Zuhayr's Inscription

The inscription of Zuhayr, the oldest Islamicinscription (24 AH ⁄AD 644–645), the rise of theArabic script and the nature of the early Islamicstate1

Introduction [339]In the summer of the year 1420 ⁄ 1999 the authoraccompanied his wife H

_ayat bint ‘Abdallah al-Kilabi

on her field trip to collect material for her doctoralthesis which she was preparing on the early Islamicinscriptions located on the Syrian pilgrimage road.In the course of their work in the region lyingbetween al-‘Ula and al-H

_ijr (Mada’in Salih) (Fig. 1),

the inscription that forms the subject of this studywas discovered. There was much excitementupon reading the text, since its importance was

immediately evident from its content and date ofcomposition (year 24 AH!).

At once our efforts were concentrated on photo-graphing and transcribing the inscription and onscaling the high rocky face overlooking it in order totake the necessary measurements. It was importantalso to verify the authenticity of the writing and toconfirm that the colour of the incised parts of therock was the same for all letters, that there were noadditions to the original writing and in particularthat the dots found on some of the letters wereoriginal. Indeed, the author worked as hard on theinscription that we have named ‘the inscription ofZuhayr’ as did its originator! Subsequently, a surveyof the other inscriptions in the vicinity was con-ducted in order to elucidate their relationship withthe text under discussion here. In the same areaanother inscription was discovered that was exe-cuted in the same script; it began with the word ‘I’and bore the name of Zuhayr, here linked with hispatroness Ibnat Shayba, but not dated.

This article provides an edition, translation and analysis of an inscriptiondated 24 AH (644 AD) discovered recently in north-west Saudi Arabia. It isan immensely important find, since it is our earliest dated Arabic inscription;it apparently contains a reference to the caliph ‘Umar I and shows evidenceof a fully-fledged system of diacritical marks. The latter aspect is of greatsignificance for our understanding of the development of the Arabic scriptand of the writing down of Arabic texts, especially the Qur’an. The text iscompared with others composed in the decades shortly before and after therise of Islam.

Keywords: Arabic inscriptions, Arabic script, Qur’an, rise of Islam, ‘Umar I

‘Ali ibn Ibrahim Ghabban1

Translation and concludingremarks by Robert Hoyland2

1Supreme Commission forTourism, Riyadh, Kingdom ofSaudi Arabiae-mail: [email protected]

2Dept of Middle EasternStudies, University of StAndrews, St Andrews KY169AJ, Scotland UKe-mail: [email protected]

1 Originally published in Arabic as Ghabban, ‘A ibn I. NaqshZuhayr: aqdam naqsh islami, mu’arrakh bi-sanat 24 AH ⁄644–5 AD. Arabia: Revue de Sabeologie 1 (2003): 339–293(these page numbers are noted in square bracketsthroughout the translation). Because of the importance ofthe Zuhayr inscription, ‘Ali Ghabban and I felt that thisarticle should be made more widely available, and hencemy translation of it. We are grateful to Prof. Dan Potts foragreeing to publish it, for providing a map and for helpingwith the copy-editing.

Arab. arch. epig. 2008: 19: 210–237 (2008)

Printed in Singapore. All rights reserved

210

This article will undertake a study of the inscrip-tion of Zuhayr, with a focus on its location, itsrelation to the Syrian pilgrimage route, its contentand form, its date, the characters and events thatfeature in it, its significance for the history of MuslimArabic epigraphy, its script and, finally, its similarityto published inscriptions from the same period. Forthe publication of this inscription in an independentstudy, the author did, of course, obtain the agree-ment of his companion on the field trip!

The site of the inscription and its relation to theSyrian pilgrimage road [338] (Fig. 1)The inscription of Zuhayr lies in the region of Qa’al-Mu’tadil at a distance of 17 km south of al-H

_ijr;

more precisely, near the place of the intersection ofthe eastern road going up from al-Mabiyyat by Qa’al-Mu’tadil.2 The road that the inscription is foundon is known as the Abu Zurayba pilgrimage road,where Zurayba means the pile of stones placed on aroad to mark its route. Many such piles are locatedon this road and it is considered to be one of the tworoutes of the Syrian pilgrimage road between Qarh

_and al-H_

ijr:

1. The eastern road, i.e. the Abu Zuraybapilgrimage road, which begins from Qarh

_(al-

Mabiyyat), goes past Qa’ Ramm and then enters aplain surrounded by mountains until it finallyreaches Qa’ al-Mu’tadil before going on to al-H

_ijr.

2. We may call this the middle road or the‘Udhayb road. It crosses Qa’ Ramm after leavingQarh

_(al-Mabiyyat) and then follows the principal

course of the Wadi al-Qura until it reaches the oasisof al-‘Ula. After that it heads north to al-H

_ijr past

al-‘Udhayb.It seems that the first route, the Abu Zuraybapilgrimage road, on which the inscription of Zuhayris located, is the oldest one. Pilgrims and travellersduring the early Islamic period used the portion ofthe road lying between Qarh

_(the principal settle-

ment in Wadi al-Qura) and al-H_

ijr, where there area host of undated inscriptions that might plausiblybe assigned to the first century AH and a few thatare explicitly dated to that century.3 This route isalso the shortest, because it follows a direct roadbetween Qarh

_and al-H

_ijr without going past al-

‘Ula. It was possibly the most used route at thebeginning of the first century AH before the expan-sion of settlement in the oasis of al-‘Ula and theincrease in agricultural activity there, which wasaccompanied by exploitation of its old springs andwater canals and the creation of new ones and which

Fig. 1.

Map of the sites mentioned in the text.

Fig. 2.

General photo of the Zuhayr inscriptions.

2 Al-Qa’ means low-lying land into which the flood watersof the surrounding wadis empty. Qa’ al-Mu’tadil is anexpansive spot which is crossed by the two routes of theSyrian pilgrimage road between al-‘Ula and al-H

_ijr,

namely, the route that the Zuhayr inscription is found onand the middle route that follows the valley of al-‘Ula. Theresearcher presents his thanks to Dr H

_ussein ibn ‘Ali Abu

al-H_

asan, a native of the region of the inscription and aspecialist in its archaeology and history, for the informa-tion and assistance which he offered the researcher.

3 Dr H_

ayat al-Kilabi is undertaking a study of theseinscriptions and it is hoped they will appear in the pub-lished version of her doctorate.

THE INSCRIPTION OF ZUHAYR

211

subsequently made it a major stop along the roadbetween Qarh

_and al-H

_ijr.4 Most pilgrims and

travellers were eager to visit it and a number ofthose who followed the direct eastern road nowchanged their course. The distance of the direct roadbetween Qarh

_(al-Mabiyyat) and al-H

_ijr is 37 km,

approximately a single stage, and so it was possibleto cover it at one stretch without the need to stop offin the middle;5 and it would appear that this easternroad continued to be used after the first century.

[337] The existence of the inscription of Zuhayr onthe route of the Abu Zurayba pilgrimage, dated toyear 24 AH, makes it more likely that this coursewas the oldest one in use between Qarh

_and al-H

_ijr.

Whether Zuhayr was one of the pilgrims or aninhabitant of the region, he was travelling along theroad in that year, perhaps on a journey within theH_

ijaz or making his way to Syria or Egypt orreturning from there.6

Description of the inscription (Figs 2–5)The inscription of Zuhayr was made on a sandstonerock face several metres above ground level and islocated on the right side of the road as one headsnorth. The inscription occupies the highest portionof the rock face, which is one indication that it wasthe first of the inscriptions made on it; right next to itthere are three other inscriptions.

The inscription consists of three lines of unequallength — the first is 50 cm in length, the second215 cm and the third 54 cm; the dimensions of thesurface area of the writing are 215 · 50 cm. It wasmade by means of surface incisions. The averagelength of its alifs and lams amounts to 14 cm and thebreadth of the incisions of its letters is 2.50 cm. Thereis an observable proportionality in the distancesbetween the letters of the words and between thewords themselves.

As regards the arrangement of the inscription,Zuhayr kept the basmala apart on a separate line. Itwould seem that he planned to do the rest of theinscription on one line, except for the word ‘twenty’,which is the last word in the text and which did notquite fit on the line. He therefore put it on a thirdline and aligned it with the first line, with about thesame length, in an attempt to harmonize the shapeof the text.

The reading of the inscription (Fig. 5)1. In the name of God2. I, Zuhayr, wrote (this) at the time ‘Umar died,

year four3. And twenty

The wording of the inscription [336]This inscription is considered to belong to thecategory known as commemorative inscriptions,i.e. texts recorded by travellers along roads as acommemoration of their passing along them or of

Fig. 4.

Tracing of the Zuhayr inscription.

Fig. 3.

Photo of the Zuhayr inscription.

Fig. 5.

Reading of the Zuhayr inscription.

4 The oldest reference in the Islamic sources to al-‘Ula as asettlement on this road comes in the report about the placesthat the Prophet Muh

_ammad (pbuh) passed on his way to

Tabuk. Thus Yaqut mentions that Muh_ammad (pbuh)

passed al-‘Ula and prayed there and that subsequently amosque was built on the site where he prayed (1979, 4:144). Al-‘Ula is also referred to as a settlement on this roadby al-T

_abari amid the events of year 13 (1977, 7: 398–399).

For more information see Nasif 1416 ⁄ 1995: 45–46.5 Qarh

_lies within the archaeological site of al-Mabiyyat; for

a determination of the exact location of the site of Qarh_

seeNasif 1416 ⁄ 1995: 27–30.

6 The road to Syria definitely ran past the location of theinscription. As for the road to Egypt, the author thinks thatit only branched off from the Syrian road at Qarh

_after the

death of ‘Umar ibn al-Khat_t_ab.

A. I. GHABBAN

212

their sojourn at one of the way stations. Commem-orative rock inscriptions, which some call graffiti,are of many types: some of them comprise, togetherwith the name of their owner, a plea for forgiveness,a declaration of faith in God or of devotion to him,an affirmation of trust in God, a request for paradise,a seeking of refuge in God from hell, a profession ofbelief in the oneness of God and Muh

_ammad’s

prophethood, an exhortation to Muslims and pass-ers-by to piety and obedience or other types ofentreaty, some of which might correspond to the sealtext that the owner of the inscription wears onhis ⁄ her signet ring and uses for sealing documents(Ghabban 2000: 239). Other inscriptions constitute arecord of their author’s passing along the road orstopping at one of its way stations in a very directmanner: so-and-so passed by or so-and-so halted atthis spot, or I am so-and-so. The latter phrasingimplies that its owner passed the place or lodged atit; it may or may not be prefixed by the first-personpronoun ‘I’ and occasionally it concludes with theformula: ‘it was written in the year such-and-such’,as is the case in the inscription of Zuhayr, in whichthe first-person pronoun appears together with thename Zuhayr, and it ends with the dating formula.

