The complex was built over and in the surroundings of Ibn Arabi's tomb in 924/1518 by the Ottoman sultan Selim I upon his return from the conquest of Egypt.
Quoting Steve Tamari: After returning from the conquest of Egypt in 1518, Selim I (r. 1512–20) commissioned the first Ottoman building in Syria, al-Takiyya al-Salimiyya, a Sufi retreat and mosque complex at the tomb of the Sufi master Muhyi al-Din Ibn al-ʿArabi (d. 1240) in the Salihiyya suburb north of Damascus proper.
According to historians of the period, it was the center of educational life in Salihiyya, which itself was filled with Ayyubid- and Mamluk-era madrasas and was home to many of the city’s most prominent scholars.
In fact, in the eighteenth century, al-Salimiyya ranked only behind the Umayyad Mosque and al-Sulaymaniyya al-Bar[r]aniyya as the third most important teaching institution in the city.
The original nazir of the waqf was Turkish and a commission established to oversee construction was made up of the chief judge in Damascus and the sultan’s tutor.