Rabbat, Nasser

Khiṭaṭ (sing. khiṭṭa ) is the Arabic word for plotted urban quarters, especially in the early Islamic period. By the late fourth/tenth century, the term began to designate also books on cities that record their monuments, quarters, and streets, a genre that we would today call t…

Dār al-ʿadl means “house of justice” in Arabic. In about 558/1163, Nūr al-Dīn Maḥmūd b. Zankī (r. 541–69/1147–74) ordered the construction in his capital, Damascus, of a special building for public hearings of grievances ( qaḍāʾ al-maẓālim , or al-naẓar fī l-maẓālim ) and named …