It seems that this latter form of commemoration isone of the oldest used in Islamic Arabic inscriptions,and also in pre-Islamic ones, in that it often features ininscriptions made along roads in Ancient NorthArabian scripts.7 Exactly the same form was used insome of the principal Arabic inscriptions dating toshortly before Islam, such as the inscription ofH_

arran (Figs 6–8), dated AD 568 (al-‘Ushsh 1973:74–5).8

The content of the inscriptionThe inscription contains three sentences. The firstrepresents the opening of the text, namely theincomplete basmala, ‘In the name of God’. Thesecond sentence is reserved for the mention of thename of the owner of the inscription and itsexecutor, who was content just to note his firstname, Zuhayr, preceded by the first-person pro-noun ‘I’. As for the third sentence it comprises thedating formula and consists of two parts: the first,‘it was written at the time ‘Umar died’, dates theinscription to the event of the death of ‘Umar(may God be pleased with him), while the secondpart, ‘in the year twenty-four’, evidently gives theHijri date.

The use of the incomplete basmala in the openingof the inscription is considered one of the indicationsof the authenticity of its date, since the basmala that

Fig. 6.

Photo of the Harran inscription.

Fig. 8.

Reading of the Harran inscription.

Fig. 7.

Tracing of the Harran inscription.

7 For more information see Al-Theeb 1421 ⁄ 2000a: nos 86,146, 162; 1421 ⁄ 2000b: nos 3, 38. The first-person pronounappears in the form ’n’ in Palmyrene, Hatran, Mandaeanand Syriac script; it is written ’nh in the forms of Aramaicscript known as Nabataean, Ancient, Imperial and Pales-tinian; and it is written ’n, without final alif or ha’, inThamudic, Safaitic, Sabaic and Lihyanite script. For moreparallels for the use of the first-person pronoun in otherSemitic scripts see Al-Theeb 1421 ⁄ 2000c.

8 Note also that the form of the Islamic Arabic inscriptionsbeginning with ‘I’ appears often in inscriptions of MountSala’ by Medina, which have been published by Hami-dullah (1939: 429–434), and Al-Rashid (1416 ⁄ 1995: 179).


213

is added to some Sasanian dirhams in the reignof [335] ‘Umar ibn al-Khat

_t_ab, ‘Uthman and of

some of the Umayyad caliphs is limited to theincomplete version.9 It was also used in the first fullyArabised coins, starting with the coins of ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, the minting of which began inyear 77 AH for the gold dinars and 78 AH for thesilver dirhams (Riyadh, Museum of Coinage 1416:36, coin nos 10, 12)10.

The name of the owner of the inscription, Zuhayr, islimited to the first name, which causes some surprisein view of Zuhayr’s patent concern for documenta-tion, evidenced by his dating of his inscription in twoways: by a famous event and by a written date. It ispossible that he made this inscription after the otherinscription, near ground level, which includes hisname linked to his patroness, Ibnat Shayba, but whichhe did not date (Figs 9–10). The high rock face thendrew his attention, as any text written on it would beclear to every wayfarer, and so he decided to write asecond commemorative inscription, in which hementioned only his first name and took care to dateit. Perhaps he did not cite his full name on the secondinscription because of the length of the sentencerecording the date, since inscribing on stone is not aneasy matter, although the whole rock face was emptyaround it and all parts of it were good for writing on.

Discussion of the date of the inscriptionOne might consider the first part of the datingformula, ‘it was written at the time ‘Umar died’, asanother indication of the authenticity of the inscrip-tion, of the correctness of its date and a refutation of

the assumption that its author neglected to add anumber of hundreds after the ‘twenty’ in the secondpart of the dating formula, ‘year twenty-four’ — aswas done in later times when the word ‘one thou-sand’ was omitted after the hundreds in the writingof the date — because the death date of the mostfamous person to bear the name of ‘Umar at thatperiod, i.e. the rightly guided caliph ‘Umar ibnal-Khat

_t_ab, does indeed fall at the end of year 23 or

the beginning of year 24. Moreover, the use ofthe word ‘died’ by the author of the inscriptionconfirms that the ‘Umar mentioned is ‘Umar ibnal-Khat

_t_ab, who was stabbed and did not die imme-

diately but survived for a few days before he died.This is the version of events reported in a number ofthe sources that relate the death of ‘Umar.11 The ‘yeartwenty-four’ in the text allows for two interpreta-tions: one is the year of the death of ‘Umar and theother is the year of the writing of the inscription.

[334] The first part of the dating formula, ‘it waswritten at the time ‘Umar died’, may be consideredthe most important portion of the text of theinscription, and indeed, if it had not appeared inthe text, the inscription would have lost a majoraspect of its historical importance, for every word in

Fig. 9.

Photo of the second Zuhayr inscription.

Fig. 10.

Tracing of the second Zuhayr inscription.

9 Suhayla Yasin al-Jabburi discovered Sasanian-style dir-hams on which was written ‘in the name of God’ andwhich were struck in the reign of ‘Umar ibn al-Khat

_t_ab and

‘Uthman ibn ‘Affan (1977: 98–9). Al-Baladhuri mentionsthat al-H

_ajjaj struck mule dirhams in the reign of ‘Abd

al-Malik on which was written ‘in the name of God’(Al-Karmali [n.d.]: 13); al-Karmali refers to a coin struck inTabaristan in year 28 AH, on the rim of which was written‘in the name of God my Lord’ (ibid. 92).

10 The full basmala, ‘in the name of God the merciful thecompassionate’, appears in the papyrus of Ahnas dated tothe year 22 AH (pl. 8A), and on Umayyad coins: on a half-dinar and a third-dinar (Riyadh, Museum of Coinage1416: 44, coin no. 24 = Umayyad third-dinar struck in year94 AH, and coin no. 27 = Umayyad half-dinar struck inyear 96 AH).

11 See e.g. Ibn Shabba [n.d.], 3: 943–944; Ibn Sa’d [n.d.], 3:350, 336; al-T

_abari, 1977, 4: 190–194.

A. I. GHABBAN

214

this section is of significant import. The verb ‘it waswritten’ confirms that the owner, Zuhayr, wrote theinscription, and it wasn’t written for him. The word‘time’ refers to the event of the death of ‘Umar. Theverb ‘died’ confirms that ‘Umar, the next word, isthe rightly guided caliph, ‘Umar ibn al-Khat

_t_ab,

and the name ‘Umar’ corroborates the accuracy ofthe Hijri date ‘year twenty-four’ that follows. Thesecond part of the dating formula, ‘year twenty-four’, is also very important, for it helps to clarify theidentity of ‘Umar and fixes the date of the writing ofthe inscription to a specific year.

The question that leaps to mind is why didZuhayr take the trouble to add this sentence to thetext of his inscription? One possible answer is thathe witnessed the event of the stabbing of ‘Umar andhis death for himself in Medina and was very greatlyaffected by it, or one of those who witnessed itinformed him of it and it stuck in his mind. Hetherefore alluded to it in his commemorative writ-ing, which he apparently accomplished only a fewdays after the occurrence of that event.

Dating by important events is a well-knownphenomenon among the Arabs since antiquity; afamous example of it is the year of the elephant [AD570, to which the birth of Muh

_ammad (pbuh) is

traditionally dated, RGH]. There are also instancesof combined dating of inscriptions, by event andyear, from the period before the rise of Islam, such asthe inscription of H

_arran (Figs 6–8), which is dated

by the Nabataean date and by the event of thedestruction of Khaybar (Al-‘Ushsh 1973: 74–75).

This custom continued in the Islamic period, andone can say that it did not stop in oral history untilthe recent past. It remains for the author to point outthat the use of Hijra dating began, most likely,during the reign of ‘Umar ibn al-Khat

_t_ab in year 16

of the Hijra, or some say year 17,12 and that anyIslamic document bearing a Hijra date before thisyear is, in all probability, not authentic.13

The personalities figuring in the inscription [333]Two names of personalities figure in this inscription:Zuhayr and ‘Umar, and both appear as isolatednames. As regards Zuhayr, it seems likely to thisauthor that, as mentioned above, it is the samecharacter that features in the other Zuhayr inscrip-tion, which is near the Zuhayr inscription that formsthe subject of this study, on the basis of the similarityof the shape of the letters, in particular the twowords ‘I am Zuhayr’ (ana Zuhayr). The text of theother inscription is undated and the name Zuhayrappears in it as follows (Figs 9–10): ‘I am Zuhayr,client of Ibnat (sic) Shayba’.

The author did not find an entry for a Zuhayr‘client of Ibnat Shayba’ in the sources that he wasable to consult, although the sources do refer to anumber of persons who lived in this period and borethe name of Zuhayr, such as Zuhayr al-Khath’ami,whom Mu’awiya sent to ‘Umar ibn al-Khat

_t_ab with

news of the conquest of Caesarea in year 18 (Al-Ya’qubi 1988, 2: 151), the Companion Zuhayr ibnQays al-Balawi, Zuhayr ibn Rafi’ al-AnS

_ari, who was

one of the parties to the agreement at ‘Aqaba,Zuhayr ibn Qard

_am ibn al-‘Ujayl, who was a man

from Mahra sent on a mission to the Prophet (pbuh),Zuhayr ibn S

_urad, who headed the mission of

Hawazin to the Prophet (pbuh), although none ofthese were clients (Ibn Sa’d [n.d.], 1: 355–356; 2: 153;4: 36; 7: 499; index: 73). There is also Zuhayr ibn al-Qayn, from whom al-Sha’bi transmitted narratives.Al-Sha’bi was from the generation after the Prophet(pbuh), who witnessed ‘Ali ibn Abi I

_alib (may God

be pleased with him) and wrote about him, and thusZuhayr ibn al-Qayn may have been of the samegeneration as the Prophet (pbuh). Moreover, theexpression al-Qayn, the blacksmith, is applied toartisans or slaves, so it would seem that Zuhayr ibnal-Qayn was a client (al-Ya’qubi 1988, 2: 244; IbnSa’d [n.d.], 6: 247).

The sources also indicate a number of women whobore the agnomen Ibnat Shayba and lived at thebeginning of the first century of the Hijra, someCompanions of the Prophet (pbuh) and some not.Among these women are: Ramla ibnat Shayba, aCompanion whom ‘Uthman ibn ‘Affan married andwho bore him ‘A’isha, Umm Aban and Umm ‘Amr,the daughters of ‘Uthman, and who had a famousclient named ‘Abdallah ibn Dhakwan Abu l-Zanad(Ibn Sa’d [n.d.], 8: 239); Fat

_ima ibnat Shayba ibn

12 For more information on the use of Hijra dating in thereign of ‘Umar see Al-Nawawi, 1996: 47; Al-Biruni, 1923:29; Furayh

_a, 1988: 57–58.

13 One such document is in the monastery of St Katherine’sin Sinai; it claims to be a covenant from the messenger ofGod, may God pray for him and grant him peace, to themonks of the monastery and to the Christians and is datedto the second, or eighth, year of the Hijra (Shaqir1411 ⁄ 1991: 495–499).


