QMI-INS-007d · c. 20–70 AH
Greeting of Salamah ibn Qays to ʿAbdallāh ibn Salīṭ, al-Madīnah
نقش من سلمة بن قيس إلى عبد الله بن سليط، المدينة
al-Madīnah region, Saudi Arabia (exact site not recorded)
- بسم الله الرحمن
- الرحيم من سلمة بن
- قيس إلى عبد الله بن
- سليط سلاما عليك ور
- حمت (ورحمة) الله وبركاته
In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. From Salamah ibn Qays to ʿAbdallāh ibn Salīṭ: peace be upon you, and the mercy of God and His blessings.
On a dark stone in the al-Madīnah region, beside the carving of a camel, Salamah ibn Qays wrote a greeting to ʿAbdallāh ibn Salīṭ. It is laid out as a letter: the basmalah, then the sender and the addressee, “from Salamah ibn Qays to ʿAbdallāh ibn Salīṭ”, then the full greeting, “peace be upon you, and the mercy of God and His blessings”. The opening min fulān ilā fulān is the formula of early Arabic letters, and it is the same as in the letter of Muʿāwiyah to Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam carved at al-Ḥanākiyah, in the same region (QMI-INS-007b). Here the letter is not an order but a greeting, left on the rock for a man who would pass by.
Photograph: Muḥammad al-Mughadhdhawī, published 2017. Dating: QMI. On Salīṭ ibn Qays and his sons: Ibn Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt al-kubrā; Ibn al-Athīr, Usd al-ghābah.