Mausoleum of Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn

 

The turbā is located outside the northern arcade of the Great Mosque.

Saladin died 27 Ṣafar (March 4, 1193) in the citadel of Damascus, and his body was transferred on the ʿĀšūrā day, 10 Muḥarram 592 (December 15, 1195), to his turbā, which his son al-Malik al-ʿAzīz ʿUṯmān (1) had founded as Madrasā al-ʿAzīzīyyā, in the Kallāsā quarter, adjacent to the exterior north wall of the Great Mosque. The turbā was “in an ʾīwān in the western part” of that madrasā, the foundation of which had been laid by al-Malik al-ʾAfḍal Nūr ad-Dīn ʿAlī son of Saladin (2). The door of the old Madrasā al-ʿAzīzīyyā existed at the time of Bourgoin (3). On the cenotaph of Saladin was an inscription in verses, composed by his qāḍī al-Fāḍil and read by ibn H̱allikān in Ramaḍān 680:

After the date of his death:

"اللهمّ فارض عن تلك الروح وافتح له أبواب الجنّة فهي آخر ما كان يرجوه من الفتوح"

O Allah, be satisfied with this soul and open to him the gates of paradise! That is the last conquest for which he hoped!

The tomb was restored by Kaiser Wilhelm II after his visit to Damascus (4). The attached photograph was taken before that restoration.

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1. Sultan of Egypt 1193-1198 CE. 

2. Emir of Damascus 1193-1196. 

3. Précis de l'art arabe. Paris 1892. 

4. Wilhelm II entered the city on November 7, 1898, accompanied by Empress Augusta Victoria.

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Ernst Herzfeld. Damascus, Studies in Architecture III. Ars Islamica XI-XII 1946 (p. 1-71).