215

Rabi’a, wife of ‘Uqayl ibn Abi T_alib;14 S

_afiya ibnat

Shayba ibn ‘Uthman al-Qurashi (Ibn Abi H_

atim1952: 348); and Ibnat Shayba ibn Jubayr, also calledUmm al-H

_amid (Ibn Bashkawal 1407: 262). The

patron of Zuhayr may or may not be one of thesewomen.

[332] The title ‘client’ (mawla) has many meanings:slave, manumittee, manumitter or a relative such asa cousin or nephew. It may also mean ally, as theally is a client in that he is bound to you so that hederives strength and protection from your power(Ibn Manz

_ur 1988: 201–203), and often one who has

fallen into bondage remains affiliated to his patronwho manumitted him. ‘Client’ in the phrase thatappears in the other inscription of Zuhayr mostlikely signifies a slave or manumitted client.

The name ‘Umar is the second name to feature inthis inscription and, as the author has made clear,the rightly guided caliph, ‘Umar ibn al-Khat

_t_ab,

must be intended as he is the most famous person tobear this name. It is worth discussing the date of hisdeath here, since the inscription of Zuhayr can beunderstood to imply a death date in year 24. Thesources do not agree on the date of ‘Umar’s death.Ibn Shabba, in his history of Medina, relates anaccount attributed to Muh

_ammad ibn Sa’d that says:

‘‘Umar was stabbed on Wednesday four days beforethe end of Dhu l-H

_ijja, year twenty-three; he was

buried on Sunday, on the full moon of Muh_arram,

year twenty-four; his caliphate lasted thirteen years,five months and twenty-one days’. Ibn Shabba adds:‘Uthman ibn Muh

_ammad al-Ah

_mas said: ‘‘This is

erroneous; ‘Umar died four days before the end ofDhu l-H

_ijja; allegiance was pledged to ‘Uthman on

Monday, one night before the end of Dhu l-H_

ijja’ ’’(Ibn Shabba [n.d.], 3: 943–944). Sources give otheraccounts of the death of ‘Umar (Ibn Sa’d [n.d.], 3: 63;al-T

_abari 1977, 4: 190–194), but all may be grouped

into two versions:a) ‘Umar was stabbed four days before the end

of Dhu l-H_

ijja, year 23, survived for three days andthen died; he was buried on the new moon ofMuh

_arram, year 24; ‘Uthman was appointed caliph

three days into Muh_arram, year 24.

b) ‘Umar was stabbed six or seven days beforethe end of Dhu l-H

_ijja, year 23, and died four days

before the end of Dhu l-H_

ijja. The members of theelective council (shura) assembled three days afterhis death; allegiance was pledged to ‘Uthman oneday before the end of Dhu l-H

_ijja, year 23, and he

was received into the caliphate on the first ofMuh

_arram, year 24.

The point of contention is, did the death of ‘Umarfall in the beginning of Muh

_arram, year 24, or on the

26th of Dhu l-H_

ijja, year 23? The inscription ofZuhayr could be taken as establishing the date of‘Umar’s death as year 24. But should the inscriptionserve as the basis for one of the views cited in thehistorical sources, especially [331] as these sourceswere set down in writing more than a century afterthe event, whereas the inscription was recorded afew days after its occurrence? Or does the sentence‘it was written at the time ‘Umar died, year twenty-four’ determine only the time of the writing of theinscription? This would have to be in year 24,assuming that Zuhayr was in Medina when ‘Umarwas stabbed and left after his death and after‘Uthman was acknowledged as caliph on 1st or3rd of Muh

_arram, year 24, according to the two

aforementioned versions of events. He would havespent five days at least getting to the site of theinscription or maybe more. The author is of theopinion that the matter allows for both possibilities.

The inscription’s significanceThe importance of Zuhayr’s inscription for the studyof the development of the Arabic script is evidentfrom a number of perspectives:

1. It is dated to year 24 of the Hijra. This datehad not featured before in any Muslim Arabicinscriptions, and it is in fact the earliest datedIslamic inscription discovered so far. The inscriptionof Aswan (Figs 11–12), in Egypt, dated to year 31 ofthe Hijra, was the oldest dated Islamic inscriptionuntil the discovery of the Zuhayr inscription.15 The

14 It is also said that the wife of ‘Uqayl was Fat_ima bint

‘Utba, sister of Hind (al-‘Asqalani 1398 ⁄ 1987, 4: 382).

15 It is worth mentioning here the Cyprus inscription, thetombstone of a certain ‘Urwa ibn Thabit found on the wallof a church and dated to year 29 AH. [However, we knowof it only from the description of al-Harawi, who went toCyprus c. 1180, RGH]. It has not been published norapparently located as yet. For all that is known about it seeCombe, Sauvaget & Wiet 1931, 1: 5–6; El-Hawary, 1930:321–333; this inscription is also referred to in a number oflater sources.

A. I. GHABBAN

216

inscription of al-Batha (Figs 13–14), located betweenMecca and al-T

_a’if, was the oldest dated Muslim

Arabic inscription (40 AH) from Saudi Arabia beforethe discovery of the Zuhayr inscription (Sharafaddin1397 ⁄ 1977: 73–74, pl. 49). Next in line are theinscriptions of ‘Abdallah ibn Dayram from WadiSabil by Najran (Figs 15–16), dated 46 AH (Groh-mann 1962: 124, inscr. Z202, pl. 23), the inscription ofal-Khashna, on the Zubayda pilgrimage road nearMecca (Figs 17–18), dated 52 AH (Sharafaddin1397 ⁄ 1977: 73–74, pl. 50),16 and the inscriptionof Mu’awiya on the Saysad dam at al-T

_a’if

(Figs 19–20), dated 58 AH (Miles 1948: 236–237,pl. 17a). Next come a series of inscriptions discov-ered in Saudi Arabia and outside it, dated to thesubsequent years of the first century of the Hijra.17

2. It is the second oldest dated Islamic writtendocument discovered so far, the oldest being

the papyrus of Ahnas (Figs 21–22), dated 22 AH,therefore two years older than the Zuhayrinscription.18 The papyrus of Ahnas is a receipt on

Fig. 11.

Tracing of the Aswan inscription in Egypt.

Fig. 12.

Reading of the Aswan inscription.

Fig. 13.

Tracing of the al-Batha inscription between Mecca and Ta’if.

16 Sharafaddin read the date of the inscription as 56 AH, butthe correct reading is 52 AH. See Fahmi 1407 ⁄ 1987: 346–347, 361.

17 E.g. the inscription of H_

afnat al-Abyad_, dated 64 AH; the

inscription of al-‘Abbasa, 71 AH; the foundation text of theDome of the Rock, 72 AH; two inscriptions from Mecca inthe name of ‘Uthman, both dated 80 AH; the inscriptionsof Maymun, ‘Afir and Makhlad from the Syrian pilgrim-age road, dated 80, 83 and 91 AH respectively; and aninscription from Rawawa dated 100 AH. See the tableof these inscriptions in al-Rashid 1413 ⁄ 1992: 267–268;al-Rashid 1995; Hawary 1932: 289–293.

18 Noteworthy also are two Sasanian-style dirhams from thereign of ‘Umar ibn al-Khat

_t_ab, struck in year 20 AH, each

inscribed with the phrase ‘in the name of God’. They areconsidered the oldest coins bearing Arabic legends; onewas struck in Sijistan and the other in Nahr Tiri, and theyare kept in the Iraqi Museum under the numbers 4072–3:al-Jabburi 1977: 98.


217

Fig. 17.

Tracing of the al-Khashna inscription from the Zubayda pil-

grimage road near Mecca.

Fig. 15.

Tracing of the Wadi Sabil inscription near Najran.

Fig. 14.

Reading of the al-Batha inscription.

Fig. 16.

Reading of the Wadi Sabil inscription.

Fig. 18.

Reading of the al-Khashna inscription.

Fig. 19.

Tracing of the Mu’awiya dam inscription at al-T_a’if.

A. I. GHABBAN

218

papyrus drafted by the commander of a detachmentof Muslims for the people of Ahnas in Egypt; itspeaks of the handing over of sixty-five sheep bythem and is written in two languages, Arabic andGreek. [330] It was found in 1877 in Egypt and isnow kept in the Vienna National Library (Reinercollection, no. 557).19

3. It has diacritical marks on a number of itsletters, i.e. dots which distinguish between lettersof the same form. Diacritical marks also appear onthe Ahnas papyrus of 22 AH, which constitutesthe earliest attestation of them on papyrus. Theirappearance on the Zuhayr inscription may beconsidered the oldest epigraphic attestation andthe second oldest on a dated document from theearly Islamic period. Previously the Mu’awiya daminscription at al-T

_a’if of 58 AH had been the best-

known dotted Islamic Arabic inscription, containingseventeen dotted letters, compared with the‘Abdallah ibn Dayram inscription from Wadi Sabil,Najran, which only has one dotted letter (the ‘b’ ofthe word ‘forty’ ⁄ arba’in). This inscription is olderthan the Mu’awiya one, dated 46 AH, but is less wellknown (Figs 15–16). After these two inscriptions isthat of H

_afnat al-Abyad

_near Karbala, dated 64 AH

and comprising five dotted letters (Figs 25–26).20

The marks that accompany the Arabic script areof two types: marks to indicate grammatical

inflections, namely vowel marks (al-shakl), anddiacritical marks [to distinguish letters of identicalform from one another, RGH]. Some modernhistorians of Islamic civilisation say that the Arabicscript was originally devoid of such marks andthat the entry of non-Arabs into Islam caused thespread of solecisms, sparking fear for the purity ofthe Qur’an and the Arabic language. Vowel markswere therefore introduced, first to copies ofQur’ans, and took the form of one or two marks,in a dye different to the colour of the ink, placedabove, below or within the letters of the word;vowel-less letters were left without marks. Thesemarks indicate the short vowels ‘a’ (fath

_a), ‘i’

(kasra) and ‘u’ (d_amma) and the indefinite case

endings (tanwin).21 Abu l-Aswad al-Du’ali is attrib-uted with undertaking this at the request of thegovernor of Basra, Ziyad ibn Abihi, in c. year 67AH; some call this measure the first reform of thescript (al-Kurdi 1402 ⁄ 1982: 85–86).22

As regards the diacritical marks, which are theimportant ones for this study, the general viewamong most modern historians is that they wereintroduced in the time of ‘Abd al-Malik ibnMarwan by Nas

_r ibn ‘As

_im al-Laythi and Yah

_ya

ibn Ya’mar al-‘Udwani on the order of al-H_

ajjajibn Yusuf al-Thaqafi when copying errorsmultiplied in Iraq. Al-H

_ajjaj asked the two men

to insert signs to distinguish letters identical to oneanother. Accordingly, they placed dots on theidentical letters, singly and in pairs, in the colourof the ink of the letters, and arranged the identicalletters next to one another in the alphabet,contrary to [329] the old alphabetical arrangement.These measures are considered to constitute thesecond reform of the script (H

_amuda [n.d.]:

50–51).23

There are those who dispute that Arabic letterswould have been devoid of diacritical marks untilthe time of inserting such marks in Qur’ans. Somescholars investigating this matter object, submittingthe view for discussion and study that, ‘adding

Fig. 20.

