'Ala ad-Din al-Basir
ʿAlā ad-Dīn al-Baṣīr was a mamluk who became an emir. He was a supervisor of Jerusalem's waqf charitable endowments
and inspector of the Two Noble Sanctuaries of Jerusalem and Hebron.
He lived during the final years of the Ayyūbid dynasty and the beginning of the Mamlūk dynasty.
Names
- ʿAlā ad-Dīn al-Baṣīr : is a nickname that means "astute, insightful". The nickname also becomes and / in placenames.
- ʿAlā ad-Dīn Aydughdī ibn ʿAbdallāh aṣ-Ṣaliḥī an-Najmī : is a nisba, meaning he was a mamluk of aṣ-Ṣāliḥ Najm ad-Dīn, an Ayyūbid emir.
- ʿAlā ad-Dīn Aydughdī ar-Ruknī : may refer to Baybars, a Mamlūk sultan whom he served.
Legacy
He was responsible for a number of building projects in Jerusalem. Some places in the city bear his name.- Aladdin Ribat / al-Baṣīrī Mosque, a ribat outside the Inspector's Gate. During its construction, he used his cane as a yardstick and found a measurement mistake that sighted people overlooked. It includes his tomb/shrine and homes to a community of Afro-Palestinians.
- * Inspector's Gate was named after the ribat.
- * Aladdin Street: named after the ribat.
- al-Būṣayrī Sabil, a sebil named after him.
- Ablution Gate and the Ablution Place west of the gate: restored by him.
- A bathhouse: He drew up its plan while he was blind.
- A storage installation for wheat and barley.