- Name
- Dar al-'Izz
- Plan
- Four-iwan courtyard
- Renovated
- AH 627 / 1230
- Destroyed
- Mongols, 1260
The Ayyubid rulers did not merely garrison this hill, they lived on it, and the palace was the proof. It was built around a courtyard with four iwans — vaulted halls open on one side — and entered through a portal of muqarnas, the honeycombed stone vaulting that is the signature of the period. There was tilework, and running water, and the whole arrangement of a court.
It burned down. The chroniclers place the fire on al-Zahir Ghazi's wedding night, and record the sultan and his bride escaping the building in the dark. It was rebuilt, and renovated again in AH 627 — 1230 — under his son al-Malik al-'Aziz Muhammad.
Then in 1260 the Mongols came and finished it. What stands now is a ruin, partly excavated, and after 1260 the rulers of Aleppo never rebuilt a palace up here; the Mamluks put their throne room on the gatehouse instead.