Madrassah Tuwayshiah

A late fifteenth century madrasah is the al-Tuwayshiya with the elaborate mausoleum of its founder Emir Saif ed-Din al-Tuwayshi, built in the year 1471, less than a half-century before the fall of the Mamluks and the advent of the Ottomans.A little second story double window to the left ofthe main portal is flanked on each side by twisted fluted columns and has, above the window spaces, inverted seashell half domes. The half domed ceiling of the portal follows the inverted seashell motif also but unlike the windows does not present ribbing but consists in a series of four sunbursts whose rays intersect to form sharp triangles as they ascend toward the scalloped cornice . Topping the madrasah is a ribbed dome.

It would appear that during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries an important number of madrasahs were established in the newly-founded Mamluk city of Tripoli for the instruction of the Koran and Islamic law. These schools were founded and endowed by Mamluk governors and notables of the city whose policy was to implant and propagate the Muslim faith in a place which had been for almost two hundred years a Crusader stronghold.