QMI-INS-016b · 76 AH
Inscription of a Friday, 76 AH, al-Madīnah
نقش يوم الجمعة سنة ست وسبعين، المدينة
al-Madīnah region
- هذا ا
- لكتب يوم الجمعة
- من سنة ست وسبعين
This wri- ting [was made] on Friday, in the year seventy-six.
A short dated record from the Medina region, cut in three lines on a dark boulder. It names no person and asks for nothing; it says only that “this writing” was made on a Friday in the year 76. The word al-kitāb is written without its long alif ( lktb ) and is divided across the line end after the first letter of the article ( a-/lktb ), a habit of early scribes also seen in the letter of Muʿāwiyah at al-Ḥanākiyah, where Marwān’s name is broken in the same way ( QMI-INS-007b ).
The day of the week is given, but not the month, which is unusual in a dated text: Friday may have been named for its own standing as the day of congregational prayer rather than as part of a full date. The year falls in the caliphate of ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān, and the inscription of ʿAmr from Wādī Malkān carries the same year ( QMI-INS-016 ). The hand is Ḥijāzī, upright and undotted.
Source: al-Mughadhdhawī, Muḥammad (@mohammed93athar), Nawādir al-āthār wa-l-nuqūsh, photograph dated 10 July 2023. Reading by Ahmed W. Shaker.