Al-Hatab Square

Sahat al-Hatab as seen in 2011

In 1400, the Mongol-Turkic leader Tamerlane captured the city of Aleppo from the Mamluks and massacred many of its inhabitants.[1][2] After the withdrawal of the Mongols, the Muslim population returned to Aleppo.[3] In contrast the Christian residents, unable to resettle in their own city quarters, established a new neighbourhood just to the north of the city walls in the early 1420s.[4] This area became known as Aleppo's al-Jdeydeh (Jdeideh) Quarter (for "new district" in Arabic).[5][6]

Al-Hatab Square became the centre of this newly established quarter and was surrounded by many churches, hammams, khans, caravanserais and caeserias.[7][8] Many Christians chose this area as a number of fifteenth century churches had been located there.[9] A number of structures here were built on earlier Byzantine foundations. By the seventeenth century, a mosque (al-Sharaf Mosque), and sprawling waqf complex with shops and coffee house were established near there to help service the local inhabitants and visitors.[9] Many Armenians also settled in the area as early as the 1600s to develop the growing silk trade with Persia.[9][10]

The square and khans quickly became one of the busiest commercial hubs of the city.[11] Many European traders would also come to do business here as many of their local agents and translators lived in this area.[5][12]

The 1850 massacre of Christians and others in Aleppo also originated in and around Al-Hatab Square.[13]

Film set on the renewed Al Hatab Square in 2005

Tourists at al-Hatab Square

By 2011 Sahat al Hatab square, and the Jdeideh neighbourhood around it, had underdone a revitalisation process.[14] It became home to many boutique hotels housed in historic buildings such as the Zamaria House,[15] museums such as the Beit Ghazaleh and Beit Achiqbash, and number of noted restaurants that celebrated the local cuisine.[16][17][18]

The Al-Sharaf mosque on Sahat al Hatab square

The square, which had once been built over with trader's sheds, was rehabilitated as a shared and open public space.[19][20] Its expanse, and the streets around it, went on to foster a vibrant mix of Syrian families and foreign tourists.[21][22]

This civic project, as part of a plan to protect the Old City of Aleppo,[23] began in 1995 came with some controversy regarding land speculation, land use and its impact on existing residents.[24] The project was also a recipient of international award for urban planning and renewal.[19][25]

The square became a popular destination, especially for visitors passing through the narrow alleyways of Aleppo's Old City[26]—it was home to many shops of antiques and handmade jewellery.[27][28]

The famous ful parlor Abu Abdo was also located near the square.[11][29]

Al Hatab Square as seen in 2017 after backfilling of craters

Sahat Al Hatab suffered catastrophic damage during the Syrian civil war that began in Aleppo in 2012.[30][31] A series of huge underground explosions conducted by the armed opposition under the square in April 2015 devastated it along with the surrounding historic buildings.[32][33][34]

Al Hatab Square, and its al-Jdayde (Jdeideh) Quarter, found itself on the front line from the beginning in what became a war of attrition between combatant forces.[35][36]

The area, like much of the old city, remained a closed militarized zone for most of this period and was heavily damaged from fighting.[37][38] Official damage assessments conducted after the evacuation of rebel forces determined Sahat al Hatab to have been "highly affected" by civil war fighting.[39]

While the Jdayde Hotel along with other buildings surrounding the square were mostly destroyed,[40][41] the craters on it were backfilled and its surface levelled during 2017. In 2018 further remediation work was undertaken in the area.[42]

• Bruce Masters (1991) Aleppo the Ottoman Empire's caravan city in Edhem Eldem, Daniel Goffman, and Bruce Masters (1999), "The Ottoman City between East and West: Aleppo, Izmir, and Istanbul." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 17–78.
• Jean-Claude David (1990) L'espace des chrétiens à Alep. Ségrégation et mixité, stratégies communautaires (1750-1850) Revue du monde musulman et de la Méditerranée Année 1990 Volume 55 Numéro 1 pp. 150–170
• Masters, Bruce (February 1990). "The 1850 Events in Aleppo: An Aftershock of Syria's Incorporation into the Capitalist World System". International Journal of Middle East Studies. Cambridge University Press. 22: 3–20. JSTOR 164379.
• Burns, Ross, Aleppo: A History. London : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017.p. 197, 231-2.
• Mansel, Philip, Aleppo: The Rise and Fall of Syria’s Great Merchant City. London: I.B. Tauris, 2016.
• Mıroğlu, Ebru Aras (2005). "The Transformation of Urban Space at the Conjunction of the Old and New Districts: The City of Aleppo" Middle East Technical University. Thesis: pp. 60–5.
• Francesco Lanyafame and Eduardo Rojas (eds., 2011) City Development: Experiences in the preservation of ten world heritage sites. Washington DC: Inter-American Development Bank. Publication Code IDB-MG-121, 377pp.
• Bernadette, Bairs-Zars (2010) Developing heritage: activist decision-makers and reproducing narratives in the Old City of Aleppo, Syria. Thesis Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.
• United Nations Institute for Training and Research (2018) "FIVE YEARS OF CONFLICT The State of Cultural Heritage in the Ancient City of Aleppo" unesdoc.unesco.org. archive from the original.

• 
  Antiques shop at the square
• 
  View from the Al Hatab square
• 
  Bread being dried at Al Hatab Square in 2010
• 
  Sahat Al Hatab as seen in January 2017

• Ancient City of Aleppo
• Jdeideh (Aleppo)
• Jdeideh's Farhat Square
• Massacre of Aleppo (1850)
• Aleppo Battlefront Operations 2015 (April)