Islamic architecture
Post-Seljuk Syria and Mesopotamia

Under Zengid and Artuqid rule, cities like Mosul, Diyarbakir, Hasankeyf, and Mardin in Upper Mesopotamia (or al-Jazira in Arabic) became important centers of architectural development that had a long-term influence in the wider region. One of the most notable monuments is the Great Mosque of Diyarbakir, founded in the 7th century but rebuilt under the Seljuks and the Artuqids in the 12th century. It is similar in form to the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus and has ornate Classical -like elements on its courtyard façade. The city walls of Diyarbakir also feature several towers built by the Artuqids and decorated with a mix of calligraphic inscriptions and figurative images of animals and mythological creatures carved in stone. One of the culminations of later Artuqid architecture is the Zinciriye or Sultan Isa Madrasa in Mardin, dating from 1385. In Mosul, the Zengid ruler Nur al-Din built the al-Nuri Mosque (1148 and 1170–1172), of which only the original minaret was preserved up to modern times. (The minaret and the rebuilt mosque were recently destroyed in the Battle of Mosul.)

Damascus regained some prominence after it came under Nur al-Din's control in 1154. That same year, Nur al-Din founded a hospital complex, the Maristan al-Nuri or Bimaristan of Nur al-Din, which was highly influential in the Islamic world and is notable for the muqarnas vaulting of its entrance portal and a muqarnas dome of Mesopotamian influence over the vestibule. The Zengids and their successors, the Kurdish Ayyubid dynasty, built many more madrasas, fortifications, hammams, and other charitable buildings in the cities of Syria. Unlike Seljuk and Iranian madrasas, the Syrian madrasas are smaller and more diverse in their layouts, adapted to the dense urban fabric of cities like Damascus and Aleppo (e.g. Adiliya Madrasa in Damascus and Firdaws Madrasa in Aleppo).
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