QMI-INS-014b · 65–86 AH
Milestone of ʿAbd al-Malik: the fifth mile from Jerusalem, Khirbat Iqbālā
ميل عبد الملك: الميل الخامس من إيلياء، خربة إقبالا
Found in 1958 in the woods beside Khirbat Iqbālā (Aqua Bella), about 12 km west of Jerusalem, on the road to the coast; not in its original place. Israel Antiquities Authority stores
- [بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم]
- [لا إله إلا الله وحده لا]
- [شريك له محمد رسول ا]
- [لله صلى الله عليه وسلم]
- [أمر بعمارة هذا الطر]
- [يق وصنعة الأميال عبد]
- [الله عبد الملك أمير ا]
- [لمؤمنين رحمت الله عليه] من
- [إيليا إلى هذا ا]لميل خمسة
- [أمي]ال
[In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.] [There is no god but God alone; He has] [no partner. Muḥammad is the messenger of] [God, may God bless him and grant him peace.] [Has ordered the building of this road] [and the making of the milestones the servant of] [God ʿAbd al-Malik, Commander of] [the Faithful, may God’s mercy be upon him.] From [Īliyāʾ to this] milestone (there are) five [mi]les.
A fragment from the lower left corner of a marble milestone, found in 1958 by a schoolboy in the woods beside Khirbat Iqbālā (Aqua Bella), west of Jerusalem. Yitzhak Rahmani of the Department of Antiquities read “the fifth mile” on it but recorded it as a tombstone and filed his report under Abū Ghosh, so that it remained unknown for almost fifty years. Katia Cytryn-Silverman found the report during her doctoral research, and the stone itself was recovered in the stores of the Israel Antiquities Authority in December 2005.
Source: Cytryn-Silverman, Katia. “The Fifth Mīl from Jerusalem: Another Umayyad Milestone from Southern Bilād al-Shām.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 70, no. 3 (2007): 603–610, with figs. 1–2 (photograph and proposed reconstruction). Elad, Amikam. “The Southern Golan in the Early Muslim Period.” Der Islam 76 (1999): 33–88, at p. 38.