Origin
The quarter was established in 1193 by Saladin's son al-Malik al-Afdal, according to the 15th-century historian Mujir ad-Din, as a waqf (charitable trust) dedicated to Moroccans ; he also established a school there, the Afdaliyyah. Later pious Moroccan donors extended this with several other waqfs: in 1303, one Umar ibn Abdullah ibn Abdun-Nabi al-Masmudi al-Mujarrad endowed a zaouia (religious school) for the benefit of Moroccans living in the Moroccan Quarter, while in 1320 Shuayb ibn Muhammad ibn Shuayb, a grandson of the major Sufi Abu Madyan al-Ghauth, endowed a second zaouia there to be funded by his lands at Ain Karim. In 1352, the Marinid sultan of Morocco himself, Abu Inan Faris, established a smaller waqf - a Qur'an donated to the al-Aqsa Mosque, together with a representative to ensure that it was read from regularly.
Read more about this topic: Moroccan Quarter
Famous quotes containing the word origin:
“Each structure and institution here was so primitive that you could at once refer it to its source; but our buildings commonly suggest neither their origin nor their purpose.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed,—a, to me, equally mysterious origin for it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In the woods in a winter afternoon one will see as readily the origin of the stained glass window, with which Gothic cathedrals are adorned, in the colors of the western sky seen through the bare and crossing branches of the forest.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)