MINARET (from the Arabic manarat; manar or minar is Arabic for a lighthouse, a tower on which nar, fire, is lit), a lofty, turret peculiar to Mahommedan architecture.
The earliest minaret known is that which was built by the caliph Walid (A.D. 705) in the mosque of Damascus, the next in date being the minaret of the mosque of Tulun, at Cairo (A.D. 879), with an external spiral flight of steps like the observatory towers in Assyrian architecture.
The minarets of Constantinople are very lofty and wire-drawn, but contrast well with the domes of the mosques, which are of slight elevation as compared with those at Cairo.
Single minarets with in an elongated body are either conical (tapering at the top), cylindrical (a circular shaft) or polygonal (with edges, as opposed to cylindrical).
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