The Madrasa of Umm al-Sultan Sha’ban (مدرسة أم السلطان شعبان) is a Mamluk-era complex located in the Al-Darb al-Ahmar area of Islamic Cairo in Egypt. It was founded or built in 1368-69 CE (770 AH) on the order of Sultan al-Ashraf Sha’ban in honour of his mother, Khawand Baraka (also referred to as Umm al-Sultan Sha’ban). It is located outside Bab Zuweila along al-Tabbana street, and is adjoined to the north by the Bayt al-Razzaz palace. The complex is made up of a college (madrasa), mausoleum, water trough (hawd), and a primary school (maktab).

A long stone-vaulted passageway with the madrasa and its central courtyard on the left and several annexes on the right is reached by the entrance gate. These annex rooms are a part of a group of rooms that are spread across three levels and are placed in the complex’s outside regions, around the madrasa courtyard. These contained housing accommodations for the students as well as staff service rooms.

The madrasa’s main courtyard is rectangular and is encircled by cruciform-shaped iwans on all four sides. Iwans that are aligned with the direction of prayer, or along the qibla axis, are larger than those that are transverse. A verse from the Quran is inscribed in a massive inscription that runs along the top of the courtyard’s walls, above the iwan apertures.

The structure’s general layout is centered on two dome-topped tomb chambers and a central courtyard. The complex’s location at the intersection of the major street (Tabbana street, which is a continuation of al-Darb al-Ahmar street) and a little side street joining it at an angle makes for an interesting layout. In order to address this, the complex’s floor plan forms a three-sided façade around this corner. A modest side entrance to the madrasa once existed on the western side, but the grand main entrance is located at the northern end of the eastern façade. In keeping with the two tomb chambers inside, the complex has two domes.

In more recent centuries, the top of the octagonal minaret crumbled or was damaged, but in the most current repair, finished in 2007, it was rebuilt using pictures of the original one. The building’s outside walls are tall and formidable (around 18 meters high). Given that some of the windows—on the left, overlapping with the eastern iwan inside—are blind (i.e. blocked) and function only as decorative elements, the triple windows towards its upper portions are partially ornamental.