QMI-INS-000b · Early 1st c. AH
Inscription of ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAlqamah
نقش عبد الله بن علقمة
Darb Ḥismā, north-western Arabia
- بسمك اللهم
- انا عبدالله بن علقمة
- اوصي ببر الله والرحم لـ
- [..] عه لديك؟
In Your name, O God. I am ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAlqamah. I enjoin dutifulness to God and to kin (al-raḥim) … […] with You (?)
A short text that opens with the old Meccan formula bismika Allāhumma, “in Your name, O God”, and then gives the writer’s bequest, “I enjoin dutifulness to God and to kin”. The opening is the one Suhayl ibn ʿAmr asked to be written at al-Ḥudaybiyah in place of the basmala, and it is usually taken as a sign of pre-Islamic date (compare QMI-PRE-002). The bequest, however, is the Islamic formula of the early rock inscriptions, found for example in the text of Shurayḥ dated 43 AH (QMI-INS-006).
Source: Desert Team (Farīq al-Ṣaḥrāʾ), “Nuqūsh wa-ḥikāyāt min zaman al-ṣaḥābah wa-l-tābiʿīn”, alsahra.org, 4 June 2025, no. 1. Reading by ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Saʿīd.