Tinal Mosque
Emir Saif al-Din Tinal, twice governor of Tripoli (1326 to 1333 and 1335 to 1340) built a many-domed mosque on the emplacement of Tripoli’s Carmelite church .This church had been built by the Crusaders outside their walled city and, after the fall of Tripoli in 1289, stood deserted and in ruins. The main building, beneath a series of domes, has a number of granite columns with late Roman or Byzantine capitals standing in two rows. In the center of the mosque under the largest dome, the position of four large columns reveals the center of the Carrnelite church. An elaborate portal of alternating black and white stone at the rear of the mosque leads into another room. Its overhanging half dome ceiling with stalactites, the marble plaques and inlay work competes in beauty with the main portal of the alQartawiya madrasah .The mosque was built in the year 1336 (A.H.736).
The minaret is square with walled-up Crusader type side windows, decorated with coussinets. It contains a double staircase. This probably was the belfry of the Crusader church to which the governor’s fourteenth century architects added a typical Mamluk enclosed balcony on top.The mausoleum has nothing to do with the original Carmelite church plan. It has a number of domes, one being deeply ribbed. It is here that Saif al-DinTaylan wished to be buried besides the mosque which he built and endowed for the inhabitants of Tripoli.
The foundation act (waqfiya) gives a list of the properties of the Emir which he donated for the upkeep of the mosque.This includes a garden, called al-Hamawi, on the bank of the Abou Ali River to the east of Tripoli, two shops at the entrance of the mosque which do not exist today, a garden called Altuntash, two shops near the market for the sale of armaments, facing the bath of Esendemir (hammam al-Hajeb), one third of a caravanserai and the village of ArzOntya, near Arqa. The income from this property was to go to the endowment fund of the mosque. What remained, after expenses were paid, was to be given to the poor of Tripoli and those in need passing through the city. But in no case, according to the wishes of the donor, were regular sums to be given to the poor. The superintendent of the mosque had to examine each case on its own merits, no doubt to discourage begging.
For the upkeep of his mausoleum, Saif al-Din Taynal made a separate foundation act (waajiya) He appeared to be a man of considerable means for he donated all the market-place next to the mosque Al-Arzuni where the old clothes vendors of Tripoli were established. This included sixteen shops and sixteen warehouses, two shops in the blacksmiths’ souk, all the shops and warehouses which he himself had built on the emplacement called the “old court”, six shops recently built by him in the Suwaiqat al-qadi, between the two bridges which span the Abou Ali River, a land around the mosque and a land which belonged to him near the hippodrome. What remained, after all expenses were paid, was to be distributed to the poor, provided each case was examined in order to avoid mis-use of the endowment fund.
Over the minbar (pulpit) of the mosque is a short inscription stating that it was completed in the month (June11 to July 10) 1336 (An. 736) Lastly, at the bottom of the pulpit, is a one line inscription stating that this was the work of the carpenter Muhammad al-Safadi, the master artisan.”