Bilkār (1) were the clocks by which every hour of the day was announced. They bore little sparrows of copper, together with a copper serpent and a crow. When the hour was complete, the serpent would emerge, the sparrows would chirp, the crow would caw, and a pebble would drop into a basin—[so the people would know that one hour of the day had elapsed; the same occurred for every other hour] (2).

I say: This report points to one of two possibilities. Either the clocks were fixed to the mosque’s southern gate—the one called Bāb al-Ziyādah. Though it has been said that this gate was added after the mosque itself was built, that does not preclude the clocks’ having stood there in the time of Qāḍī Ibn Zabr. Or else there was, along the eastern side of the mosque in its southern wall, another gate directly opposite Bāb al-Ziyādah, and the clocks were placed there; later they were moved to today’s Bāb al-Warrāqīn, the mosque’s eastern gate. Allah knows best.

I also say: As for the dome in the middle of the courtyard, the one with running water that the common folk call the Dome of Abū Nuwās, its construction took place in the year 369 AH, as dated by Ibn ʿAsākir (3) from the handwriting of a Damascene scholar.

Regarding the lofty western dome in the courtyard, known as the Dome of ʿĀʾishah, I heard our shaykh, the ḥāfiẓ Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Dhahabī, say that it was erected only around the year 160 AH, in the days of the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Mahdī ibn al-Manṣūr, and that it was designated for the mosque’s revenues and the registers of its endowments.

As for the eastern dome above the Gate of the Mosque of ʿAlī, it is said that it was built in the time of the Fāṭimid ruler al-Ḥākim, around the year 400 AH.

Concerning the fountain beneath the staircase of Jīrūn, it was constructed by the noble sayyid Fakhr al-Dawlah Abū ʿAlī Ḥamzah ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn al-ʿAbbās al-Ḥusaynī (4). It appears that he was the mosque’s supervisor. He fetched for it a large block of stone from the Palace of Ḥajjāj and set water flowing in it on the night of Friday, seven days having passed of Rabīʿ al-Awwal, in the year 417 AH. Around it arches were raised and a dome was built above it, but the dome collapsed when pack-camels jostled and [crowded together] there in Ṣafar of the year 457 AH. It was rebuilt, then its columns and superstructure fell during the fire that consumed the felt-makers’ quarter and the Ḥajar House in Shawwāl of the year 562 AH. All of this was recorded by the ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAsākir (5).

I add: As for the large basin that used to stand in the fountain, it remained in its center—I myself witnessed it thus—until it was later removed. At the ablution area of Jīrūn there was another basin like it, and it stayed there until the felt-makers’ quarter collapsed because of the fire started by the Christians.