Reading of the Mu’awiya dam inscription.

19 This papyrus was published for the first time in an exhi-bition catalogue of Vienna in 1894, numbered 558; AdolfGrohmann published it in From the World of Arabic Papyri(1952: 62). Since then it has appeared in numerous studiestreating the rise of the Arabic script.

20 This inscription was published for the first time by ‘Izz al-din al-S

_anduq in the journal Sumer (1995: 213–217), then in

numerous studies after that.

21 For this view see al-Kurdi 1402 ⁄ 1982: 83; al-Jabburi 1974:46; Dhunun 1407 ⁄ 1986: 12.

22 For the account of Abu l-Aswad al-Du’ali’s marking of theQur’an see al-Dani 1978: 129.

23 See also the account of the adding of diacritical marks toQur’ans in the time of al-H

_ajjaj in al-‘Askari 1908, 1: 9–10.


219

diacritical marks is an activity that came after thewriting down in the case of the Arabs’, and theyhave examined the thoughts of the earlyauthorities (al-salaf) about this subject andestablished what they meant (Al-Asad 1982:34–41).24 It is possible to summarise these thoughtsas follows:

A) Some early authorities think that diacriticalmarks were used in the pre-Islamic period and citeproofs from pre-Islamic poetry in which thereappears the term al-raqsh, meaning (for them)‘‘marks’’. An example is the line of T

_arafa ibn

al-‘Abd: ‘Like the lines of parchment which a scriberaqasha at forenoon’. Al-Shantamari (d. 476 AH)comments on the line as follows: ‘(The poet) likensthe remains of the residence to lines of writing,and the meaning of raqashahu is adorned it andbeautified it with marks’ (Ibn ‘Abd 1975: 74).25 AndAbu ‘Ali al-Qali (d. 356 AH) said: ‘To put raqsh onthe writing is when you write something and addmarks to it’ (al-Qali [n.d.], 2: 246).

Ibn al-Nadim in his Bibliographical Compendiumquotes a report attributed to Ibn ‘Abbas whichspecifies that ‘the first to compose in Arabic scriptwere three men from the tribe of Bawlan wholived in al-Anbar, namely Muramir ibn Murra,

Aslam ibn Sidra and ‘Amir ibn Jadra. Muramirinstituted the forms, Aslam established the sepa-rations and links between letters, and ‘Amirdevised the diacritical marks (Ibn al-Nadim1398 ⁄ 1978: 6–7). Although this tradition has beentransmitted with legendary elements, it neverthe-less suggests that diacritical marks were estab-lished along with the origins of the script.

Al-Qalqashandi records this same report relatedby Ibn al-Nadim, and appends to it the statement:‘The conclusion from this is that diacritical markswere invented at the same time as the script’.Then he adduces the account about Abu l-Aswadal-Du’ali being the first to add marks to Qur’ansand to formalise classical Arabic and makes thecomment: ‘What has been said before must be thecase, since it is improbable that the letters beforethat, given the identicalness of their forms, werefree of marks until the Qur’an was given marks’(al-Qalqashandi [n.d.], 3: 151).

Fig. 21.

Tracing of the Ahnas papyrus inscription.

Fig. 22.

Reading of the Ahnas papyrus inscription.

24 He also clarifies the concept of dots, vowel marks anddiacritical marks in the sources and the disparity in theuse of these terms from source to source and sometimeswithin the same source. He states that modern historiansshould proceed by trying to understand what the earliestauthorities who were involved in this matter said, for theyhave not discerned the import of these terms because ofthe lack of agreement among the early authorities on asingle meaning for them, and because some of the sourcesare obscure and overlap as regards both the marking ofthe Qur’an copies and the script in general.

25 Some think that the term al-raqsh does not mean marks,but just fine handwriting; see Ramad

_an 1996: 240.

A. I. GHABBAN

220

B) Some early authorities transmit reports aboutpeople’s knowledge during the time of the messen-ger of God and his rightly guided successors ofdiacritical marks. For example [328]:� It is related from the messenger of God that

he said: ‘If you disagree about the ya’ and theta’, then write it as a ya’...’(Ibn al-Athir[n.d.], 1: 193, entry on Bashir ibn al-H

_arith

al-Ans_ari)

� Al-Farra’ (d. 207 AH) relates a report goingback to Zayd ibn Thabit: ‘I wrote on a stonenunsiruha and lam yatasanna. I looked to Zaydibn Thabit and he put dots on the shin and thezay, four in all, and he wrote yatasanna with aha’’ [The reference is to Qur’an 2.259, whichcontains the words nunshizuha and lam yata-sannah; the former word is ambiguous, soZayd added dots to make it clear, RGH] (al-Farra’ 1955, 1: 172–173).� It is related on the authority of Ibn ‘Abbas

that he said: ‘Everything has its light and thelight of writing is diacritical marks’ (al-Qalqashandi [n.d.], 3: 153).� It is related on the authority of ‘Ubayd ibn

Aws al-Ghassani, the scribe of Mu’awiya, thathe said: ‘I wrote a letter in the presence ofMu’awiya and he said to me: ‘‘‘Ubayd,embellish (urqush) your letter’’, for I oncewrote in the presence of the messenger ofGod and he told me, ‘‘Mu’awiya, embellishyour writing’’. ‘Ubayd said: ‘‘And what doesit mean to embellish it, commander of thefaithful?’’ He replied: ‘‘Give to each letter themarks that fall to it’’‘ (H

_amidullah 1964: 26;

al-Jabburi S 1977: 156).C) Some of the early authorities adduce reasons forthe stripping of marks from Qur’ans, as in thefollowing:� Abu Bakr ibn ‘Arabi (d. 543 AH) said: ‘The

Qur’an texts (al-mas_ah

_if) were written and

‘Uthman dispatched them to the far horizons;the texts were original (as

_l) and the reading an

authoritative transmission (riwaya). The Com-panions of Muh

_ammad (pbuh) taught the

succeeding generation how to read theQur’an, and the copying of the Qur’an tothe transcripts (nusakh) of it was done accord-ing to the way they used to write it for themessenger of God — the writing of ‘Uthman,

Zayd, Ubayy and others, without dots orvocalisation. They used this method of tran-scription so that the original Qur’an textwould be preserved by people while stillallowing for a measure of difference invocalisation...’(Ibn al-‘Arabi 1927, 2: 196–197).� Ibn al-Jazari said: ‘When the Companions

wrote those Qur’ans, they stripped them ofdots and vowel marks so that it might havethe capacity to bear what might genuinely befrom the Prophet (pbuh) that wasn’t in thefinal version. They removed the dots andvowel marks from the Qur’ans just so that thescript would be the sole indication of each ofthe copied, heard and recited wordings in thesame way as the wording would be the soleindication of each of the perceived andunderstood meanings, for the Companionsreceived from the Messenger of God theQur’an that God had ordered to be conveyedto them, its wording and its meaningtogether. They didn’t omit anything fromthe Qur’an confirmed by Muh

_ammad (pbuh)

and they didn’t cease to recite it’ (al-Jazari[n.d.]: 33).

D) [327] Some of the early authorities present thefollowing as the reason for the insertion of marksinto the Qur’an:� Abu Ah

_mad al-‘Askari (d. 382 AH) said: ‘It

has been related that the reason for themarking of the Qur’ans was that peoplemodified their reading of the Qur’ans of‘Uthman over the forty years or so until thedays of ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, thenmisreadings multiplied and spread in Iraq.Al-H

_ajjaj therefore turned to his scribes to ask

them to place signs on these identical let-ters...’ (al-‘Askari 1908: 9–10).� Abu ‘Amr al-Dani (d. 444 AH) reported from

Yah_ya ibn Kathir that he said: ‘The Qur’an

was bare (of marks) in its first copies, then thefirst innovation in it was marks on the ya’ andta’; people said there was no harm in thatsince it clarified it’ (al-Dani 1960: 2).

These and other texts confirm that diacritical markswere used for the Arabic script during the pre-Islamic period and the time of the Prophet (pbuh)and the rightly guided caliphs, and that the Qur’anwas divested of marks upon its collection so that its


221

skeleton might bear all the readings which weretransmitted from the Prophet (pbuh) and so thatArabs might be able to read the Qur’an eachaccording to his dialect. For example, the wordyunshizuha could be read, without diacritical marks,as yanshuruha, and both readings are found for thisword. The sentence fa-qubid

_at qabd

_atan (Qu’ran 20.96)

can be read with the letter d_ad, and its meaning is

then ‘I took with my whole hands’; it can also beread with the letter s

_ad, then meaning ‘I took with

my fingertips’. When need demanded, marks wereintroduced into the Qur’an, beginning with vowelmarks by Abu l-Aswad al-Du’ali, then diacriticalmarks by Nas

_r ibn ‘As


_ya ibn

Ya’mar al-‘Udwani.These literary texts and opinions are corroborated

by documents, inscriptions and Islamic coins withdotted letters and dated to before the pointing ofQur’ans,26 and they are, in date order:� Ahnas papyrus, dated 22 AH (Figs 21–22).� Inscription of Zuhayr, dated 24 AH (Figs 2–

4).� Inscription of ‘Abdallah ibn Dayram from

Wadi Sabil, by Najran, 46 AH (Figs 15–16).� Mu’awiya dam inscription at al-Ta’if, 58 AH

(Figs 19–20).� [326] Al-Khanaq dam inscription by Medina,

from the reign of Mu’awiya (40–60 AH),though not dated to a specific year (Figs 23–24).27

� Inscription of H_

afnat al-Abyad_

near Karbala,dated 64 AH (Figs 25–26).� Mosaic inscription of the Dome of the Rock,

from the reign of ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan,dated 72 AH (al-Munajjid 1972: 106–107).� Inscribed Umayyad milestone from the reign

of ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (65–85 AH; pl.

12) (ibid. 108; Al-Till 1401 ⁄ 1981: 58) (Figs 27–28).� Umayyad dinar struck in year 82 AH (al-

Jabburi S 1977: 160).28

� Inscription of ‘Afir ibn al-Mud_arib, dated 83

AH (Figs 29–30), which is from the Syrianpilgrimage road in north-west Saudi Arabia(Ghabban 1414 ⁄ 1993: 143).� Umayyad dirham struck in year 85 AH (al-

Jabburi S 1977: 159).29

� Umayyad dinar struck in year 88 AH (1977:160).30

There are also other inscriptions and documents,which have dotted letters but are later than the likelydate for the introduction of dots on Qur’ans, such as:� Papyrus of Hisham ibn ‘Umar, dated 91 AH

(ibid. 159, pl. 33).� Writing on one of the walls of Hisham’s

palace at Khirbat al-Mafjar (al-Till 1401 ⁄ 1981:109, pl. 24; al-Jabburi S 1977: 159, pl. 39).� Writing on the picture of the kings of the

world at Qus_ayr ‘Amra (ibid. 159, pl. 33).

