QMI-INS-010b · 65 AH
Inscription of Maslamah ibn Muslim al-Madanī, Paphos (Cyprus)
نقش مسلمة بن مسلم المدني، بافوس (قبرص)
Nea Paphos (Kato Paphos), south-west Cyprus; Basilica of Chrysopolitissa, central aisle, southern colonnade, third column from the east
- كتب
- مسلمة
- بن مسلم
- المد
- ني
- من أهل إفريقية
- و[...] بمصر
- [...]
- خمس وستين
Wrote Maslamah son of Muslim al-Mad- -anī, of the people of Ifrīqiyah, and [...] in Egypt. [...] Five and sixty.
A graffito signed by Maslamah ibn Muslim al-Madanī, cut into the third granite column from the east of the southern colonnade of the central aisle of the Basilica of Chrysopolitissa at Nea Paphos, on the south-west coast of Cyprus, 1.58 m above the ground. It opens with the signature verb kataba, “wrote”, followed by the name over three lines, the nisbah al-Madanī being divided between lines 4 and 5. The writer then states that he is “of the people of Ifrīqiyah”; the next line mentions Egypt (bi-Miṣr) after a lost word, and one line is illegible. The text closes with the date written out in words, “five and sixty”, without the word sanah: 65 AH (684–685 CE), the year in which the caliphate passed from Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam to ʿAbd al-Malik.
Source: Foulias, Andreas, and Hossam Tantawy. “An Archaeological-Historical Study for Some Arabic Inscriptions from Cyprus.” Journal of Medieval and Islamic History 16 (Ain Shams University, 2023): 43–66, at 47, Chrysopolitissa inscription no. 1, pl. 3. On the Paphos inscriptions see also Aisha S. Abul-Jadayel, Ibrahim Fadel and Muhammad ʿUthman, “Five Arabic Inscriptions from Paphos,” in V. Christides, The Image of Cyprus in the Arabic Sources (Nicosia, 2006), 115–122; A. H. S. Megaw, “A Muslim Tombstone from Paphos,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1950): 108–109.