Al-Tanjaziyya School is one of the most ancient historical schools inside the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque in the city of Jerusalem. It is located between Bab al-Silsilah to the north and Buraq Square to the south. It was used to memorize the Holy Qur’an and Islamic sciences inside the mosque, but the Israeli occupation turned it into a military center for the so-called “Border Guards.”
Founding and history
The Tanakazi School is located in the city of Jerusalem, at the gate of Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is known as Bab Al-Silsilah (north), and is located between it and Al-Buraq Square to the south.
Its construction was completed in the year 729 AH/1328 AD by Prince Tankaz bin Abdullah Al-Maliki Al-Nasiri, nicknamed Abu Saeed, the Mamluk deputy over the Levant.
Part of the school is located inside the western corridor of Al-Aqsa Mosque and another part is outside it. During the reign of Mamluk Sultan Qaytbay, it was served as the seat of the judiciary and government.
This school has passed through several eras. Before it became a school, it was a khanqah (retreat or retreat) for Sufis, then a home for hadith and a home for orphans.
It did not become a famous school until the Mamluk era, when Prince Tankaz completed its construction, so it became known by his name. He then used it as a residence for judges and deputies at Al-Aqsa Sharia Secondary School, and it remained that way until the early days of the British occupation, when he used it as a school for teaching Islamic jurisprudence.
Mission and objectives
The Tanakziyya School was dedicated to teaching Hanafi jurisprudence and the noble Prophet’s hadith, to caring for and teaching children, and to establishing Sufism and practicing their worship.
It did not cease performing its mission throughout the Mamluk and Ottoman periods, with the exception of the period of the authority of Mamluk Sultan Qaytbay (901-872 AH / 1495-1467 AD), where it served as a center and court for judges and deputies, and a residence for them.
The school was also the headquarters of the Jerusalem Sharia Court during the days of the Ottoman Empire, specifically in the 19th century AD. It was then used as a residence for the head of the Supreme Islamic Council, Haj Amin al-Husseini, in the 1920s.
In 1964 AD, it was transformed into a Sharia school before the Israeli occupation confiscated it in June 1969, and used it as a headquarters for the border guards of its army. It is still a camp for the Israeli occupation forces, which prohibits entry even to the Islamic Endowments Department.
School description
This school consists of two floors, including a mosque, an orphanage, and another for modern schools. At its gate there is a stone bench known as a masala on each side.
This gate is also surmounted by a set of interlaced stone cymbals with the inscription of the foundation in the middle, then topped by 3 rows of hollow and domed squinches.
A stone conch rests above it, and the entrance leads to a distributor that leads to an open courtyard, in the middle of which is an octagonal basin and an alabaster fountain, to which water is supplied from the Al-Arroub Canal.
In the southern iwan of the school there is a mihrab for a mosque, as indicated by the inscription on it, and next to it is a hall that used to be a library, and another prepared when the school was used as the seat of the Sharia court.
The school occupied the ground floor of the building, while the khanqah was above the corridor of the sanctuary. On the upper floor of the school there were 11 rooms for Sufis, and on the roof of the school there was a large house designated for women’s quarters.
Observation point
In June 1969, the occupation authorities seized the Al-Tanaksiya School, expelled the students from it, and then turned it into a military site for the so-called “Border Guard Police” to monitor Al-Aqsa Mosque and the worshipers inside it, and to suppress events and demonstrations denouncing the occupation and its policies.
The occupation authorities sponsored several excavations under the school, which were turned into tunnels. These excavations were connected together in what the Jews called the “Hasmonean” tunnel, which was opened in 1996 and extended from Al-Buraq Square in the south along the western wall of Al-Aqsa, all the way to the Al-Omariyya School in the north.
In March 2006, then-Israeli President Moshe Katsav opened a synagogue in one of these tunnels, which is adjacent to the western wall of Al-Aqsa Mosque.
