An Inscription Written By A Client Of ʿUrwa b. Al-Zubayr, 80 AH / 699-700 CE
Islamic Awareness
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First Composed: 1st December 2017
Last Modified: 26th April 2020
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Assalamu ʿalaykum wa rahamatullahi wa barakatuhu:
(a)
(b)
(c)
Figure (a) photo of original inscription, (b) its trace, and (c) its transcription.
Date
80 AH / 699-700 CE.
Accession Number
Not available.
Size
40 cm x 190 cm.
Script
Kufic script.
Contents
The translation of the inscription is given below:
- I am Ḥabīb bin Abī Ḥabīb mawla of ʿUrwa b. al-Zubayr.
- I ask God to make my death being killed in His path
- and I ask him to make me from those guided. God have mercy on
- whoever says Amīn! And written in the year eighty.
Comments
This inscription written by an individual called Ḥabīb who was a client of ʿUrwa b. al-Zubayr, a well-known personality of early Islam. The writer is supplicating for his guidance and that his death be upon the path of God. There is also an inscription by ʿUmar bin ʿAbdullāh, one of the descendants of ʿUrwa b. al-Zubayr dated 96 AH.
ʿUrwa b. al-Zubayr, a famous jurist from Madinah, was the brother of ʿAbd Allah b. al-Zubayr and cousin of Muṣʿab b. al-Zubayr, the latter two struck Arab-Sassanian coins in their names.
The inscription has been spray painted by those who visited the site but fortunately with little damage to the original text.
Location
Hisma Plateau, Tabūk region, N. W. Saudi Arabia.
References
[1] Maysa bint ʿAlī Ibrāhīm al-Ghabbān, Early Islamic Inscriptions In Hisma Plateau-Tabouk Region - Archaeological And Linguistic Analytic Study (Ph.D. Thesis), 2016, King Saud University: Riyadh, pp. 207, 866 (Inscription No. 139).
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