The inscription of Zuhayr, the subject of this study,is considered a new and substantial clue to theexistence of diacritical marks before their appear-ance on Qur’ans. It is a clue of particular importancein view of its being the oldest dotted inscription andthe oldest dated inscription discovered so far.

A comparative study of the scriptThis inscription was written in the H

_ijazi script,

which was used in Mecca and Medina at that time.The information available in the sources about thisscript is very meagre, and examples of it in inscrip-tions and documents are likewise extremely limited.The most important mention of it in the sources is abrief reference in the Bibliographical Index of Ibn al-Nadim, in which he says: ‘The first Arabic script wasthe Meccan script and after it the Medinan; thencame the Bas

_ran and the Kufan. As regards the

Meccan and Medinan script, there is a slant to theright in its alifs and an elevation of the verticalstrokes, and in its form there is a slight inclination’(Ibn al-Nadim 1398 ⁄ 1978: 8). [325] He also notes

26 The sources do not mention a fixed date for the reformundertaken by Nas

_r ibn ‘As


_ya ibn

Ya’mar al-‘Udwani, rather they indicate that it wasaccomplished on the order of al-H

_ajjaj, and it is known

that al-H_

ajjaj ruled Iraq in the years 85–95 AH, and thatNas

_r ibn ‘As

_im died in 89 AH. The date of the marking of

the Qur’ans fell then in the years 85–89 AH; Ibn Khayyat_1405 ⁄ 1985: 307–308; Yaqut 197? , 19: 224.

27 Dr Sa’d al-Rashid discovered this inscription (1421 ⁄ 2000:46–60), which has just one dotted letter (ta on the word al-S_alt); it is a foundation stone, dating the construction of

the Khanaq dam to the reign of Mu’wiya.

28 Kept in the Islamic Art Museum in Cairo, no. 18327.29 Kept in the Islamic Art Museum in Cairo, no. 16753 ⁄ ⁄ 6.30 Kept in the Islamic Art Museum in Cairo, no. 21883.

A. I. GHABBAN

222

three varieties of the Medinan script: the rounded(mudawwar), the triangular (muthallath) and thecomposite (ti’m) script (ibid. 9). The nature of thetriangular and the rounded may be understood fromtheir names, and the composite may combine thequalities of these two types (Jum’a 1968: 18; Al-Fi’r1405 ⁄ 1984: 94).

The Arabic script developed from the Nabataeanscript, which came to the H

_ijaz before Islam along

with the trade that the Qurashis practised (Naji 1935:6; al-Jabburi MS 1974: 36; al-Jabburi S 1381 ⁄ 1962: 19;1977: 51–70). When it arrived in Mecca, it wasknown by that town’s name [i.e. Meccan script], andafter the emigration of the Prophet (pbuh) to Medinaand the establishment of an Islamic polity there theH_

ijazi script was linked with it and called theMedinan script. When the focus of military andpolitical activity moved to Iraq in the caliphates of‘Umar ibn al-Khat

_t_ab and ‘Ali ibn Abi T

_alib, the

scripts moved with it to Basra and Kufa, and it wasknown at first by the names of the towns that it hadcome from, but afterwards the terms ‘the Basranscript’ and ‘the Kufic script’ were applied to it. Soonthe Arabic script in Kufa improved considerablyand, with the passage of time, its forms diversified.The fame of the two varieties of Kufic script, the stiffand the pliant (al-yabis wa-l-layyin), surpassed that of

any other script, and mention of the Basran, Mec-can and Medinan scripts ceased while the name ofthe Kufic remained in common use (Jum’a 1968:26–7; ‘Alyuh 1983–1984: 208–10; al-Fi’r 1405 ⁄ 1984:43).

Although the name of the Meccan and Medinanscripts disappeared outside the H

_ijaz after the

expansion in use of the Kufic script, these scriptsdid continue in use within the H

_ijaz for a long time.

One may consider all the inscriptions located inMecca, Medina and their environs to be written inthis type of script, especially those dated to the firstcentury AH. This is true also for the documents andinscriptions found outside the H

_ijaz, which have a

connection with the early conquerors and the date ofwhich goes back to the period of the rightly guidedcaliphs.

Examples of the documents and inscriptions ofthe first century AH which can be assigned forcertain to the H

_ijazi script (the Meccan and the

Medinan) are, in the opinion of the author, thefollowing:

Fig. 23.

Tracing of the al-Khanaq dam inscription near Medina.

Fig. 24.

Reading of the al-Khanaq dam inscription.


223

� The Ahnas papyrus, drafted in 22 AH by theconquering army, which entered Egypt fromthe H

_ijaz.

� The inscription of Zuhayr dated 24 AH.� The inscription of Aswan dated 31 AH, a

gravestone of one of the first Muslim settlersin Aswan; it can be considered as an exampleof the triangular H

_ijazi script.

� [324] The inscription of al-Batha, dated40 AH, of ‘Abd al-Rah

_man ibn Khalid

ibn al-‘As_, who is considered to be one

of the clan of al-‘As_

of the tribe of Quraysh.

� The inscription of ‘Abdallah ibn Dayram,dated 46 AH, located near Najran.� The inscription of al-Khashnah, dated 52 AH,

located near Mecca.� The Mu’awiya dam inscription near al-T

_a’if,

dated 58 AH.� The al-Khanaq dam inscription, which

Mu’awiya built near Medina.� A number of other undated inscriptions

from Mecca, Medina and the other regionsof the H

_ijaz, the script of which bears the

same features as the previous inscriptions.The most exceptional of them are: the

Fig. 25.

Tracing of the Hafnat al-Abyad_

inscription near Karbala.

Fig. 26.

Tracing of the Hafnat al-Abyad_

inscription.

A. I. GHABBAN

224

commemorative inscription on the dam ofthe Ranuna’ valley by Medina (al-Rashid1421 ⁄ 2000: 68–71)31 and the inscriptions ofMount Sala’ published by Muh

_ammad

H_

amidullah (leaving aside the veracity ofthe history which he imputed to theseinscriptions) (1939: 427). There are also someletters attributed to the Prophet (pbuh),although there is much doubt about theauthenticity of these documents (Hamidul-lah 1986: 97, 111, 137, 149).

Relying on Ibn al-Nadim’s classification of theH_

ijazi script into three kinds — the rounded, thetriangular and the composite — one can say thatthe Zuhayr inscription bears the hallmarks of therounded H

_ijazi script, the Aswan inscription bears

the hallmarks of the triangular H_

ijazi script and theMu’awiya dam inscription at al-T

_a’if the hallmarks

of the composite H_

ijazi script, which is betweenstiff and pliant.

Orthographical features of the Zuhayr inscription1. The text is devoid of any vowel marks, i.e. themarks indicating the short vowels ‘a’, ‘u’ and ‘i’ andother related marks. The pre-Islamic Arabic inscrip-tions from Zebed (Figs 31–32), Jabal Usays (Figs 33–35) and H

_arran (Figs 6–8) are similarly lacking in

vowel marks. Indeed, they are not found in any ofthe texts of the first decades of the first Islamiccentury, either prior to the inscription of Zuhayr orsubsequent to it (not the Ahnas papyrus, nor theinscriptions of al-Batha, al-Khashna, Najran, Mu’aw-iya’s dam, nor the leaves said to belong to the

Fig. 28.

Reading of the Umayyad milestone inscription.

Fig. 27.

Tracing of the Umayyad milestone inscription from the reign of

Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan.

Fig. 29.

Tracing of the ‘Afir ibn al-Mud_arib inscription from the Syrian

pilgrimage route.

Fig. 30.

Reading of the ‘Afir ibn al-Mud_arib inscription.

31 It is worth noting that some of the letters of this inscrip-tion bear diacritical marks.


225

‘Uthmanic Qur’an texts).32 We have already referredto the disparity in Arab knowledge of vowellingbefore the reform of Abu l-Aswad al-Du’ali. Somedeny Arab knowledge of vowelling in the earliestperiod while others think it highly unlikely that[323] letters could have been devoid of vowel marksuntil they appeared on Qur’ans, pointing to reportsabout the Companions stripping Qur’ans of vowelmarks, which suggests that vowel marks were usedon other media. Others again adopt a compromiseposition, saying that the Companions themselvesbegan inserting vowel marks, but they did not makeof the marks a system that comprised the wholeQur’an; rather it was an alleviating measure by themuntil Abu l-Aswad came and incorporated them intoa proper system with principles and rules to befollowed.33

2. Diacritical marks are used on some of the letters;the marks deployed in the inscription are of therounded sort (i.e. dots), which are the oldest form ofmarks used.34 We find them on the Ahnas papyrus (22AH), the Wadi Sabil inscription at Najran (46 AH), theMu’awiya dam inscription (58 AH), the Khanaq daminscription in Medina (reign of Mu’awiya) and onmost of the inscriptions and documents of the firstcentury AH that bear diacritical marks.

Diacritical marks feature on nine letters of theZuhayr inscription, which are, in order of theirappearance in the inscription: on the nun of the word‘I’ (ana), on the zay and ta’ of the word ‘time’ (zaman),on the ta’ and fa of the word ‘died’ (tuwuffiya), on thenun and ta’ of the word ‘year’ (sana), and on the shinand the nun of the word ‘twenty’ (‘ishrin). Thesemarks are made singly, as a pair and as a trio.

Fig. 31.

Tracing of the Zebed inscription.

Fig. 33.

Photo of the Jabal Usays inscription. Fig. 35.

Reading of the Jabal Usays inscription.

Fig. 32.

Reading of the Zebed inscription.

Fig. 34.

Tracing of the Jabal Usays inscription.

32 See the images of these texts and inscriptions in al-Mun-ajjid 1972: 38, 40, 51, 101, and also Figures 8–10 accom-panying that study.

33 For more information on this subject see al-Jabburi S 1977:147–150; Abu l-Aswad’s name was Z

_alim ibn ‘Amr and he

died in Basra in 67 or 69 AH.

34 The other type of diacritical mark in inscriptions comes inthe shape of a small line or stroke; the oldest examples ofit are found in the mosaics of the Dome of the Rock on thewords mustaqim and yattakhidh and on one of the mile-stones of ‘Abd al-Malik on the word thamaniya (Fig 27).

