Abstract:
The Commemorative inscriptions related to the buildings of the city of Algiers were generally characterized by many artistic characteristics and various contents, especially those related to the construction of mosques and grand mosques.
We will discuss a study of a group of these inscriptions, with an attempt to highlight the most important characteristics that distinguished them, whether in terms of form, such as calligraphy, decorations, and the material used, or in terms of content, such as formulas, titles, functions, flags, and terminology. We will follow the analytical approach so that we can extract the characteristics that are the subject of the study, and we expect that the latter will serve as episodes that may contribute to enriching the field of epigraphic inscriptions in the Ottoman era, especially those related to the construction of mosques in the city of Algiers; we will come to identify the characteristics that make this type of inscription distinguished from other inscriptions related to the rest of the types of buildings in this era, as it is characterized by distinct artistic characteristics, whether in terms of calligraphy or the decorative elements that adorn it, in addition to its contents that are characterized by unity in religious formulas represented by the initiations and supplications that are composed of special phrases as they are related to a religious building, and the language widely used is the Arabic language, despite the use of the Ottoman Turkish language in many other buildings, such as civil and military ones.
The studied collection of inscriptions, including what is preserved in the National Public Museum of Ancient Antiquities, is represented in the inscriptions: those of Khair al-Din Mosque, Bab al-Dzira Mosque, Ali Pasha Mosque, and the Ketchawa Mosque, including what is still installed on the same building, and it is represented in the inscriptions of Safar Mosque, the New Mosque, and the Kasbah External Mosque and the inner Kasbah mosque.
