyard surrounded by twenty-two small chambers with individual chimneys. The arcade, which is composed of domed cells carried on thick stone columns, wraps around the two sides of the courtyard but not the porticoes of the entry hall and the classroom. The square domed classroom projects southwest beyond the peripheral wall of the madrasa cells and is preceded by a three-bay portico. Inside, it is decorated with alternating geometric patterns and niches, thus acting as both a prayer space and a library for the students of the madrasa.
The madrasa is linked to the main complex with a 85 meter long souk attached to its northeast wall, composed of two parallel rows of stores of forty-four domed shops. The souq leads at its northwest side into the Tekkiye complex and has larger gateway at its center that connects the madrasa to the street. The souq has recently been renovated and is currently used along with the madrasa as a larger market for handmade goods.
Read more about this topic: Al-Salimiyah Madrasa
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“The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extrahuman architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish. At first glance, the rhythm may be confused with gaiety, but when you look more closely at the mechanism of social life and the painful slavery of both men and machines, you see that it is nothing but a kind of typical, empty anguish that makes even crime and gangs forgivable means of escape.”
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“They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)