Darwish Pasha Mosque

Darwish Pasha Mosque جامع درويش باشا
Location within Old Damascus
Basic information
Location	Street Called Straight, Damascus, Syria
Geographic coordinates	33°30′34″N 36°18′01″E / 33.509444°N 36.300278°E / 33.509444; 36.300278Coordinates: 33°30′34″N 36°18′01″E / 33.509444°N 36.300278°E / 33.509444; 36.300278
Affiliation	Islam
Region	Levant
Status	Active
Architectural description
Architectural type	Mosque
Architectural style	Ottoman architecture
Completed	1574
Specifications
Dome(s)	4
Minaret(s)	1
Materials	Stone, marble, tile

The Darwish Pasha Mosque (Arabic: جامع درويش باشا‎, transliteration: Jami Darwish Pasha, Turkish: Derviş Paşa Camii) is an early Ottoman-era mosque in Damascus, Syria, located along the Street Called Straight.^[1] The mosque was erected in 1574 by the Ottoman governor of Damascus Darwish Pasha.^[1]

Architecture

The building is built with alternating courses of black and white stones and is composed of a prayer hall preceded by a portico and a rectangular courtyard.^[1]

Courtyard

The mosque courtyard is entered from the east through an arched doorway set inside a high portal along Darwish Street. Above the door is an Arabic inscription carved in marble stating the name of the mosque’s patron and its erection date. On each side of the portal arch are two medallions of polychrome stone. The cylindrical minaret, crowned by a conical roof above a single balcony supported on muqarnas corbels, rises directly above the portal and is accessed by a spiral staircase entered from the courtyard.

The courtyard is rectangular and has a sixteen-sided fountain in its center. Its walls are decorated with numerous Kashani tile panels and its floor is paved with polychrome stones. The northern and western walls of the courtyard are pierced with two and three windows, respectively, that have floral and inscriptive tiles in their tympana.^[1]

Interior

To the south side of the courtyard, is the five bay portico of the prayer hall. Its domes are carried on white stone columns with black capitals. Doorways at the east and west ends of the portico lead out to the streets.

The prayer hall is accessed through a door centered on the portico and flanked by windows with arched tympana. Adjoining the windows on both sides of the portico are three tile panels. The first panel on the east side is a tiled mihrab niche followed by a flat tiled panel depicting a niche. A similar panel is found on the west side of the entrance.

Inside, the prayer hall has a tri-partite plan centered on a square domed space that is flanked by aisles covered with three smaller domes. The central dome is supported by pendentives marked with inscriptive medallions. It is pierced by sixteen arched windows that help illuminate the hall that only has windows on its western and northern walls. The qibla wall is entirely covered with polychrome marble laid out in geometric patterns. The arch of the mihrab is supported by two marble columns with Corinthian capitals and set within a rectangular frame of star and diamond niche motifs made of colored stones. The niche itself is covered with vertical strips of black and white marble whereas its semi-dome is decorated with a zigzag pattern made of black, white and red marble. To the right of the mihrab is the plain marble minbar with a muqarnas lintel above its doorway. The north, east and west walls of the prayer hall are decorated with Kashani tile panels and the windows are covered with colored glass.^[1]

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e} Darwish Pasha Mosque Archnet Digital Library.

Bibliography

• Burns, Ross (1992). Monuments of Syria, a Historical Guide. Tauris & Co.