In 1996, the occupation police installed the first mobile camera on top of the Al-Tanaksiya School building to monitor Al-Aqsa Mosque. Later, a number of cameras installed on top of the school became linked to the Technology Control Center (Mabat 2000), which monitors the alleys and gates of the Old City, Al-Aqsa squares, and its doors around the clock by 2000 surveillance cameras.
Endowments of Al-Tanaksiya School
The Tanakzi School in Jerusalem had endowments, including the half-bathroom known as the Hammam al-Ain, located in the Bab al-Qattanin market.
Prince Tankaz bin Abdullah Al-Nasiri also endowed a number of shops on it, as well as the khan that he established in the Qattanin market, which was known as (Khan Tankaz), and a number of mills.
Administration of the Tanaziya School
The school is managed by a body of several people, each of whom has specific responsibilities and tasks, according to the following:
- Endowment supervisor: He supervises the entire management of the Tanaksia Foundation and its endowments, and the endowment chooses and appoints him to fill this position. His duties also include appointing employees working in the school and supervising the endowment, its construction, repair and renewal.
- School Sheikh: The endowment stipulated that the school sheikh who was appointed by the superintendent of the endowment be: a memorizer of the Holy Qur’an, knowledgeable of the doctrine of Imam Siraj al-Din Abi Hanifa al-Nu’man ibn Thabit.
The sources mentioned the names of many teachers who taught at the Tanakziyya School (they took over the sheikhdom of the Tanakziyya), including: Judge Alaa al-Din Abu al-Hasan Ali bin Ayoub bin Mansour al-Maqdisi.
Among them are also: Sheikh Saladin Abu Saeed Khalil bin Kaykeldi Al-Ala’i Al-Dimashqi and then Al-Maqdisi, Judge Alam Al-Din Muhammad bin Abi Bakr Issa bin Badran Al-Subki Al-Akhnai Al-Shafi’i, Sheikh Zayn Al-Din Abdul Rahim bin Al-Naqib Al-Maqdisi Al-Hanafi, and other teachers.
- Demonstrator: The school sheikh assists in his work. He attends all the scheduled lessons with the teacher and students, re-explains the lessons to the students, and follows up on their assignments. One of his duties is to control their attendance at the lessons.
- Sheikh of Hadith scholars: He heads the Dar al-Hadith School, and the one who gives it stipulated that he be of a high degree in narrating hadith, well-read, and well-read. People should go to him to listen to him and learn from him.
- Hadith scholars: They numbered 20 hadith scholars, and the donor stipulated that each one of them be good and righteous people.
- Modern reader: He must be experienced in reading hadith, and must be well-versed and well-read. The hadith reciters had to meet after the afternoon prayer, and each one of them read what he could from the Book of God, and complete the Qur’an.
One of the conditions for a student in Dar al-Hadith, which is one of the departments of the school, is that he read in the religious lesson from Sahih al-Bukhari, then from Sahih Muslim, and that he memorizes one hadith every day, and presents it to the sheikh.
As for the Sufis, they had to gather every morning before sunrise, and each one of them would read whatever he could from the Qur’an, and they would repeat the prayers and read from the message of Imam Al-Qushayri.
Students of the Tanaksia School
The Waqfiya known them as jurists and tafiqiha, and they are chosen by the sheikh of the school. The Waqf specified their number as 15 jurists and tafiqiha, who are arranged into 3 classes: finished, intermediate, and beginners, provided that 5 of them are married.
Each one of them was required to regularly attend school to continue his education, and to spend the night there.
Women’s bond
The Tangazi school also included a women’s club, located in a building near it, which was intended to accommodate 12 poor women coming to Rabat.
Priority in admission is given to poor, foreign women, over poor women from Jerusalem, and priority is given to working in Rabat to poor, foreign women as well.
In addition to being poor, they are required to be religious and good, and not to have husbands, so that one of them is their sheikh and the other is a valuable woman and a gateway to the bond.
