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 ا
- لكتب (لكاتب) أبو
- كثير لعن ا
- لله من قتل
- عثمن (عثمان) بن عفان
- ومن أحب قتله
- تقتيلا
I am Qays the scribe, Abū Kuthayr. May God curse whoever killed ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān and whoever loved his killing: [may they be] killed 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 last line takes up the Qurʾānic word itself, taqtīlan. Qays writes al-kātib and ʿUthmān without the long alif (لكتب, عثمن) and divides words between lines (ا / لكتب, ا / لله), as in other early texts. The author applies that verse to the murder of ʿUthmān, on the eve of the first civil war.
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.