Ulu Cami (Adana) - Madrasah

Madrasah

Madrasah of Ulu Camii is on the east of the mosque and noted in the ancient records as the 'Old Madrasah'.

The madrasah, with the simple and clear stonework, and with the fountain built on 8-column pyramidal roof fountain, has a spacious look. Because of a little masjid squeezed on its northwest corner and an unrelated building placed beside, it does not provide a well-planned and a monumental view.

There are dervish cells on the east, west and south side of the nearly square courtyard, that has a side dimension of 23m. On the northside of the courtyard there is the divanhane (main classroom) covered with back to back two domes. The outer length of the madrasah from east to west is 32.8m.

The west gate, built higher than the cells, has a simple architecture and leads to the courtyard through a short hallway with a cradle vault. The two cells on the south side of the entrance are thought to be the kitchen of the madrasah, now used as toilet. The smaller cell, like all the other dervish cells on the qibla wing, has a crenel window, fireplace and cabinet niche and has the dimensions of 3x3.85m. On the other hand, the qibla cells are smaller than the cells on the west side and have a square plan (2.7x2.7).

At the east wing, except the ones at the corner, the cells have the same width with the cells on the south wing. Like the others, the cells are covered with cradle vaults from inside and with grooved bricks outside. There are two extra niche on the corner cell and one extra on the third and fifth cells from south. At the cells on the qibla wing, there are two windows that face the courtyard and the street.

The most interesting part of the madrasah is the classroom which is made up of two lined up domes with sharp arches and pendentive. The classroom has outer dimensions of 9x11.9m. Although the classrooms at the Turkish madrasah of Seljuk era and after were built with vault or as a single hall with a dome, the reason that it was built in rectangle shape with two lined up domes at this madrasah can be explained in terms of reducing the effects of the hot weather. The rims of the domes are not high. White and red stones were used in sequence on the front sharp arch of the hall.

Rear walls at the east wing, chimney and the north part of the classroom is made of brick, the rest of the madrasah is made of white hewn stone. Although the inner walls of the cells are coated with plaster, the outer surfaces are not.

The design of the classroom as a back to back two domed space and the U-shape line up of the dervish cells around the courtyard distinguishes the Ulu Cami madrasah from Seljukid and Ottoman madrasah. Being the oldest among the Ramazanoğlu madrasah, another distinctive feature, similar to Yağ Camii madrasah, is the stone walls of the classroom front and the brick walls of the rear. The geometric decorations on the west window of the classroom is exactly the same as the geometric decorations of the arches at the entrance of the mosque.