QMI-INS-025 · 80 AH
First Inscription of ʿUthmān ibn Wahrān
نقش عثمان بن وهران الأول
Wādī al-ʿUsaylah
- الله لا إله إلا هو
- ليجمعنكم الى
- يوم القيامة لا ر
- يب فيه ومن أصد
- ق من الله حديثا
- وكتب عثمن (عثمان) بن
- وهرن (وهران) في سنة ثمنين (ثمانين)
“God — there is no god but He. He will surely gather you to the Day of Resurrection, about which there is no doubt. And who is more truthful than God in speech?” [Q 4:87]. And ʿUthmān ibn Wahrān wrote [this] in the year eighty.
The first of three inscriptions at Wādī al-ʿUsaylah left by the same ʿUthmān ibn Wahrān, each quoting a different Qurʾanic passage — this one from Sūrat al-Nisāʾ (4:87). Described in the book as Makkī (Meccan) script, distinguishing it from the more common Ḥijāzī hand elsewhere in this corpus. A previous reader, Dr. Sāmiḥ ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Fahmī, misread the final line as "wa-hādhā" ("and this") instead of the correct "Wahrān," the scribe's own name.
Source: al-Rāshid, Saʿd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. Kitābāt Islāmīyah min Makkah al-Mukarramah: Dirāsah wa-Taḥqīq. al-Riyāḍ: Maktabat al-Malik Fahd al-Waṭanīyah, 1995, pp. 26–29, 55–57, 60–66, 160–164; al-Ḥārithī, Nāṣir ibn ʿAlī, and ʿĀdil Muḥammad Nūr Ghubāshī. "Nuqūsh Islāmīyah Mubakkirah bi-Wādī al-ʿUsaylah bi-Makkah al-Mukarramah." ʿĀlam al-Makhṭūṭāt wa-al-Nawādir 2, no. 1 (Muḥarram–Jumādā al-Ākhirah 1418 AH / May–October 1997): 12–56.