Kasımiye Medrese
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The Kasımiye Medrese or Kasim Pasha Medrese is a former madrasa (Turkish: medrese) in Mardin, Turkey.
Geography[edit]
The medrese is located southwest of the city centre of old Mardin.[1] The altitude of the Kasımiye is about 975 metres (3,199 ft).
History[edit]
The medrese was begun sultan Al-Zahir Majd al-Din 'Isā ibn Dāwūd (or İsa Bey) of the Artuqid dynasty, rulers of an Anatolian beylik. However, he was killed in a battle against the Karakoyunlu in 1407, before the building was fully constructed.[2] The construction was resumed after the city fell to the Akkoyunlu Turkmens. Kasım, a son of Akkoyunlu sultan Mu'izz-al-Din, is credited with completing the medrese in 1445.[3][4]
In 1924, all medreses in Turkey were closed down within a general attack on religious life and a top-down attempt to secularise society.[5]
The building[edit]
The main building is rectangular. The entrance through an ornamented portal is from the south. In the courtyard there is a pool. The water source is a funnel in the wall that represents birth. The water from the pool drains through a narrow slit that represents death and sırat (in Islamic belief a narrow bridge on hell which leads to paradise) . The classrooms surround the pool. The classroom doors are kept deliberately low to ensure students would bow reverently before their teachers as they entered.
Elephant clock[edit]
On the north of the iwan there is the reproduction of an elephant clock designed by al-Jazari, a 12th-century Muslim engineer.[6]
References[edit]
- ^ "City map". Archived from the original on 2019-05-31. Retrieved 2014-06-06.
- ^ Sinclair, Thomas Alan (1989). Eastern Turkey: an architectural and archaeological survey. Vol. III. The Pindar Press. pp. 205–206. ISBN 0907132340.
- ^ "Kasim Pasa Medresesi". Archnet. Retrieved 2020-11-01.
- ^ Minorsky, V.; Bosworth, C.E. (1960–2007). "Mārdīn". In Bearman, P.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C.E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W.P. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Brill. ISBN 9789004161214.
- ^ Jongerden, Joost (2021). The Routledge Handbook on Contemporary Turkey. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-429-55906-8.
- ^ "Mardin news by Dr. Salim Aydüz". Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2014-06-06.