825 AH, Shawwāl
In these days, work was begun on a wakāla on the site of ruins on the rukn al-mukhallaq side of Cairo. The location of these ruins now is inside the darb al-ʾaṣfar, which used to be known as al-Manḥar. Its gate is from the middle of the sūq al-rukn al-mukhallaq. It was built by Khawand Baraka, mother of Sultan al-Malik al-ʾAshraf Shaʿbān b. Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad b. Qalāwun in the 770s. Inside was to be a hall of residence, next to the caravansaray that she had constructed, and that was set up for the purpose of selling race horses. She died before it was built; only the the side with the door had been completed. It was idle for a long time until the amir Jamāl al-Dīn Yūsuf, ʾustādār of the aforementioned caravansaray, took it from the waqf of the mother of the sultan to her madrasa, on the al-tabāna side, near the citadel. It became part of his waqfs at his madrasa which he had built on the Raḥba side of the bāb al-ʿīd. He also took over these ruins. He died before anything was done there, and it stayed idle until the sultan decided at this time to build a wakāla there, and the work commenced.