QMI-INS-009h · c. 30–70 AH
Prayer for Forgiveness for ʿAṭāʾ ibn Qays and ʿĀʾishah, Wife of the Prophet
نقش «اللهم اغفر لعطاء ابن قيس ولعائشة زوج النبي»
Not yet recorded
- اللهم اغفر لعطاء ابن قيس
- ولعئشة (ولعائشة) زوج النبي
O God, forgive ʿAṭāʾ ibn Qays and ʿĀʾishah, the wife of the Prophet.
On a dark, weathered rock face, a writer asked God’s forgiveness for two people: “O God, forgive ʿAṭāʾ ibn Qays, and ʿĀʾishah, the wife of the Prophet”. The first is presumably the writer himself, or a man close to him; the second is named not by her father but by her place as the Prophet’s wife, zawj al-nabī, the title by which the community knew her. Prayers that name a wife of the Prophet are rare among the early inscriptions.
Photograph: not yet credited. Dating: QMI. On ʿAṭāʾ ibn Qays al-Sahmī: al-Zubayr ibn Bakkār, as quoted in the biographical dictionaries of the Companions.