The development of Sūq al-Qattānīn quarter, Jerusalem

Following the discovery of a Mamlūk public bath and a vaulted hall to the south of the Cotton Market in the Old City of Jerusalem, this article proposes a new evaluation of the urban fabric in close proximity to the focal point of the Islamic area - the Haram al-Sharīf. We argue here that what once was considered a project constructed under the supervision of the district governor Saif al-Dīn Tankiz, and financed by the Sultan al-Nāsir Mu.ammad b. Qalāwūn, was in fact initiated by Tankiz. He first erected a double hammām, and then a Khān, which was presumably connected to a market street. In its final incarnation, the Sūq was monumental in scale, extending all the way to the Haram. The final product, a market street connecting the Haram with one of the main streets of the city, providing facilities to believers in the form of a double hammām and a Khān that served merchants and also pilgrims, was by far the most ambitious project of the Mamlūk era in Jerusalem.