QMI-INS-000 · c. 9 AH?
Inscription of Abū Bakr
نقش أبي بكر
al-Qaṭṭār, Bajda Mountains, Ḥismā plateau, about 124 km west of Tabūk (NEOM region)
- مر أبو بكر في غزة (غزاة) أهل المدينة
- [رحم] الله من دعا لهم
Abū Bakr marched with the military expedition of the people of al-Madīna. May God [have mercy] upon those who prayed for them.
The inscription is undated, but its features point to the very beginning of the Islamic period. The letter forms belong to the 1st century AH: the alif has a tail to the right, a feature of early Islamic writing absent from Paleo-Arabic texts such as Ḥanẓalah’s ( QMI-PRE-001 ). The editors compare it with Zuhayr ( QMI-INS-001 ), Qays the Scribe ( QMI-INS-004a ) and Shurayḥ of 43 AH, also from Ḥismā ( QMI-INS-006 ), and place it among the earliest inscriptions of the Hijra period, possibly within the Prophet’s lifetime. The wording points the same way: “the military expedition of the people of Medina” is a phrase the editors link to the expedition to Tabūk (9 AH), where the Qurʾān names ahl al-Madīna (Q 9:120).
Abū Bakr is named by his kunya alone. The editors consider Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq the most likely candidate, since he was known by this name without further lineage, but the text itself does not confirm the identification. The first editors, al-Moraekhi and el-Sawy (2018), read ghurrat ahl al-Madīna (“leading the people of Medina”) and added “ katabahu ʿUmar ” (written by ʿUmar) at the end. The new study reads ghuzāt and finds no writing after lahum , only a scratch in the rock. The opening marr (“marched, passed”) is rare in Arabic inscriptions, and the closing daʿā lahum is unique. Like ʿAbd Shams’s inscription ( QMI-PRE-002 ), it comes from the Ḥismā desert.
Source: Alhatlani, Abdullah Saad, and Husain Thaqal Alajmi. “The Abū Bakr Inscription, an Early Arabic-Islamic Inscription: An Epigraphical and Historical Study.” Arab Journal for the Humanities 44, no. 173 (2026): 245–272. DOI: 10.34120/ajh.v44i173.3555. First published by M. al-Moraekhi and A. el-Sawy (2018).