The Domes of al-Marasā ar-Ruknīyyā

 

Above the façade the two domes, over the cloister and the tomb, are set well back from the plane of the facade, and their zones of transition are built of stone, not brick, though the gored domes themselves are in brick.

The cloister's dome has only a single zone of transition, but the tomb has the usual two zones, articulated like earlier, brick-and-stucco tombs.

The cloister's zone of transition consists of simple squinches, the corners of whose arches oversail the plane of the wall; below the back of each squinch is a small monolithic muqarnaṣ cell, set below the springing level of the squinches. Above the squinches are two courses of normal height and three short courses, of which the upper two are corbelled across the angles of the octagon, rounding off its angles a bit; the gored brick dome springs directly above these stone corbelling courses.

Beneath the dome is the tank, fairly small but of the usual shape, and now lined with modern tile.

The tomb is a typical but very fine example of the Damascene style, complete with a rectangular stone tomb cover, shallow relief stucco, and small subsquinch cells, like those under the dome of the cloister.

Terry Allen. Ayyubid Architecture. Solipsist Press, Occidental, California, 1999.