A. I. GHABBAN

226

The single marks are made in three different ways:� There are letters bearing a single dot at their

highest point, directly above the beginning ofthe letter, with a slight tendency to the left orright. Examples of this are the dot of the nunon the word ana, the dot of the zay on theword zaman, and the dot of the nun on thewords sana and ‘ishrin. The letter zay is dottedthree times in the Ahnas papyrus: on theword al-jazar, which appears twice, and onthe word ajzaraha. In all three cases the dotsare placed above the beginning of the letterand a little to the left. The medial nun isdotted in the same way in the Ahnas papyrus(on the words Ahnas, sufunihi and sana), inthe Mu’awiya dam inscription at T

_a’if (on the

words binya and ans_arahu) and in the inscrip-

tion of ‘Afir ibn al-Mud_arib (on the word

amantu). The final nun appears dotted for thefirst time in the Zuhayr inscription, on thewords zaman and ‘ishrin.� [322] A single dot may be put above the

middle of the letter; this has just one examplein the Zuhayr inscription, on the fa of theword tuwuffiya. The method of these dottingsresembles the dotting of the fa in the wordighfir on the Mu’awiya dam inscription and ofthe fa in the word ‘Afir on the inscription of‘Afir ibn al-Mud

_arib.

� A single dot may be put below the letter; thishas one example in the Zuhayr inscription, onthe ba’ of the word arba’, which is placed onthe right side of the letter and a little inadvance of its beginning. The letter ba’ alsoappears dotted on the word arba’in in theWadi Sabil inscription in Najran, on thewords binya, kataba and H

_abbab in the Mu’aw-

iya dam inscription, on the words wa-kabbirkabiran in the H

_afnat al-Abyad

_inscription

and on the word al-Mud_arib in the inscription

of ‘Afir ibn al-Mud_arib.

There are two examples of pairs of dots in theZuhayr inscription: on the ta’ of the word tuwuffiyaand of the word sana, and they are put one above theother with a clear inclination to the right on the ta’ ofthe word tuwuffiya. We find other examples of thisform on the word matti’ in the Mu’awiya daminscription and on the word yattakhidh in the Domeof the Rock inscription. As for the two dots of the ta’

of the word sana in the Zuhayr inscription, they wereplaced almost adjacent to one another. Ta’s dottedwith two dots next to one another appear on theword al-S

_alt in the Khanaq dam inscription, whilst

ta’s dotted with two dots one above the other featurein a number of the early inscriptions with diacriticalmarks: on the word thabbithu in the Mu’awiya daminscription, on the word mustaqim in the Dome of theRock inscription and on the word yashtakika in thepapyrus of Hisham ibn ‘Amr.

There is also one example of a trio of dots in theZuhayr inscription, on the letter shin of the word‘ishrin. They are placed successively and horizon-tally, one dot on each of the letter’s teeth. The shin isdotted in the same way in the words shah and shahrin the Ahnas papyrus, in the word yashtakika in theHisham ibn ‘Amr papyrus, and in the wordal-najashi in the inscription accompanying the frescoof the kings of the world at Qus

_ayr ‘Amra in Jordan.

The dots of the shin appear in the form of anupward-pointing triangle, as is done today, in thetext from Hisham’s palace in Jericho, Khirbatal-Mafjar, on the word ‘at

_asht

_ash; the date of this

text is the late first century AH (al-Jabburi S 1977:159, pl. 39).

3. The hamza is not displayed; the letter representingit is deemed sufficient. It is represented by alif in thewords ana and arba’, which is in accordance with therules and with the general practice for recordingthe hamza in inscriptions and Qur’ans. The hamza isrepresented by alif in the inscription of Aswan despitethe fact that the construction is passive [321]; thus itshould be represented by ya’ (quri’a ⁄ ) in thesentence ‘Ask pardon (from God) for him when thisinscription is read out and say amen’ (istaghfir lahuidha quri’a hadha l-kitab wa-qul amin). But this shouldnot be considered a mistake in transcription, becausethe writer would seem to be following the school thatalways writes the hamza with alif, an old school inArabic writing (al-Farra’ 1955: 2.134). Similarly, thehamza is written with waw instead of alif in theinscription of H

_afnat al-Abyad

_, dated 64 AH, where it

appears in the phrase Allahu akbar ( ).4. The feminine ending ta’ is written with closed

ta’ (ta’ marbut_a), in the form of a ha’, on the word sana

( ) in the Zuhayr inscription, but is written withopen ta’ on Zuhayr’s other inscription, on the wordibna ( ), even though the word after it, Shayba, iswritten with closed ta’. The use of open ta’ for the


227

feminine ending should not be considered anorthographical error, since it is found in pre-Islamic Arabic texts: on the word sana in the JabalUsays (528 AD) and H

_arran (568 AD) inscriptions

[and the word ‘mt in the Zebed inscription (AD512 or soon after), RGH]. It seems that the trend towrite the feminine ending ta’ in the form of a ha’began before Islam, since in the Jabal Usaysinscription we encounter the words Mughira(unless to be read Mu’arraf) and maslah

_a written

with closed ta’, despite the fact that the word sanaappears in the same inscription written with openta’. The latter feature would seem to be in theprocess of slowly disappearing shortly beforeIslam, though it still continued for some time inthe Islamic period (al-H

_amd 1408 ⁄ 1986: 41), as is

evidenced by the word sana in the Aswan inscrip-tion (31 AH), and the word ibna in the secondZuhayr inscription, which may be assigned thesame date as the inscription of Zuhayr that isthe subject of this study, i.e. 24 AH [and the wordrah

_ma in the al-Batha inscription of 40 AH, RGH].

It remains for the author to point out that theinscription cannot be used as evidence for theomission of the medial alif, since this type of alif isabsent from the words written by Zuhayr. It is awidespread orthographical phenomenon in pre-Islamic and early Islamic Arabic texts, and it occursin the Ahnas papyrus and in most of the documentsand inscriptions of the period of the Rashiduncaliphs and the Umayyads.

Distinctive characteristics [320]The principal characteristics of the script of theZuhayr inscription may be summarised as follows:

a) softness in the angles of the lettersb) frequent curving in letters with loops, such

as mim and wawc) inclination to the right in isolated alifs and to

the left in final alifsd) absence of any decorative additions on the

alifse) inclination to the right in the tooth of initial

ba’ ⁄ ta’ ⁄ nun ⁄ ya’, as in the words: bism,tuwuffiya, ana and arba’

f) additional length of the tooth of medialba’ ⁄ ta’ ⁄ nun ⁄ ya’ when joined to letters of thesame kind

g) lack of any elevation of the loop of ta’marbut

_a and final ha’ above the baseline or

the strokes of the adjoining lettersh) the small size of the ra’ and zay and their

execution in the shape of a small archi) the execution of the lower half of the letters

ra’, zay, initial ha’ and mim below the baseline(i.e. the straight line aligning the text)

j) use of open ‘aynk) a long bottom line of initial ‘ayn, extending

further forward than the arch of the ‘ayn thatascends from it

l) smallness of the upper part of the letter kafm) inexactness in the rounding of the loops of

the mimn) lengthening of the tail of the nuno) an additional stroke at the top of the cat-eye ha’p) a curtailing of the tail of the wawq) execution of the tails of waw, nun, ‘ayn and

ya’ below the baseliner) use of the reverting ya’ [where the tail of the

ya’ goes back below the preceding letters,RGH].

[319] The author will now present a description ofthe way in which each letter is written, comparing itto letters of texts that are close in time to the Zuhayrinscription (Table 1):

Alif is written twice as an upright line, withoutany backward stroke at its bottom end. In the wordindicating God Almighty [ ] it is written with aleaning to the right hand and a stroke sloping to theright, which fits Ibn al-Nadim’s description of thealifs of the Medinan script (Ibn al-Nadim 1398 ⁄ 1978:8). Alif without the additional stroke appears in theinscriptions (Figs 31–32) of Zebed (AD 512+), JabalUsays (AD 528) and H

_arran (AD 568), as is also the

case for all the alifs of the Ahnas papyrus, which areless upright than those of the Zuhayr inscription.

Ba’ occurs three times: initial in the word bism,medial in the words katabtu and arba’, and is in bothcases written with a long tooth. This is contrary tohow it is written in the pre-Islamic Arabic inscrip-tions where its tooth is short: in the word bin of theinscriptions of Zebed and Jabal Usays and in theword banaytu of the H

_arran inscription. The initial

ba’ does resemble examples of it in the word bism inthe Ahnas papyrus and the Aswan inscription(Figs 11–12, 21–22). Medial ba’ with a short tooth isfound in the words ‘Abdallah and as

_h_abuhu in the

A. I. GHABBAN

228

Ahnas papyrus, in the words ‘Abdallah and H_

abbab inthe Mu’awiya dam inscription and in the word ‘Abdal-Rah

_man in the al-Batha inscription.

Ta’ occurs four times:� Initial in the word tuwuffiya where it is

written with the tooth not exceeding theheight of the following letter; in this it

resembles the letter ta’ in the word tdrq(Theodoric) in the Ahnas papyrus.� Medial after the letter kaf in the word katabtu,

written with a long tooth, higher than thetooth of the adjoining ba’; in this it resemblesthe ta’ that appears after the letter kaf in theword kata’ibihi in the Ahnas papyrus.

Table 1. A chart of the letter forms of the Zuhayr inscription compared with those of other early Arabic inscriptions.


229

� Final and open at the end of the word katabtu,written again with a tooth longer than that ofthe preceding ba’; this is an old form of thefinal ta’, which we encounter in the wordbanaytu in [318] the H

_arran inscription, and

again in the word sana in the Aswan inscrip-tion, which is slightly later than the Zuhayrinscription.� Final and closed, attached to the preceding

letter and distinguished by being at a rightangle to the baseline. There is one example inthe word sana, which is written in a moredeveloped way that the word sana in theAhnas papyrus and closely resembles theclosed ta’ in the words Mu’awiya and binya inthe Mu’awiya dam inscription at al-T

_a’if.

Ra’ occurs three times: final and connected to apreceding letter, as in the words Zuhayr and ‘Umar,where it is written in the shape of a small arch;medial and unattached, as in the word arba’, writtenin the same way.

Zay occurs twice: initial and unattached in thewords Zuhayr and zaman; it is written like the ra’.

One may note that the ra’ and zay in the Zuhayrinscription have the same small size as those inthe pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions, but they have asofter curve than their pre-Islamic counterparts.The ra’ is written with a right angle in the wordsSargw in the Zebed inscription, Ibrahim in the JabalUsays inscription, and Sharah

_il and bar in the

H_

arran inscription. The ra’ and zay of the Zuhayrinscription resemble those in the words al-jazr,Abu Qir and ‘ashara in the Ahnas papyrus;al-rah

_man, al-qabr and istaghfir in the Aswan

inscription; rah_ma and arba’in in the al-Batha

inscription; ighfir and Hubayra in the al-Khashnainscription; and arba’in in the Wadi Sabilinscription at Najran.

