This maqṣūrā is a work of woodcarving transferred to the Damascus Museum, al-ʿĀdilīyyā, from the muṣallā south of the town. Such screens were put around tombs on open cemeteries.
The Kūfik inscription on the upper border reads as follows:
The Kūfik inscription on the upper border reads as follows:
أبو جعفر محمّد بن الحسن بن علي صفيّ أمير المؤمنين تقبّلَ اللهُ مِنْهُ وذلك في شهور سنة سبع وتسعين وأربعمائة
The style of the inscription is less that of an epitaph, than of a gift or endowment. The maqṣūra does not seem to come from the tomb of the donor himself.
There could be no more vulgar names than his, but he bears one of the highest titles, such as nobody but the atabegs of Syria themselves could have borne at that time, without being one of them. Evidently, the father was Ḥasan bin ʿAlī, viz., Niẓām al-Mulk, himself raḍī amīr al-muʾminīn, “in whom the Commander of the Faithful is well pleased,” the actual ruler of the Selǧūq empire and the first man of a rank below a ruling king to receive such a title. Abū Ǧaʿfar Muḥammad is one of his many sons.
The ornament is a one-dimensional pattern (border) evolved into a two-dimensional one by parallel repetition and vertical connection of the alternating two elements of the border: lotus bud and flower. In the course of this transformation some of the elements grew together vertically, in the form of vases. All that is a survival of third-century style.
Ernst Herzfeld. Damascus, Studies in Architecture II. Ars Islamica X 1943 (p. 13-70).
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