Kasımıye Madrasa and Zinciriye Madrasa: Mardin's Artuqid Masterpieces

Between the 12th and 15th centuries, the Artuqid and Aq Qoyunlu dynasties turned Mardin into a major centre of astronomy, medicine, philosophy and theology, leaving behind two monumental limestone madrasas (universities) that bookend the city: Zinciriye Madrasa high on the upper cliff right under the Castle, and Kasımıye Madrasa on the open lower plain southwest of the Old Town.

1. Kasımıye Madrasa (Kasımiye Medresesi, Best Visited 90 Minutes Before Sunset)

Located ten minutes downhill southwest of Cumhuriyet Meydanı (reached by a pleasant 20-minute downhill walk, a 5-minute taxi ride or the local minibus), Kasımıye Madrasa was begun in the late Artuqid period and completed between 1457 and 1502 by Aq Qoyunlu Sultan Kasım ibn Cihangir. Entered through a soaring stalactite (muqarnas) stone portal carved like honeycombed lace, the two-storey courtyard houses 23 vaulted student cells around a central eyvan (open vaulted hall) and a famous water channel:

• The Symbolic "Pool of Life" (Selsebil): inside the main northern eyvan, spring water trickles from a wall fountain down a narrow carved stone groove into a shallow square pool, then flows out through a narrow slit into a wide cistern outside. Local guides and Sufi tradition explain its philosophical design: the spring represents birth, the narrow channel represents youth, the wide central pool represents maturity and the gathering of knowledge, the narrow exit slit represents death, and the outer pool feeding the plain represents the afterlife and Judgement Day.
• Why tiny student doors are only 1 metre high: every student room doorway around the courtyard was deliberately built low so that even sultans and scholars had to bow their heads in humility whenever entering or leaving a room of learning (and to prevent horsemen from riding into the sanctuary during wartime).

2. Zinciriye Madrasa (Sultan İsa Medresesi, 1385, Best for Rooftop Views)

Sitting high above Birinci Cadde right at the foot of the vertical Castle rock, Zinciriye Madrasa was built in 1385 by the last Artuqid ruler of Mardin, Melik Necmeddin İsa (who was himself imprisoned inside this very building when Timur / Tamerlane besieged Mardin). Climb the stone stairs from the lower courtyard pool to the upper rooftop terrace between its twin fluted domes: because Mardin Castle above it is a closed military radar zone, Zinciriye's roof is the highest publicly accessible viewpoint in all of Old Mardin.