Sin occurs twice: initial in the word sana andmedial in the word bism. In both cases it is writtenwith equal-sized teeth, an old form that appears inthe Jabal Usays and H

_arran inscriptions, and it also

corresponds to the sin of the word sana in the Ahnaspapyrus and Mu’awiya dam inscription at al-T

_a’if.

Shin occurs once in medial position in the word‘ishrin and is written with equal-sized teeth. We findexamples of this form in the word Shurayh

_w in the

Zebed inscription and the words ‘ashara, shah andshahr in the Ahnas papyrus. It is worth saying that

the word ‘ishrin in the Zuhayr inscription resemblesall the letters of the word ‘ishrin in the Ahnaspapyrus.

‘ayn occurs three times:� Initial and attached, twice in the words ‘Umar

and ‘ishrin; it is written in the form of an archattached to the straight line of the text. Thisform has developed from the initial ‘ayn thatappears in the word ‘ala in the Jabal Usaysinscription, and resembles the ‘ayn in thewords ‘Abdallah, ‘ashara and ‘ishrin in theAhnas papyrus, ‘Abd al-Rah

_man in the al-

Batha inscription and ‘Ali in the al-Khashnainscription.� Final, written in the form of the open ‘ayn (a

right angle resting on its head) connected to arounded tail. It resembles to a certain degreethe ‘ayn of the word matti’ in the Mu’awiyadam inscription with the reservation that thetail of the latter has a clear right angle in it.The head of the open ‘ayn is also used inwriting the medial ‘ayn, and that is how itappears in Nabataean, pre-Islamic and earlyIslamic Arabic inscriptions.

Fa’ occurs once: medial, attached to a followingletter, in the word tuwuffiya. Its form is almond-shaped and similar to the letter waw in its loop andtail. It resembles the letter qaf in the word Abu Qir inthe Ahnas papyrus as regards the almond shape ofits loop, but differs from the initial fa’ and qaf in theAswan inscription which are written with an angle,close to the shape of a triangle, as in the words fi,qara’ and qul.

Kaf occurs once: inital, in the word katabtu. It iswritten with curved bends and a short flourish. It isan old form of the kaf which appears before Islam inthe word al-malik of the Jabal Usays inscription, andwe also find kaf of this form in the Ahnas papyrus, inthe words al-akbar, kata’ibihi, kataba, and in the wordkataba in the al-Khashna inscription dated 52 AH.

Lam occurs twice in the word for God Almighty[ ]. It is written as a very upright vertical stroke anda tail in which a curving distances it from the form ofa right angle. Lam, connecting to the following letter,appears as a vertical stroke inclining to the right anda tail at a slight obtuse angle in pre-Islamic inscrip-tions. We find it with the same form as in the Zuhayrinscription in the Ahnas papyrus and the inscrip-tions of Aswan and the Mu’awiya dam at al-T

_a’if.

A. I. GHABBAN

230

[316] mim occurs three times, medial and final, inthe words bism, zaman and ‘Umar. It is written in theshape of a loop, half of it above the baseline and halfbelow it. One may note the lack of exactitude in theroundness of the loop of the mim and the slightprotrusion at the end of the final mim in the wordbism. The form of the mim in the Zuhayr inscriptionis highly developed and more perfected than itscounterparts in the inscriptions of Zebed, JabalUsays and H

_arran. It does appear there in the shape

of a loop in the middle of the baseline, as in thewords Mar al-Qays, Mughira, maslah

_a and mafsad; but

it also appears as a half loop or arch above thebaseline [e.g. al-malik, T

_alamu and ‘am in the Jabal

Usays and H_

arran inscriptions, RGH]. The form ofthe mim in the Zuhayr inscriptions resembles to alarge degree its form in the Ahnas papyrus and theMu’awiya dam inscription.

Nun occurs twice:� Medial in the word sana. It resembles the

form of the nun in the Ahnas papyrus and theMu’awiya dam inscription for the same word,though it is dotted in the Zuhayr inscriptionand Ahnas papyrus, but not so in theMu’awiya dam inscription.� Final, written with a large, curved tail. Final

nun does not appear in this form in the pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions. The oldest attes-tation of this shape in dated texts is found inthe Ahnas papyrus in many words, such askhamsin, Ahnas and min, with the observationthat the tails of the nun in the Ahnas papyrusend in a small additional upward stroke,which is not on the nun of the word ‘ishrin inthe Zuhayr inscription.

Ha’ occurs twice:� Medial in the name Zuhayr. It is written in

the shape of what is known as cat’s eye,through the middle of which passes thebaseline, and at the top is a small additionalstroke. This form is quite similar to the ha’ ofthe two words Ahnas and shahr that appear inthe Ahnas papyrus. One should note thedifficulty of executing the ha’ of this compli-cated form on stone, which explains the lackof a well-rounded circle in the two parts ofthe ha’ in the Zuhayr inscription. This type ofha’ does not feature in the pre-Islamic Arabicinscriptions, but does appear in some of the

inscriptions from the beginning of the firstIslamic century [315] in the shape of a singlecircle through which passes the baseline ofthe text, dividing it into two halves. This ha’ isused in the word Allahumma (‘O God’) in theinscriptions of Wadi Sabil, al-Khashna andthe two dams of Mu’awiya.� Final ha’ occurs once, in the word for God

Almighty. In its form it resembles the afore-mentioned closed ta’ that joins to a precedingletter.

Waw occurs twice, connected and isolated, in theword tuwuffiya and the ‘and’ ⁄ wa before ‘ishrin. It iswritten as a reasonably well-rounded loop with ashort compact tail that does not go beyond the loopabove it. The waw in the Zuhayr inscription differsfrom the waw in the pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions.In the latter the tail of the waw takes the form of aslanting line, which makes it closer to the form of theNabataean waw. The waw in the Zuhayr inscriptionis quite similar to the waws of the Ahnas papyrus.

Ya’ occurs twice: Medial in the name Zuhayr,written with a long tooth between the ha’ and the ra’.Final and joined to what is before it in the wordtuwuffiya. It is written in the shape of the revertingya’, which appears in the words a’la and bani in thesecond Umm al-Jimal inscription, one of the pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions (Al-Jabburi S 1977: 87)that may date to the sixth century AD (Figs 36–38).The reverting ya’ in the Zuhayr inscription isprobably the oldest such ya’ to appear in a datedArabic text, since it does not appear in the Ahnaspapyrus, whereas we do find it in the Aswaninscription, dated 31 AH, in the words fi and, onits own, ih

_da, and also in the al-Khashna inscription,

dated 40 AH, in the word ‘ala.

ConclusionThe Zuhayr inscription may be considered anexcellent example of the Arabic script in the timeof the rightly guided caliphs and as a new andsubstantial addition to the small corpus of datedpieces of textual evidence from that period. It alsohelps to settle any doubts over the authenticity of theAhnas papyrus, since it is only two years later thanthe date of that papyrus and, like the papyrus, hasdiacritical marks on many of its letters. Furthermore,it is possible to regard this inscription as the best


231

specimen of the Medinese H_

ijazi script among theinscriptions that have appeared to date.

The fact that this inscription is distinguished bydiacritical marks corroborates the view that thisphenomenon was not the invention of Nas

_r ibn

‘As_im and Yah

_ya ibn Ya’mar, but existed long before

their time and was used in daily correspondenceand in case of need as a facilitating tool. However, itdid not have firm rules and it would seem that Nas

_r

ibn ‘As_im and Yah

_ya ibn Ya’mar were the first to

add diacritical marks to Qur’ans in a comprehensivemanner. The Companions had stripped Qur’ans ofdiacritical marks — which had been known to thembeforehand — when they collected them in the reignof ‘Uthman for a number of reasons, the mostimportant of which was enabling Muslims to readthe Qur’an as it was revealed to Muh

_ammad (pbuh)

in the various dialects of the Arabs, and allowing theskeleton of the word to bear all the meanings whichappear in it.

In addition, the Zuhayr inscription, with its earlydate, has now become the oldest dated Islamicinscription and may be added to the list of earlydated Islamic documents. The content of thisinscription also has a special importance in view ofits allusion to the event of the death of the rightlyguided caliph ‘Umar ibn al-Khat

_t_ab.

This comparative study of the script of the inscrip-tion has shown that some of its letters have preservedthe same form that they had in pre-Islamic Arabictexts, namely, the alif, medial ba’, medial and final ta’,sin, open ‘ayn, the lam that joins to a following letter,initial mim and medial nun. Equally, some of theletters of this inscription display signs of develop-ment from their form in pre-Islamic texts, namely,closed ta’, zay, initial and final ‘ayn, kaf, medial mim,final nun, initial and final ha’, waw and reverting ya’. Itis possible that the shapes of some of these letters hadalready evolved during the pre-Islamic period, butlack of any material indications from inscriptions anddocuments prevents any firm decision on this. It maybe that the Qur’an scribes of Muh

_ammad (pbuh)

introduced many of the changes to the forms of theArabic letters to facilitate their work, something thatthe new conditions and necessities would haverequired for scribal work in the Medinan communityafter the emergence of Islam and the large amount ofmaterial that had to be constantly and continuouslyrecorded.

Fig. 36.

Photo of the Umm al-Jimal second inscription.

Fig. 37.

Tracing of the Umm al-Jimal second inscription.

Fig. 38.

Reading of the Umm al-Jimal second inscription.

A. I. GHABBAN

232

Finally, one should take note of the considerablesimilarity between the letter forms of the Ahnaspapyrus and those of the Zuhayr inscription despitethe different materials that they are written on,papyrus and stone. The difference in the materialbearing the text did not impact much upon the basicfeatures of their script. Perhaps this may be attrib-uted to the fact that their script is of the curvedMedinese H

_ijazi type, as mentioned above, and to

the closeness in time of their execution. The onlyletter that differs in form between the papyrus andthe inscription is the reverting ya’, which is used inthe inscription but not in the papyrus.

Comments by Robert HoylandThe inscription found by ‘Ali Ghabban and H

_ayat

bint ‘Abdallah al-Kilabi and the above study raisesome very interesting questions and we are verygrateful to them both for their labours. Here I willtouch briefly on some of these questions and alsorefer to some recent relevant Western publications tocomplement Dr Ghabban’s very useful references torecent Middle Eastern publications on this subject.

