Critical and Supplementary Review and Investigation of the "Karat Minaret" Inscription in Bakharz (Taybad) and the Dating of the Building

Introduction: "Karat Minaret (Mil-e Karat)", located in Karat village of Taybad City in Razavi Khorasan Province of Iran, is one of the old buildings which is in good condition. The studies that have dealt with the Karat minaret have not read the inscription of this minaret completely, and in some of them, the text of the inscription and the date of the building are different from each other. Iran's cultural heritage organization registered this work as number ۱۲۳ and considers it to belong to the ۶th century A.H. In order to resolve the differences and ambiguities in the text of the inscription and the dating of the building, the present research tries to answer the following question: "What is the text of the inscription of this minaret and the date of its construction?"Research Method: The current research was conducted using a qualitative method. In this research, the data about the Karat minaret was presented through field studies at the minaret site and comparative analyses with minarets built in the period of ۴th to ۶th century A.H. in the Khorasan geographical area and through referring to additional sources. Also, the review of the achievements of the researchers in this field has been collected in the form of library documents and presented descriptively and analytically.Findings: By reading and reconstructing the remaining parts of the inscription of this building by digital method and matching its content with historical sources, this research found out that the Karat minaret is independent and belongs to the ۴th century A.H., probably the period of Ghaznavid rule in Iran. The minaret was built by order of "Sheikh Abu Bakr" during the ۴th century A.H., on the road from Khaf to Bakharz, on top of a hill in the vicinity of Karat village. Based on reading the inscription and discovering the construction date, the Karat minaret is the oldest historical minaret in Iran.Conclusion: Considering the dominance of this minaret on the surrounding environment, it seems that its use was strategic; in addition to the collection of Arslan Jazeb, there are two works related to the Ghaznavid period that are located in today's Iran.

کلیدواژه ها:

inscription ، Karat Minaret ، Taybad ، Architecture ، Ghaznavid