Jerusalem: The Biography

† The Mamluks built in a distinctive style that can be seen all over the Muslim Quarter: stalactite corbelling called muqarna and the alternating of dark and light stones known as ablaq. Perhaps the finest example of the Mamluk style is Tankiz’s Tankiziyya palace-madrassa built over the Gate of the Chain: altogether there are twenty-seven madrassas, all marked with the blazons of the Mamluk amirs – Tankiz as Cupbearer marks his buildings with a cup. The typical Mamluk amir in Jerusalem would endow a charitable trust, a waqf, partly to maintain his madrassa, partly to provide a home and job for his descendants in case his power and wealth were lost in the frequent power struggles. Each tomb or turba was usually downstairs in a room with green-latticed windows so that passers-by could hear the prayers being recited – and they too can be seen. These buildings were much later assigned to Jerusalem’s Arab families who endowed them as trusts so that today many are still family homes.