Bab al-Jinan

Bab al-Jinan (Arabic: بَاب الْجِنَان, romanized: Bāb al-Jinān), meaning the Gate of Gardens, was one of the gates of Aleppo that used to lead to gardens on the banks of the Quwēq river.^[1]

Bab al-Jinan, photo taken by Baron Max von Oppenheim, circa 1899

The gate is thought to have been built by Sayf al-Dawla during his possession of Aleppo between 944 and 967. The gate provided access to the great palace of Halba and gardens that Sayf al-Dawla had built outside the city.^[2][3][4] The gate was referred to by Al-Muqaddasi in 985 as The Watermelon Gate, and noted by Alexander Russell in his 1756 book The Natural History of Aleppo.^[5]

The gate was demolished around 1900 in order to widen the road.^[6] There used to be numerous exchangers and storage houses for goods near the gate, and a pine dating back to the 16th century. The gate had a tower called the "serpent tower" in which was said^{[by whom?]} to be a talisman capable of protecting from serpent bites. Bāb Jnēn today is the site of a traditional souk.

References

1. Knost, Stefan (2011). Historical Disasters in Context: Science, Religion, and Politics. Routledge. p. 281. ISBN 9781136476259. Retrieved 6 March 2017.
2. Tabbaa, Yasser (2010). Constructions of Power and Piety in Medieval Aleppo. Penn State Press. ISBN 9780271043319.
3. Bianquis (1997), p. 105
4. Humphreys (2010), p. 537
5. Strange, Guy Le (2011). Collected works of Guy Le Strange : the medieval Islamic world. London: I.B. Tauris. p. 362. ISBN 9781848856707. Retrieved 6 March 2017.
6. "Bab Al-Jinan 2021, #8 top things to do in aleppo, aleppo governorate, reviews, best time to visit, photo gallery | HelloTravel Syria".

Bibliography

• Bianquis, Thierry (1998). "Autonomous Egypt from Ibn Ṭūlūn to Kāfūr, 868–969". In Petry, Carl F. (ed.). Cambridge History of Egypt, Volume One: Islamic Egypt, 640–1517. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 86–119. ISBN 0-521-47137-0.
• Humphreys, Stephen (2010). "Syria". In Robinson, Charles F. (ed.). The New Cambridge History of Islam, Volume I: The Formation of the Islamic World, Sixth to Eleventh Centuries. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 506–540. ISBN 978-0-521-83823-8.

36°12′7″N 37°9′7″E