The medrese was begun sultan Al-Zahir Majd al-Din 'Isā ibn Dāwūd (or İsa Bey) of the Artuqid dynasty, rulers of an Anatolian beylik.

Kasım, a son of Akkoyunlu sultan Mu'izz-al-Din, is credited with completing the medrese in 1445.

[3][4] In 1924, all medreses in Turkey were closed down within a general attack on religious life and a top-down attempt to secularise society.

The classroom doors are kept deliberately low to ensure students would bow reverently before their teachers as they entered.

On the north of the iwan there is the reproduction of an elephant clock designed by al-Jazari, a 12th-century Muslim engineer.