QMI-INS-004a · After 35 AH
Inscription of Qays the Scribe
نقش قيس الكاتب أبو كثير
Near Taymāʾ, Saudi Arabia (documented in the 2013 epigraphic campaign, TS-13-al-Ṭulaylāt-III-Ar.1)
- أنا قيس
- الكاتب أبو كثير
- لعن الله من قتل عثمان بن عفان
- ومن أحب قتله يقتلا
I am Qays the scribe, Abū Kuthayr. May God curse whoever killed ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān, and [those who] urged his killing, without mercy.
The graffito opens with anā and the author’s name, as in older graffiti, where the carver records his name before the event he has chosen to mention. Unlike Zuhayr ( QMI-INS-001 ), who dated his inscription by the death of ʿUmar without naming the killing, Qays states the murder outright. The formula echoes Q 33:61, which promises the cursed hypocrites of Medina that they will be seized and killed without mercy ( quttilū taqtīlan ). The author applies that verse to the murder of ʿUthmān, on the eve of the first civil war.
The graffito carries no date. Its terminus post quem is the murder of ʿUthmān in Dhū l-Ḥijjah 35 AH (June 656), which is why the entry is dated by event. Frédéric Imbert suggests the curse was directed at the insurgents and at those who benefited from the murder, among them partisans of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib and some Medinans. ʿUthmān is named as the son of ʿAffān here, while the appointment inscription ( QMI-INS-002 ) names him only by patronymic.
Qays names himself by his occupation, al-kātib ; so does Yazīd al-Naqqāsh (“the Engraver”), whose dated profession of faith is QMI-INS-036a .
The same year is named in the graffito of al-Ḥārith ibn Būlī dated “at the time of the rebellion of Egypt” ( QMI-INS-004b ).
Source: Imbert, Frédéric. “Califes, princes et poètes dans les graffiti du début de l’Islam.” In George Grigore et al. (eds.), Graffiti, Writing and Street Art in the Arab World , Romano-Arabica XV (Bucharest: Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti, 2015), pp. 64–65. The photograph is credited to M.C.A. Macdonald, presented in the article by permission.