Its script is monumental thuluth with very plastic outlines. Parts of the inscription (its beginning and end) have been lost. Judging by the remaining fragments of the text, we are dealing with an original text bearing no resemblance to other similar dedicatory texts on similar buildings the contents of which come to nothing more than exceptionally succinct information usually presented in standard formats. For instance, the information about a type of the building (mosque, mausoleum, etc.), certain data on the donator and, of course, the year of the end of construction (at the end of the inscription).
As to the text in the Khwaja Ahmad mausoleum, it, to a certain extent, diverged from the standards typical for this kind of buildings. All these circumstances, in a way, restrict the possibility to restore all the lost parts of the text by its meaning and, consequently, to make a translation of full value.
… this spacious building … (?) from anger and destruction … (?) … … may Allah lengthen the perpetuity of these two. May they have the good fortune, may [this] grave be filled with light! No one could match Khoja Ahmad…
The phrase written in one of the kufic script’s varieties («flowering kufic»):
الملك لله، الحكم لله – «The Power resides in Allah», «The rule resides in Allah» is repeatedly replicated in the flat-top-shaped niche around the portal’s arched niche.
Along the archivolt of the arched niche runs a ribbon of inscriptions that are verses. Their script is decorative naskh. Some parts of the inscription have been lost and written anew during the restoration in 2005.
No matter whether you are a Shah of Iraq or a ruler of China, [In the long run, you will find yourself below ground]. Then why do you attach your heart to this temporal world, If the completion of your works shall be so [sad]?
The name of the master Fakhr-i ‘Ali is inscribed in two small figured cartouches in the lower part of the left pylon. It is apparently a monogram of the mosaic master.
The work by Fakhr-i ‘Ali // – may Allah magnify his magnanimity!
You can read more about the inscriptions on the buildings of the memorial ensemble in the book-album “Samarkand. Shakhi-Zinda” series “Architectural epigraphy of Uzbekistan”.
The general sponsor of the project is the oilfield services company Eriell-Group.