The reform of the Arabic scriptThere are two innovative features of the documentsof the first few decades of Islam that are perhaps notgiven enough attention, namely that they are datedto the same new era (beginning in 622 CE) andwritten in an Arabic language and script that isstartlingly uniform. Both of these features arepresent in the Zuhayr inscription, but it is thelatter that we will concentrate on here, as it is theprimary focus of Dr Ghabban’s article. There is, asDr Ghabban notes above, hardly any difference inletter forms between the Zuhayr inscription and theAhnas papyrus. Both texts also attest to a system ofdiacritical marks being used on papyri and inscrip-tions already in the 20s AH ⁄ 640s CE; although thedots are not used all the time as in later Arabic, theyare used on the same letters as in later Arabic, and soit is evidently the same system (Jones 1998); more-over they are used with purpose rather thanrandomly (Kaplony 2008). And there are a numberof other signs of an attempt to reform the Arabicscript. For example, there was evidently a move tostandardise the writing of the feminine ending as aclosed rather than an open t�a’ even in construct (i.e.

when linked to a following noun). The Ahnaspapyrus only has the closed ta’ ( ); thesecond Zuhayr inscription, however, has both forms( ), a testimony to the transformation inprogress. Long ‘a’ (�a) was also the object of regular-isation. Whereas in pre-Islamic texts, medial �a isnever written (e.g. in the H

_arran inscription: Z

_lmw

for Z_�alim; Jabal Usays: al-H

_rth for al-H

_�arith; Zebed:

Mnfw for Man�af and al-‘lh for al-‘l�ah), this changesunder Islam and �a becomes more commonlydenoted by alif, although this is a much moregradual change (Diem 1976). This prompts us toask what or who was responsible for this reform ofthe language.

Two of the most important pre-Islamic Arabictexts, Nemara (the epitaph of ‘lmru’ al-Qays son of‘Amr, King of all the Arabs’, dated AD 328) andJabal Says, were composed by agents of Arab kings,and the H

_arran text at the behest of a phylarch

(noted in the Greek part of the text). It makes sensethat it would be such characters who would havepromoted the writing of Arabic, endowed as theywere with a measure of power and resources andperhaps also with a sense of Arab identity (espe-cially if the reading ‘king of all the Arabs’ is correctfor the Nemara text). Since some were importantallies of Rome, it would also be natural to supposethat they had at least a rudimentary administration,and therefore scribes at their disposal (Hoyland2007). Certainly they were called upon to arbitrate inlocal disputes — for example, according to apapyrus from Petra, the Ghassanid phylarch wasinstrumental in the settlement of a contest betweentwo church deacons concerning the sale of a vine-yard (Kaimio 2001). Moreover, there are manyaccounts that relate, in a somewhat legendarycharacter, how such kings spent their subsidies inimitating their imperial overlords, establishing lux-urious courts and offering patronage to artists, apractice with a long history among imperial vassalstates. Yet, allowing for some exaggeration, it is veryplausible that such rulers established some sort of apolitical and administrative structure and patron-ised a degree of learning. One could thus easilyimagine such leaders to have been behind attemptsto regularise the writing of Arabic.

There are, it is true, numerous references to writingand writing materials in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry(Jones 2003). There is even a possible allusion to the


233

use of diacritical marks in a line of the pre-IslamicArab poet Labid, which runs: li-Asma’a rasmun ka-l-s_ah

_ifati a’jama and has been translated: ‘There is a trace

[of daily activites on the ground where her tent waspitched, RGH] belonging to Asma like a page that hasbeen dotted’ (Lyons 1999). However, diacriticalmarks do not appear at all on any of the four sixth-century Arabic inscriptions from Syria (Zebed, JabalUsays, H

_arran and Mount Nebo), nor on the Umm al-

Jimal inscription, which is likely to be from fourth–sixth-century Syria. It may be more plausible to argue,therefore, that these marks were introduced as part ofa reform of the Arabic script by the early Medinancaliphate (Robin 2006). It is certainly reasonable toargue that such a reform would have been deemednecessary because of the considerable amount ofcorrespondence generated by the Medinan caliph-ate’s waging of war across the whole of the MiddleEast in the AD 630s, in particular ensuring supplylines for the troops. In any case, the substantialharmonization of the script, apparent from the Zuh-ayr inscription, the Ahnas papyrus and other texts ofthe first decades of Islam, and its obviously successfulimplementation (given the small degree of deviancein the written record) hints at a considerable degree ofcentral control.

The use of diacritical marks and the writing of theQur’anA number of the contributors to the CambridgeCompanion to the Qur’an (McAuliffe 2006) make thestatement that ‘in the first century [AH] and evenlater Arabic was written in a scriptio defectiva’,‘without distinguishing between consonants of asimilar shape’, i.e. ‘a number of consonants wererendered by a single homograph that only laterwas differentiated through points placed above orbelow the letter form’ (2006: 47, 68, 99; cf. pp. 32,116–117, 146, 212). What the authors in thisCambridge Companion are claiming is that it is adefective Arabic script that explains deviant read-ings in the Qur’an and the difficulty in establish-ing a canonical text. Yet we know from the Zuhayrinscription and other contemporary texts that thesediacritical points were used from as early as the20s AH (AD 640s). So, were diacritical marks usedin the writing of the earliest Qur’ans? If they were,then, as can be seen from the quotations from theCambridge Companion above, Western scholars

would at least have to revise many of theirtheories of the transmission of the Qur’an (andthe whole field of scholarship that involves rear-ranging the diacritical marks of words in theQur’an to get a more ‘reasonable’ reading wouldat the very best have to be reassessed). But if not,why, given that there did exist a system ofdiacritical marks that was used for official corre-spondence and personal inscriptions, was it notemployed for writing early Qur’ans? Some of theclassical Muslim sources allege that the Compan-ions of Muh

_ammad removed the diacritical marks

(jarraduha) from the Qur’ans they had put together,as Dr Ghabban has noted above. This implies thatthe marks were on the individual pages (s

_uh

_uf)

from which they had compiled the complete text,but that the Companions deliberately removedthem, or at least stopped them being applied tothe Qur’ans, so that the Qur’an could be read insubtly different ways — seven different ways infact, the number of different ways of reading theQur’an that were sanctioned by God. This may, ofcourse, be a pious fiction to ground the variantreadings of the Qur’an in the practice of theCompanions themselves. Unfortunately, in theabsence of any Qur’ans firmly dated to the firstcentury AH, it is difficult for us to be sure.Numerous ones are said to be dated to the firstcentury (http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Qur-an/Text/Mss/ gives eleven examples; interest-ingly, all but one bear dots on some letters35),but the dating is always by script (i.e. no actualdate is written on the text itself) and by compar-ison with other Qur’an manuscripts (e.g. Dutton2004). Inevitably, this only gives us a chronologicalrange rather than a fixed date. However, thecomparative analysis of early Qur’anic manuscriptsis becoming ever more sophisticated and it seemsthat we can now arrange some of the early Qur’anfolios in chronological order starting from the mid-first century AH ⁄ AD 670s (Deroche 2002 and moregenerally Deroche 2005). What can be said is thatthere are definite indications that the Qur’an wastreated as a special case, distinct from documents

35 By contrast, the only clearly dated pieces of Qur’an textwe do have, two inscriptions from the area of Meccabearing verses of the Qur’an and dated 80 AH, do nothave diacritical marks (Fahmi 1407 ⁄ 1987).

A. I. GHABBAN

234

and inscriptions. For example, as mentionedabove, the pre-Islamic practice of not writingmedial �a was changed before or during the reignof ‘Umar I (634–644), deploying alif for thispurpose (freed up by the decline in the use ofhamza, which alif had originally represented), butthe pre-Islamic practice is followed in earlyQur’ans (though sometimes ya’ and waw are used),perhaps indicating a very conservative attitudetowards the writing down of the Qur’an.

’Umar IIt seems all but certain that the ‘Umar mentionedin the Zuhayr inscription refers to the caliph‘Umar, second ruler of the Muslim polity, since24 AH ⁄ 644 AD was indeed the year of his deathand it is hard to imagine any other ‘Umar beingfamous enough to be alluded to in this waywithout the need for any further clarification. Andyet the absence of any epithet or title is striking.One is reminded of the picture presented of ‘Umarin the Muslim sources as being of ascetic tenden-cies, spurning the luxuries and vanities of thisworld, as in the following:

The kings of Persia and Byzantium marvelled atthe Muslim ruler and the fact that he went out,dressed in rags, to vanquish tyrants, people ofentrenched kingship, skilled administrators, pol-iticians and financiers. It reached them thattreasures were being brought to ‘Umar and thathe distributed them instead of storing them upand that somebody had said: Oh commander ofthe believers, would it not be a good idea to storeup this wealth for emergencies that might arise,and that ‘Umar had replied: This is an idea thatSatan has put into your head. It would not affectme adversely, but it would be a temptation forthose who come after me (‘Abd al-Jabbar 1966:328–329).

But what was the nature of ‘Umar’s office, and of theearly Islamic ruler in general? Crone and Hinds havecollected numerous Muslim sources that give ‘theofficial title of the Umayyad head of state’, from 644onwards, as khalifat Allah, ‘deputy of God’, which, asthey note, ‘implies a strong claim to religiousauthority’ (1986: 11, 5). They oppose the claim ofthese same sources, however, that Abu Bakr and

‘Umar took the title khalifat rasul Allah, ‘deputy of themessenger of God’ (i.e. deputy of Muh

_ammad) and

rejected that of ‘deputy of God’, averring that theywere successors of Muh

_ammad and no more than

that. It is true that this does sound like a piousattempt to contrast the humility of the first twoMuslim rulers with the arrogance and presumptionof the Umayyad dynasty.36 However, there are someoddities about the title khalifat Allah too. If it wasreally the most basic title of the Muslim ruler, whywas it so rarely used in inscriptions and documents(Crone and Hinds put literary and documentaryevidence on the same footing, so this disparity doesnot stand out in their survey of the use of the title)?For example, in the first 200 years of Islam it wasonly used by one ruler, ‘Abd al-Malik, and then onlyon one medium, coins37 — even rebels who mintedcoins in this period only aspired to be ‘commanderof the believers’ (thus the Kharijite Qat

_ari ibn Fuja’a).

Crone has generally argued, very persuasively, infavour of the gradual evolution of Islamic institu-tions and against the idea of institutions emerging infull bloom at the beginning of Islam, so should wenot assume the same here? Would not a claim to anall-powerful religio-political office from as early as644, one that superseded prophethood,38 haveseemed somewhat presumptuous and been difficultto establish when the memory of Muh

_ammad was

still so recent? Certainly, the absence of titles in theaforementioned epigraphic reference to ‘Umar(assuming it is genuinely about him) bespeaks amodest conception of rule, but it is unique, and sothere is little more we can say at present.

36 Though there are also references (collected by Hakim2005) to ‘Umar and Abu Bakr accepting the title khalifatAllah.

37 On buildings, milestones and documents he used ‘com-mander of the believers’ and others referred to him thus;e.g. al-Rashid 1416 ⁄ 1995, no. 59: ‘May God incline unto(S_all�a Allah ‘al�a) the servant of God ‘Abd al-Malik com-

mander of the believers’.38 See Crone & Hinds 1986: ch. 3, for this vision of the

caliphate; they do note that Abu Bakr and ‘Umar mayhave been different from their successors (ibid. 111–115),but perhaps one should extend the formative period of theoffice of the caliphate to the time of ‘Abd al-Malik (so washe the first to use the title khalifat Allah as the numismaticrecord implies and as is argued by Landau-Tasseron[2000: esp. 212–213]?).


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