User:Rupert Clayton/Imam Abdullah Zawiyah

The Imam Abdullah Zawiyah (İmam Abdullah Zaviyesi) is a religious complex and mausoleum in Hasankeyf, Eastern Anatolia, Turkey erected by the Artuqid dynasty.

Rescue archeology
Following the announcement of the plans for the Ilısu Dam, various historic sites in Hasankeyf received closer scrutiny. Based on notes from short visits in June 1975 and May 1989, noted Islamic scholar Michael Meinecke gave the zawiyah considerable attention in the chapter on Hasankeyf in his 1996 book Patterns of Stylistic Changes in Islamic Architecture. Since 1986, Professor M. Oluş Arık of Ankara University has been the prime investigator documenting the archeological heritage of Hasankeyf. Arık helped organize the site survey in late 2002 by the Center for Research and Assessment of the Historical Environment (TAÇDAM) at Middle East Technical University that resulted in a detailed plan of the town.

Between 2006 and 2013, the Hasankeyf Directorate of Archaeological Excavations conducted three digs near the old bridge's northern footing, at the İmam Abdullah Zawiyah, Caravanserai and Bridge Pier sites.

The 2006 İmam Abdullah Zawiyah excavation examined a zawiya or religious complex on a site to the northeast of the road approaching the bridge's northern footing. The complex is built around a courtyard that has since become a graveyard. The most prominent buildings are a domed mausoleum on the north side of the courtyard with a minaret or tower adjacent to the east. Visitors entered the courtyard through the east wall and along the inside of this wall was built the zawiya. Along the courtyard's south side is the masjid, or prayer hall. The mausoleum houses the tomb of Imam Abdullah, said to be a descendant of Muhammad. The 2006 excavation confirmed earlier assumptions that the zawiya was originally built by the Artuqids in the 12th century. The tomb was rebuilt during the Ayyubid period by Sultan Muwahhid Taqiyya ad-Din Abdullah (1249–1294). An epigraph above the tomb's entrance records later repairs by one of the sons of the Aq Qoyunlu Turkmen leader Uzun Hassan in. Sinclair visited the site in 1979 and, noting a tile on the south wall of the prayer hall with the blessing of the Twelve Imams, speculated that the building had at some point been used by a Shia group, such as the Qara Qoyunlu or the Qizilbash. Sinclair sees parallels with 12th-century Syrian woodwork in the tomb's original, intricately carved doors, which are now in Diyarbakır Museum.