Al-Uthmaniyah Madrasa

Al-Uthmaniyah Madrasa (Arabic: المدرسة العثمانية‎) is a madrasah complex located in the northern Al-Farafira district near Bab al-Nasr of the old city of Aleppo, Syria. It was established by Ottoman Pasha Al-Duraki in 1730 and was originally named Madrasa Ridaiya. The madrasa, which includes a mosque, boasts one of the tallest minarets in Aleppo, built in the traditional Ottoman pencil-shaped style. It is centered on a large courtyard with small garden plots. Two iwans and a prayer hall covered with domes grace the northern and southern sides of the courtyard. This madrasa was an active institution for religious studies in the eighteenth century with the forty-two cells that line the eastern and western sides of the large courtyard. The northern part of the madrasa was demolished in to the mid-twentieth century during the construction of the east-west axis, Shari al-Sijn (Prison Street).