Sabil (public water fountain)

Al-Haddad counts sabils an important branch of civil building in Islamic architecture, falling under what he calls "charitable buildings or foundations". ²

The derivation is disputed: some take it from asbala al-ma', to pour water, and asbala al-matar, of rain falling; others from ibn al-sabil, the traveller on the road. ² The author holds that in the Middle Ages sabil did not mean only a drinking building but was a term for many buildings endowed "in the way of God": water sabils, troughs for animals, sabil schools for orphans, sabil khans for strangers, sabil mills, and even endowed Qur'an copies, biers and waterwheels. ^{2 3} The word then clung to water buildings alone until it prevailed over other terms, especially in the Mamluk period; he quotes al-Fasi that Mecca had many siqayas called subul, better known among people as sabil. ³

They were called siqayas in the first five centuries, then widely sabils from the late fifth century AH in Syria, Egypt and Arabia, while the Islamic West kept siqaya; synonyms appeared such as muhsina in Yemen and ma'ruf in Syria, the Hijaz and Egypt. ¹ In Persian usage the sabil is the saqqakhana and the school the kitabkhana. ^{2 3}

Sabils received great care in their siting, building and decoration, and in the many endowments that kept them working. ¹ They drew water from wells, pools and springs or from rain and floods through well-built channels or pipes hidden in walls; some had one or two cisterns; their rooms were rectangular or square with one or more windows over basins of stone or marble. ^{4 5} The author finds the Hijazi sabils close to those of Mamluk and Ottoman Egypt and Syria, with local traits, and notes the Ottoman addition of the çeşme (tap fountain) for drinking and ablution. ^{4 6} See also the Cairene sabil-kuttab.