Al-Sha’baniyah Madrasa

“It was built by Amir al-Shaabani as a fulfillment of a vow he made during the Crusader siege of Aleppo. It consists of a small courtyard flanked by a black-and-white arcade, the entrance of which faces a polygonal dome that rises above the main teaching chamber. The alabaster mihrab is engraved with quran verses about inheritance and it is the first mihrab in Aleppo to mention the word “fard” in text. The madrasa was closed for a whole century before it was restored by the directorate in 1997, when the basalt lintels were re-stabilized and the dome was injected with barley mortar. Today, Khamisiyyah (a weekly “”tafsir”” circle) is taught, under the dome, voice test for students of the ten readings are conducted. Meters reveal that the echo lasts for 1.8 seconds, which helps clarify the “”qalqalah”” letters. An Interactive app uses animated circles to explain inheritance ratios and displays the golden chain of the madrasa’s sheikhs, who produced Shafi’I judges in Aleppo for six centuries.”