Name of Monument:

Khan al-Harir

Location:

Damascus, Syria

Date of Monument:

Hegira 981 / AD 1573–4

Period / Dynasty:

Ottoman

Patron(s):

Darwish Pasha, Governor of Damascus (AH 979–81 / AD 1571–3).

Description:

Khan al-Harir was constructed in AH 981 / AD 1573–4 by order of Darwish Pasha, the Governor of Damascus at the time. He founded it as a waqf to benefit the Darwishiyya Mosque. First called Qaysariyyat Darwish Basha, it was later renamed according to its function into Khan al-Harir, the silk caravanserai.
The building is nearly square in plan, occupying around 2,500 sq m, and including 27 roofed shops embedded within its exterior walls. The central entrance on the northern wall gives access to an open courtyard of about 300 sq m, which is surrounded by two rows of chambers that originally accommodated the silk workshops and merchants. The courtyard is paved with black rectangular stones with a rectangular fountain in the centre. In line with the style of damascene khan in general, it has two floors. Stairs on each side behind the entrance portal lead up to an upper floor. There, the former accommodation rooms are laid out along both sides of a corridor, while on the east side there are rooms along the inner courtyard side only. All the chambers are either cross- or barrel-vaulted. Above the entrance there are three barrel-vaulted rooms; the one facing outwards was the chamber of the guard, while the chamber facing the courtyard was the room of the khanji, the khan supervisor. The building is roofed with a row of 44 cupolas above the corridor. Three sides of the khan face on to alleyways, characterised by alternating courses of polychrome masonry (ablaq), a typical feature of the Mamluk-Ottoman architecture in Damascus.
The layout of Khan al-Harir, with its open central courtyard and water fountain, is exemplary of caravanserais throughout the Arab-Islamic world. It follows the traditional Ottoman principles of construction, including a large courtyard and galleries, topped with the typical small cupolas. It should, however, be taken into consideration that no Mamluk khans have survived in Damascus to determine the Mamluk influence on these Ottoman commercial structures.
In contrast to the khans on the trade routes that initially served as resting and lodging places, the city caravanserais were wholesale centres. Khan al-Harir had several functions, combining accommodation, workshops and a trading post, a venue for the sale of goods produced at the khan, and the sale of raw materials used in the manufacturing processes practised there.
Inspired by the high level of building activity of the Sultans, local notables, particularly the governors, expounded an active building programme before the end of the AH 10th / AD 16th century concentrated on two areas: mosques with affiliating structures were built to the west of the city, while the market was extended by the construction of a number of khans to the southwest of the Great Umayyad Mosque. The Khan al-Harir was the first great caravanserai inside the city walls. Its construction was the beginning of a shift in mercantile activity to the area southwest of the Umayyad Mosque.

This caravanserai was built as a waqf (endowment) by one of the early Ottoman governors of Damascus, Darwish Pasha, to benefit his mosque. Since it specialised in silk-trading it was later called the Khan al-Harir (Silk Caravanserai). It is a huge structure in the heart of the trading area south of the Umayyad Mosque, occupying around 2,500 sq m, including 27 roofed shops around a square courtyard. The chambers are cross-vaulted and domed by little cupolas in typical Ottoman style.

How Monument was dated:

The inscription above the entrance mentions both the patron and the year of construction.

Selected bibliography:

Gaube, H., Arabische Inschriften aus Syrien, Beirut, 1978.
Pascual, J.-P., Damas à la fin du XVIième siècle, Damascus, 1983.
Sack, D., Damaskus, Entwicklung und Struktur einer orientalisch-islamischen Stadt, Mainz, 1989, cat. no. 4.34.
Weber, S., “The Creation of Ottoman Damascus: Architecture and Urban Development of Damascus in the 16th and 17th Centuries”, Aram, 9–10, 1997–8, pp.431–70.
Yahya, F., “Jard athari li-khanat Dimashq [A Stocktaking of the Caravanserais in Damascus]”, Annales Archéologiques Arabes Syriennes, 31, 1981, pp.67–106.

Citation of this web page:

Verena Daiber "Khan al-Harir" in Discover Islamic Art, Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. 2024. https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=monument;ISL;sy;Mon01;20;en

Prepared by: Verena DaiberVerena Daiber

Verena Daiber is an historian of Islamic art an archaeology. She studied Near Eastern Archaeology and Arabic Literature at the Free University of Berlin. After her employment as research associate at the German Archaeological Institute in Damascus she obtained her PhD at the University of Bamberg in 1991 on the public architecture of Damascus in the 18th century. Since 2017 she is the curator of the Bumiller Collection / Bamberg University Museum of Islamic Art that holds Islamic metalwork from the Persian world. After publishing on ceramics, architecture and imagery of the central Arabic lands, she works on the development and publishing of the Bumiller Collection.
Copyedited by: Mandi GomezMandi Gomez

Amanda Gomez is a freelance copy-editor and proofreader working in London. She studied Art History and Literature at Essex University (1986–89) and received her MA (Area Studies Africa: Art, Literature, African Thought) from SOAS in 1990. She worked as an editorial assistant for the independent publisher Bellew Publishing (1991–94) and studied at Bookhouse and the London College of Printing on day release. She was publications officer at the Museum of London until 2000 and then took a role at Art Books International, where she worked on projects for independent publishers and arts institutions that included MWNF’s English-language editions of the books series Islamic Art in the Mediterranean. She was part of the editorial team for further MWNF iterations: Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean Virtual Museum and the illustrated volume Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean.

True to its ethos of connecting people through the arts, MWNF has provided Amanda with valuable opportunities for discovery and learning, increased her editorial experience, and connected her with publishers and institutions all over the world. More recently, the projects she has worked on include MWNF’s Sharing History Virtual Museum and Exhibition series, Vitra Design Museum’s Victor Papanek and Objects of Desire, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt’s online publication 2 or 3 Tigers and its volume Race, Nation, Class.

MWNF Working Number: SY 24