| Places to visit in Tripoli-Lebanon :
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History
"Cleanliness is next to godliness"
appears to have been an adage dear to the heart of Emir Izzedin Aibek (1293 -1298) for
barely four years after the city had fallen to Qala’un he set about building the new
provincial capital’s first public bath. To accomplish this work of public utility he
took choice marble fragments, sculptures and basins from Byzantine and Crusader churches
which he then used freely to embellish his hammamThe Arab conquerors of the seventh century had come into
contact and copied the Roman-Byzantine baths which existed in the captured eastern
provinces of the Byzantine empire. The Romans with their organizing genius and love of
luxury had developed not only the technique of bathing but also the planning of bath
buildings as it never had been done before. The Izzedin baths of Tripoli follow the
classic pattern of apodyterium, tepidarium and caldarium, called in Arabic
the burrani (dressing room court around a fountain), the al-wustani or warm
water room with small private bath rooms adjoining the al-hammi or very hot water
and steam bath hall. Top
To decorate the front portal of his
public bath Izzedin placed a fragment of double molding with a church inscription SCS
Jacobus which probably came from a ruined Crusader church on or near the emplacement
of the bath The slightly pointed arch underneath is of interest because this architectural
feature has survived in later buildings in Tripoli and Lebanon and is believed to have
been inspired by Crusader and Mamluk architecture of the thirteenth century. Within the hammam
the inner portal appears to have been lifted intact from a Crusader church for on the
stone carved lintel there appears the paschal lamb between two rosettes, a typically
Christian motif. The carving has been whitewashed time and again throughout the years and
is now crudely outlined in red paint with the inscription "ecce Agnus Dci" . Top
To avoid having apertures in the
walls and ceilings for light, which would certainly result in heat loss, the domed roofs
of the hammam are decorated by a series of green and blue glass roundels through
which daylight filters giving the interior of the bath an eerie look . In the
chambers there are several worn multicolored marble basins to collect water for the
bathers. The hammam has served the people of Tripoli for seven hundred and eighty
years, since Emir Izzedin’s day to the present time. Top
Apparently the Emir was so proud of
his contribution to the city of Tripoli that he chose to be buried in a small mausoleum or
‘‘tomb-chapel’’ attached to the hamrnam. Over the
mausoleum’s street window is the inscription: "In the name of Allah, this is the
mausoleum of the pious Aibek, son of Abdallah of Mosul, governor of the royal province of
the well-guarded conquests, may Allah have pity on him who has died on the 5 of the month
of safar in the year 698 of the Prophet’s Flight (November 12, 1298) The emir’s
coat of arms is a shield crossed by a single horizontal band, in the center of which is a
circle.. The escutcheon is repeated three times beneath the inscription and is the
best preserved example of Mamluk arms in Lebanon. In the courtyard of the mausoleum on a
marble mosaic floor is a magnificent marble basin which may have served at one time as a
baptismal fount in a church. Top
Historical References |
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