[1] The minaret has three stages, 92 steps, and a total height of about 105 ft or 32 m.[2][3] Its construction was completed in 1916 and has since become a symbol and distinctive mark in Ahmadiyya Islam.

[5] According to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who held himself as manifestation of Jesus, this prophecy was fulfilled with his advent in Qadian, a town situated directly to the east of Damascus, and the significance of the minaret was symbolic.

Ghulam Ahmad wrote: Just as you can see that the lamp placed on top of a minaret spreads its light far and wide, and just as lightning in one part of the sky also illuminates all other parts, so too will it be in these days...The true nature of the tower of the Messiah that is mentioned in the ahadith is that the Messiah’s invitation and message will spread on this earth very quickly just as light or sound from a tower reaches far.

[6]With reference to the Messiah appearing to the east of Damascus – a commercial city within the Christian Byzantine Empire during Muhammad's time – In a tract published on 28 May 1900, Ghulam Ahmad linked Biblical prophecies concerning the return of Christ with those found in the Quran and Hadith, stating that they pointed in the same direction for a specific reason, particularly the one mentioned by Jesus in the 24th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew:[7] For as the lightning cometh out of the east and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.

The minaret, according to him, was to be a physical representation of the fulfilment of the prophecy and a monument signifying the advent of the Promised Messiah with a light and a clock fixed on its top symbolising the light of Islamic teachings spreading far and wide and "so that Man will recognize his time", and a Muezzin to give the call to prayer five times a day symbolising an invitation to Islam.