QMI-INS-004b · c. 35 AH
Inscription of al-Ḥārith ibn Būlī: “the Time of the Rebellion of Egypt”
نقش الحارث بن بولي: زمن طغي مصر
Darb Ḥismā, north-western Arabia
- أنا الحارث بن بولي مولى عبد
- الله بن سبـ[ا]ع وكتب
- زمن طغي مصر
I am al-Ḥārith ibn Būlī, client (mawlā) of ʿAbd- allāh ibn Sibāʿ, and he wrote [this] at the time of the rebellion (ṭughy) of Egypt.
The third graffito of al-Ḥārith ibn Būlī, again on the Ḥismā road. He now calls himself the mawlā (freed client) of ʿAbdallāh ibn Sibāʿ, no longer his ghulām , which suggests he had been freed since his earlier texts ( QMI-INS-000a , QMI-INS-002a ). The hand is also firmer.
The Desert Team read the dating as “the time of the rebellion of Egypt” and refer it to the rising in Egypt in 35 AH led by Muḥammad ibn Abī Ḥudhayfah, which al-Ṭabarī puts at the head of the events of that year; the Egyptian rebels then marched on Medina, and ʿUthmān was killed in Dhū l-Ḥijjah 35 AH. The same year is the terminus of Qays’s curse on ʿUthmān’s killers ( QMI-INS-004a ).
The reading of the last line is disputed. The team note that the first letter of ṭughy could be a ṣād . Muḥammad Shafīq al-Bayṭār proposed instead zaman ṭuʿina Maṣād , “the time Maṣād was stabbed”, naming a person rather than a place; on that reading the event, and the date, would be different. The 35 AH date therefore depends on the team’s reading.
Source: Desert Team (Farīq al-Ṣaḥrāʾ), “al-Taʾrīkh bi-l-ḥawādith fī al-nuqūsh al-islāmiyyah al-mubakkirah”, alsahra.org, 4 May 2018. Reading and dating by ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Saʿīd.