Al-Qaiqan Mosque ( ar, جَامِع الْقَيْقَان, Jāmiʿ al-Qayqān, lit=Mosque of the Crows) is one of the oldest surviving mosques in

Aleppo )), is an adjective which means "white-colored mixed with black". , motto = , image_map = , mapsize = , map_caption = , image_map1 = ...

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

. It is located in the western part of the

Ancient City of Aleppo The Ancient City of Aleppo ( ar, مدينة حلب القديمة, Madīnat Ḥalab al-Qadīma) is the historic city centre of Aleppo, Syria. Before the Syrian Civil War, many districts of the ancient city remained essentially unchanged since it ...

, within the historic walls of the city, to the north of the Gate of Antioch.

History

During the ancient times, the building had served as a Hittite pagan temple. It was turned into a mosque during the 12th century. Old carved stones with Hittite inscription were used in the construction of the mosque. Two old

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

columns could be seen at the main entrance of the building. On the southern wall of the mosque, a stone block with

Anatolian hieroglyphs Anatolian hieroglyphs are an indigenous logographic script native to central Anatolia, consisting of some 500 signs. They were once commonly known as Hittite hieroglyphs, but the language they encode proved to be Luwian, not Hittite, and the ter ...

inscription could be found. Both

Telipinu Telipinu was the last king of the Hittites Old Kingdom, living in 16th century BC, reigned c. 1525-1500 BC in middle chronology. At the beginning of his reign, the Hittite Empire had contracted to its core territories, having long since lost all ...

and Talmi-Šarruma, descendants of

Šuppiluliuma I Suppiluliuma I () or Suppiluliumas I () was king of the Hittites (r. c. 1344–1322 BC (short chronology)). He achieved fame as a great warrior and statesman, successfully challenging the then-dominant New Kingdom of Egypt, Egyptian Empire for con ...

, are mentioned in the inscription on the south wall of the building. The mosque was enlarged in 1965 and entirely renovated in 1996.

References

Mosques in Aleppo 12th-century mosques Religious buildings and structures converted into mosques {{Syria-mosque-stub