1759 CE Safed and Baalbek Quakes

Characterization of the Ottoman Work Orders by Ayalon (2014)

from Ayalon (2014)

Ayalon (2014:96-97) reports the following on Ottoman rebuilding efforts in Damascus

Soon after the chain of earthquakes in Damascus ended, the state launched an ambitious plan to rebuild the city. The project was remarkable both in its scope and in the amount of documentation it generated. The records on it include the first 40 pages of a 900-page register as well as various other loose documents, individual orders, and petitions sent from Damascus to Istanbul and preserved in the Ottoman archives.

Ayalon (2014:98) described the 40 page work file as follows

The forty-page file mentioned previously comprises a set of work instructions issued to officials who were present in or sent to Damascus for the purpose. The three most frequently mentioned buildings are the Umayyad, Selimiye, and Süleymaniye mosques. At least one of the three is featured in each of the work orders copied into the file, and many entries discuss the need to renovate all three, or other, smaller, mosques.¹²¹ In addition to mosques, the Ottomans planned the reconstruction of madrasas and soup kitchens, both institutions that served Muslims only and were usually located in complexes that also included a mosque and sometimes a hospital.¹²² ...

Appended to the work orders was a list of no fewer than 430 structures that needed full or partial repair, to be financed by the Ottoman treasury.¹²⁴

Footnotes

121 For entries that mention the three mosques, see BOA, MMD, 3160: 1, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 14. For the Umayyad Mosque only, see 10, 13. For the Süleymaniye Mosque, see 13. For the Selimiye Mosque, see 7.

122 For religious schools, see ibid., 5, 8.

124 The list appears in BOA, MMD, 3160: 2–4, 6–7, 9–12. It contains 487 entries, but 57 of them are duplicates.

Ayalon (2014:99) provided some details of the requested work

The first of these is the Süleymaniye mosque. It has seventy-three entries: fifteen relating to the mosque itself; twenty-four to sections of the mosque or adjacent buildings, such as walls (divar), corridors (dehliz), gates (kapı), and domes (kubbe); two to religious schools; two to soup kitchens; and the rest to parts of unspecified buildings.¹²⁵ Next are the Selimiye and its environs. Of eighty-seven structures, thirty were directly related to the mosque; seventeen to adjacent walls, gates, and domes; three to soup kitchens; six to the nearby Muhyi al-Din al- ‘Arabi (Ibn ‘Arabi) tomb; and the rest unspecified.¹²⁶ The part of the register dealing with the Umayyad mosque and its surroundings contains 148 entries, of which 97 deal specifically with the mosque. Most of the rest probably relate to it as well, although this is not explicitly specified.¹²⁷ On the whole, a sizable segment – possibly a majority – of the works to be carried out according to the register focused on mosques and structures related to them.

Footnotes

125 BOA, MMD, 3160: 2-3.

126 BOA, MMD, 3160: 3–4.

127 BOA, MMD, 3160: 10–13.

Ottoman Work Orders in Damascus