QMI-INS-002 · 24 AH
Inscription of ʿUthmān's Appointment
نقش تأمير عثمان
Near al-ʿUlyā Palace, Mecca
- أنا زهير آمنت با
- لله وكتبت زمن
- أمّر بن عفان سنة
- أربع وعشرين
I, Zuhayr, believe in God, and wrote [this] at the time ibn ʿAffān was appointed [caliph], year twenty-four
A second inscription by the same Zuhayr (compare no. 1), this time dated by the caliphal appointment of ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān rather than his predecessor's death — though the inscription itself names him only by patronymic ("ibn ʿAffān"), without his given name. The scribe again combines two Arab dating conventions — by event ("the appointment of ibn ʿAffān") and by numbered year ("twenty-four") — within a single short text. The inscription was discovered in 2022 by Muḥammad al-Mughadhdhawī and ʿĪd al-Yaḥyā, and later documented by the Saudi Heritage Commission (Hayʾat al-Turāth). Compare the graffito of Qays the Scribe from Taymāʾ (QMI-INS-004a), which records ʿUthmān’s murder and curses his killers. A further, undated signature of a Zuhayr, client of “the daughter of Shaybah”, lies beside the inscription of no. 1 (QMI-INS-001a).
Source: al-Ghabbān, Maysāʾ ʿAlī. "al-Naqsh al-Thālith li-Zuhayr al-Muʾarrakh bi-Sanat 24 Hijrī/644 Mīlādī min Khilāfat ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān Raḍiya Allāh ʿAnhu: Dirāsah Taḥlīlīyah Muqāranah." Majallat al-Muʾarrikh al-ʿArabī, vol. 1, no. 32 (2024): 267–310.