AL-BAHA/LAHORE: Saudi archaeology experts have discovered a mosque more than 1,300 years old in the Al-Baha region, bearing an inscription mounted on its qibla wall that contains praise of Allah Almighty and mention of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), along with words of supplication for the righteous.
According to Saudi archaeology authorities, the historic inscription present on the qibla wall of the mosque also carries words of durood and salaam upon the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), which have remained preserved to this day despite the passage of centuries.
Experts said the discovery of the mosque, dating back more than 1,300 years, carries extraordinary historical importance in relation to the region’s ancient Islamic history and the religious and architectural heritage of the early Islamic period.
The qibla wall is the structural element that establishes a building as a mosque, orienting worshippers towards the Kaaba in Makkah. In early Islamic architecture, the treatment of the qibla wall is one of the principal means by which archaeologists date a structure and place it within a regional building tradition.
An inscription surviving on that wall is rarer still. Epigraphic material of the early Islamic centuries is the most direct written evidence available from the period, and inscriptions recorded in situ — rather than recovered as loose fragments — allow scholars to tie a text securely to a building and a place.
Al-Baha lies in the south-west of the Arabian Peninsula, in the mountainous Sarawat region between the Hijaz and Asir, an area of terraced agriculture, stone village architecture and old caravan routes linking the Red Sea coast to the interior.
The region has drawn increasing archaeological attention in recent years, and Saudi authorities have expanded survey, excavation and documentation programmes across the kingdom as part of a broader heritage effort. Several early Islamic mosque sites have been documented across the Arabian Peninsula over the past decade, contributing to a growing body of physical evidence on the formative centuries of Islamic architecture.
A structure of that age places the mosque within the first Islamic century or shortly thereafter — the period in which the architectural vocabulary of the mosque was still being established, and in which regional building traditions were being adapted to the requirements of congregational prayer.
Sites from this horizon are of particular scholarly value because they document the transition period directly, rather than through later texts describing it.
Discoveries relating to early Islamic history draw close attention in Pakistan, where interest in the material heritage of the period is sustained and where the country maintains its own extensive archaeological record spanning the Indus Valley, the Gandhara civilisation and the early Islamic and Mughal eras.
Punjab’s own heritage conservation programme covers sites including the Lahore Fort, the Walled City and the Shahi Hammam, with ongoing restoration work under the Walled City of Lahore Authority.
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