The attached illustration features one mason mark in Kufic and a graffito that were discovered in the interior of the cubic story of the southwest minaret, which consists of ten courses of large masonry, crowned by a simple cornice; above it rises the octagonal shaft of the Mamelūk superstructure. The graffito reads, “Allah pardon the qāḍī Salmān son of ʿAlī." According to Herzfeld, the writing belongs to the Seljūq period, and the cubical story of the minaret must have existed at that period.
Herzfeld ascribed the graffito to the Seljūq period on palaeographical grounds, but, as demonstrated by George, the person named can be identified through a notice by ibn ʿAsākir as the Damascene qāḍī Salmān ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Nuʿmān, known as abu al-Ḥasan (fl. 409/1019). The structure must therefore have been standing by the early Fāṭimīd period, before the fire of 1069.
Ernst Herzfeld. Damascus, Studies in Architecture IV. Ars Islamica XIII-XIV 1948 (p. 118-138).
Alain George. The Umayyad Mosque of Damascus. Art, Faith and Empire in Early Islam. Gingko, 2021.
Photo credit: Wulzinger & Watzinger. Damaskus, die antike Stadt 1921 (p. 7).
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