Kasımiye combines a courtyard college, prayer spaces and a tomb in Mardin. Its uncertain construction chronology, endowed teaching, water symbolism and modern conservation studies tell a richer story than architectural praise alone.

Rectangular courtyard pool at Kasımiye Medrese, seen through a shaded stone arch towards two levels of pointed arcades and small room doorways
The courtyard of Kasımiye Medrese in Mardin. The pool, surrounding arcades and entrances to rooms make its shared circulation and teaching spaces visible. Photograph: existing Kurdish History image archive; photographer and date unrecorded.

A building with an uncertain chronology

Kasımiye stands southwest of Mardin’s old centre, facing the Mesopotamian plain. Mardin Artuklu University links its beginnings to the Artuqid period and completion to the Aq Qoyunlu ruler Kasım, son of Cihangir, while stressing the absence of a construction inscription. Its account gives 1487–1507; the Culture Ministry inventory gives 1487–1502. [1][2] These ranges should remain attributed. The evidence supports a building associated with successive dynastic periods without establishing one uncontested completion year.

How the courtyard organises the complex

The ministry inventory describes a complex comprising college, mosque and tomb. Its north, east and west sides have two levels, while the southern side is lower. A monumental southern portal leads through a covered entrance towards a square courtyard surrounded by pointed arcades. The northern iwan, a hall open to the courtyard, contains a selsebil, or water feature, feeding the pool. Vaulted rooms, muqarnas niches and ribbed domes give different spaces distinct forms. [2] The photograph helps locate the pool and the stacked arcades within that arrangement.

Teaching supported by an endowment

Faysal Özdaş describes 23 rooms for teachers and students, with prayer spaces associated with Hanafi and Shafii teaching. He explains that Ottoman-period income came from property rents and shares in village and hamlet revenues; expenditure supported 18 staff and provisions for teachers and students. [3] This financial structure made education possible. Özdaş also cautions that information about subjects actually taught is limited, despite frequent modern descriptions of a wide curriculum. Specific lesson schedules should therefore not be reconstructed from architectural symbols alone.

Water, interpretation and a tested legend

The flowing water is interpreted as a representation of the stages of human life. Stories about astronomy lessons using reflected stars are recorded as traditions. [3] A separate tale identifies wall marks as Sultan Kasım’s blood. In their 2005 research abstract, Ayşim Tuğ, Yeşim Doğan Alakoç and İ. Hamit Hancı describe testing stained and unstained samples with chemical reagents and X-ray diffraction: they found plant-derived dye rather than blood. [4] A meaningful local story and a material finding answer different questions about the building.

Stone surfaces require continuing care

A 2023 study by Biçen Çelik, Ergin, Dal and Ay combined visual examination, deterioration mapping and X-ray fluorescence analysis. The researchers recorded cracks, broken edges, surface wear, salt-related changes, biological growth and human damage. They also noted abrasion on entrance steps associated with visitor movement. [5] The building’s survival does not mean that its surfaces are unchanged. Its carved stone and water setting are also materials affected by weather, moisture, maintenance and use.

A renewed educational role

In its account of the building’s reuse, Mardin Artuklu University says it took over the medrese in 2020 and developed an Islamic Science and Art Centre. It reports teaching and study involving architecture, Islamic sciences, fine arts and graduate students. [6] This is the university’s account of its own programme. It adds a contemporary educational layer to a monument that has also been used as a museum, rather than treating its history as ending when its original teaching ceased.

Sources and further reading

  1. Mardin Artuklu University, Faculty of Tourism, Kasımiye Medresesi: history and architecture.
  2. Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Kasımiye Medresesi monument inventory, 2013.
  3. Faysal Özdaş, Kasımiye Medresesi, Türk Maarif Ansiklopedisi.
  4. Ayşim Tuğ, Yeşim Doğan Alakoç and İ. Hamit Hancı, Mardin-Kasimiye medresesindeki lekelerin incelenmesi, Adli Bilimler Dergisi 4/1, 2005, pp.9–15; research abstract.
  5. Ayşe Biçen Çelik, Şefika Ergin, Murat Dal and İlhami Ay, Analysis of Deterioration on Stone Surfaces: The Case of Kasimiye Madrasah, JASA 8/2, 2023.
  6. Mardin Artuklu University, Tarihin İlmî Geleneği, MAÜ ile Yeniden Canlandı: institutional account of educational reuse.