Marble panel from the cenotaph of Muhammad b. Fatik Ashmuli

From Cairo, Egypt, AH 356 / AD967

Carved with Arabic inscriptions in Kufic script

The panel would have been at the head of a four-sided open cenotaph placed around the grave of the deceased. The ornamental inscription on the exterior is carved in high relief and consists of the beginning of the basmala 'in the name of God the Merciful'. This would have introduced verses from the Qur'an which continued on the exterior surface of the three missing panels. Similar panels in Cairo contain parts of sura (chapter) 112 (al-Ikhlas), one of the shortest chapters of the Qur'an, which translates:

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate
Say: ‘He is God, One,
God, the everlasting Refuge,
who has not begotten, and has not been begotten,
and equal to Him is not any one.

The inscription on the interior is incised into the stone; it again begins with the basmala then gives the name of the deceased, Muhammad b. Fatik Ashmuli and the date of his death in the month of Jumada II AH 356 (AD 967).