Makkah
The Suleymaniye Madrasas were four colleges built against the northern side of Masjid al-Haram by the Ottoman Sultan Suleyman, to designs by the architect…
The Suleymaniye Madrasas were four colleges built against the northern side of Masjid al-Haram by the Ottoman Sultan Suleyman, to designs by the architect Sinan, between 971 and 974 AH (1564-1566). Each taught one of the four schools of law, Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali, under four high domes, and their first head was the historian Qutb al-Din al-Nahrawali. They were built on ground that earlier held the Ghiyathiyyah Madrasa founded by Sultan Ghiyath al-Din A'zam Shah of Bengal in 813 AH, where Taqi al-Din al-Fasi taught, as well as the Mansuri hospital, the madrasa of Sultan Ahmad Shah of Gujarat, endowments of the Mamluk Sultan al-Mu'ayyad Shaykh, houses of Sharif Hasan ibn Abi Numayy and the house of Zaynab, wife of Sultan Inal, with five windows facing the Ka'bah. The Suleymaniye minaret, one of the seven minarets of the old mosque, rose beside them. In later centuries two of the madrasas became the great shari'a court of Makkah, the Maliki madrasa housed the judges of the city, among them the poet Baki, and in 1259 AH (1843) the Hanbali madrasa became the library of the Haram. The Maliki madrasa was taken down in 1956 and the other three in 1963, when Masjid al-Haram was enlarged. Their site lies inside the present mosque, about 100 metres north of the Ka'bah.