Kyrkhlyar Gate (Gate of the Forty) — the second gate from the Naryn-Kala citadel on the northern city wall

Kyrkhlyar-Kapy (from Turkic, Gate of the Magpie) — the second gate from the citadel Naryn-Kala on the northern city wall. The name of the gate comes from the nearby burial site "Kyrkhlyar." Arabic sources call the gate Bab al-Kabir (Great Gate) or Bab al-Jihad (Gate of the Holy War), apparently related to the numerous wars in which Muslim troops departed through these gates on military campaigns against the Khazars who did not accept Islam. Russian authors of the 19th century refer to these gates as Kizlyar Gates, referring to the road passing through these gates toward the Kizlyar fortress. The rectangular opening of the gate is framed with large blocks. The lintel above it is made of huge slabs with a wedge-shaped lock in the middle. The construction of the gate is usually dated to the 6th century, the time of the wall’s erection, or the beginning of the 8th century, when the Arabs carried out major restoration works on the Derbent fortifications. The heavy forms give the gate a rather stern appearance. The 10th-century Arab historian Ibn al-Faqih reports that "... above the Bab al-Jihad gate on the wall there are two columns; on each column — an image of a lion made of white stone." The gate has survived to this day in this form. A well-preserved Arabic inscription placed above the gate, between the heads of the lions, reads: "During the time of Shah Khalil — the leader, this fortification was put in order, and this fortress became a reliable refuge. The turmoil of Yajuj and Majuj retreated as in the time of Iskander. Thus, the glory of this construction spread in the city of the infidels. May the foundations of its walls be well maintained until the Day of Gathering! May its reign last many centuries! Be the messenger of the received news about the year. If you want to calculate the date of that, take the word 'mukhbir' (messenger)." From the inscription, it follows that the gate was restored to protect the city from the encroachments of the "infidels," just as it was protected from the monstrous Yajuj and Majuj in the times of Alexander the Great (a reference to the legend of the construction of the wall by Alexander the Great against the people of Yajuj and Majuj. The reference is to Turkic steppe peoples). The date of this inscription can be determined by the Arabic abjad numeral system, according to which each letter of the Arabic alphabet simultaneously denotes a number corresponding to its ordinal position in the alphabet. The numerical values of the vowels in the Arabic word (messenger) give the date 842 AH (1439/40 AD), which corresponds to the reign of Shirvanshah Khalil-Ulla I (1417-1462).

Source: https://derbentmuseum.ru/monuments/vorota-kyrhlyar-kapy/