QMI-INS-002c · c. 28 AH
Inscription of ʿAmmār al-Laythī: “the Year of the Conquest of the Sea”
نقش عمار الليثي: عام فتح البحر
Darb Ḥismā, north-western Arabia
- أنا عمّار ابن جرا [جَزاء] اللّيثيّ
- وكتبتُ هذا عام فتح البحر
I am ʿAmmār ibn Jarā [or Jazāʾ] al-Laythī, and I wrote this in the year of the conquest of the sea.
A man of Banū Layth dates his text by “the year of the conquest of the sea” ( ʿām fatḥ al-baḥr ). The Desert Team identify it with the first Muslim naval expedition, against Cyprus. ʿUmar had refused Muʿāwiyah’s requests to campaign by sea; ʿUthmān allowed it. The fleet, led by Muʿāwiyah and joined by forces from Egypt under ʿAbdallāh ibn Abī Sarḥ, carried Companions such as ʿUbādah ibn al-Ṣāmit, Abū Ayyūb, Abū Dharr and Abū l-Dardāʾ, and the island agreed to pay tribute. Umm Ḥarām bint Milḥān died on this campaign.
Al-Ṭabarī, Khalīfah ibn Khayyāṭ, al-Balādhurī and Ibn Kathīr place the expedition in 28 AH (648–649 CE), and the team date the inscription to that year. Other reports give 25, 26, 29 or 33 AH; a second campaign against Cyprus followed in 33 AH, so the date rests on the identification of the event. Al-Kindī uses a similar phrase, “the sea expedition” ( baʿth al-baḥr ).
The father’s name is uncertain: it is read Jarā , or Jazāʾ with the dot of the zāy unwritten. The inscription is on the same rock as the “year of Ifrīqiyah” text of ʿAmr ibn Rabīʿah ( QMI-INS-002b ), dated one year earlier; together they show how the campaigns of ʿUthmān’s caliphate were used as markers of time.
Source: Desert Team (Farīq al-Ṣaḥrāʾ), “al-Taʾrīkh bi-l-ḥawādith fī al-nuqūsh al-islāmiyyah al-mubakkirah”, alsahra.org, 4 May 2018; and “Nuqūsh mutafarriqah min Ḥismā”, alsahra.org, 19 September 2018. Reading and dating by ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Saʿīd.