Özet:

Bearing sanctity for all of the three monotheistic religions, Jerusalem is known to have witnessed interreligious conflicts throughout the history, and the city has evidently retained its importance for Muslims for ages. In due course, reconstruction and urbanization activities continued in every corner of the city in order to create a Muslim identity, especially within the Haram al-Sharif district, which was accepted as the third “haram”, namely the place of consecration, succeeding Mecca and Medina during every period under Islamic rule. Due to its geographical location, Jerusalem, which hasn’t portrayed the characteristics of a commercial center and did not have a military and political central location except for the period of the Crusaders, was not only a sacred religious center but also an important Islamic seminary center during the times when Muslims used to hold predomination. In addition to the independent religious institutes and seminaries such as madrasas, Sufi lodges and zâwiyas, ribâts and hankahs built in the city, the Masjid al-Aqsa itself was not only a structure for performing prayers, but always hosted mosque lessons, dhikr assemblies, and disciplerings called “mastaba” inaugurated in its courtyard. Thus, it performed the function of a lively Islamic seminary center. It must be noted that the establishment of Islamic seminaries in the city started in the Ayyubids period and reached its peak with the Mamluks, and as for the Ottoman period; a policy that ensured the preservation of the existing system, and of the cornerstone institutions together with the other foundations was followed. It is fair to say that, further studies on Jerusalem’s madrasas are indispensable in order to reveal various issues such as madrasas’ way of functioning in the post-Ottoman process and the parameters related to the control of the religious foundations available in the district. To this end, this article focuses on the functioning of the Tâziyya Madrasa, which is probably medium-sized one, and built by the Mamluk Emir, Emir Tâz, who served in important military and administrative services and lived in Jerusalem after his retirement, notwithstanding the political problems he faced in the last days of his tenure. Tâziyya, one of the more than fifty madrasas established around the Masjid al-Aqsa, was founded in the XVIth century. As a witness of the vibrant Islamic training life in the city, whose population was recorded to be only around 5 thousand in the 16th century, it continued its activities during the rule of the Ottoman state. Existing studies in the literature dealing with the structure and functioning of the madrasas in the Arab territories during the Ottoman period mostly focus on the larger scaled and visible structures whose foundations have survived till the present day, or whose foundation holders and students can be traced through the strata books, making it relatively easy to attain data. With the aim of contributing the scholarly-interest and related literature, this study aims to present sound evaluations with regard to medium-sized madrasas’ that used to be abundant in the XVIth century Jerusalem. The available literature regarding the issue the Sharia court records and “mühimme” records dating back to different times in the century are reviewed. Since the Jerusalem Sharia court records are in Arabic, there are difficulties in reading them due to the physical conditions and writing characters of the notebooks, and there are few studies in Turkish literature that examine the subject directly by taking these local sources to the center. This article aims to contribute to the field with this aspect. The article consists of five sub-headings. In the first part, biographical information about the Mamluk Emir, Emir Tâz, who was the founder of the madrasa, and in the second part, the spatial characteristics of the madrasa are introduced. In the third chapter, which deals with the monetary resource of the waqf, which was the most important element for the continuity of the madrasa, and the people in charge of its operation, both the size of the financial support of the madrasa and some problems encountered therein, are revealed. Under the fourth title, focusing on the elements of the pedagogical activity of the madrasa, issues such as the selection of the rank and file in Jerusalem madrasas, the competition to obtain a rank, the teaching capacity of the madrasa and the opportunities it offers are given special attention, in particular to the Tâziyya madrasa. Finally, the other religious services in the madrasa are critically examined.

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