QMI-INS-028 · 81 AH
Inscription of Qaṣr al-Burquʿ
نقش قصر البرقع
Qāʿ al-Muʿtadil, Darb al-Ḥajj
- يا الله بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم هذا ما
- بنا الأمير الوليد بن أمير المؤمنين هو
- لا (هؤلاء) البيوت سنة احدى وثمنين (ثمانين)
O God. In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. This is what the Amīr al-Walīd, son of the Commander of the Faithful, built — these houses, in the year eighty-one.
Records construction work commissioned by "the Amīr al-Walīd, son of the Commander of the Faithful" — almost certainly the future Umayyad caliph al-Walīd ibn ʿAbd al-Malik (r. 86–96 AH), here still a prince, referred to through his father ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān's caliphal title rather than by his own name alone. A rare inscription documenting an Umayyad ruling family building project outside the major cities.
Source: Gruendler, Beatrice. The Development of the Arabic Scripts: From the Nabatean Era to the First Islamic Century According to the Dated Texts. Harvard Semitic Series No. 43. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1993, pp. 18–19.