QMI-INS-010 · 64 AH
Ḥafnat al-Abyaḍ Inscription
نقش حفنة الأبيض
Wādī al-Abyaḍ, near Karbalāʾ, Iraq
- بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
- الله وكبر (أكبر) كبيرا وا
- لحمد لله كثيرا وسبحن (وسبحان) ا
- لله بكرة وأصيلا وليلا
- طويلا اللهم رب
- جبريل وميكل (وميكال) واسر
- فيل اغفر لثبت (لثابت) بن يزيد
- الأشعري ما تقدم من
- ذنبه وما تأخر ولمن قال
- آمين آمين رب العلمين (العالمين)
- وكتب هذا الكتب (الكتاب) في
- شوال من سنة أربع و
- ستين
In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. God is greater, greatly, and praise be to God abundantly, and glory to God morning and evening and night long. O God, Lord of Gabriel, Michael and Isrāfīl, forgive Thābit ibn Yazīd al-Ashʿarī his past and future sins, and whoever says 'āmīn, āmīn,' Lord of the Worlds. And this writing was written in Shawwāl of the year four and sixty.
Discovered in 1949 west of Karbalāʾ, Iraq, by Sayyid ʿIzz al-Dīn al-Ṣundūq, at a spot called Ḥafnat al-Abyaḍ. The text is split into two blocks — ten lines and three — because the rock surface was uneven. It opens with the takbīr and taḥmīd formulas and closes with a prayer echoing a hadith invocation the Prophet used to open night prayer ("O God, Lord of Gabriel, Michael and Isrāfīl..."); the phrase "his past and future sins" echoes Qurʾān 48:2. A rectangular mark in line 5 resembles a Qurʾanic verse-end marker. A plaster cast of the inscription is preserved in the Iraq Museum.
Source: al-Ṣundūq, ʿIzz al-Dīn. "Ḥajar Ḥafnat al-Abyaḍ." Sumer 5 (1949): 213–214.