QMI-INS-040 · 92 AH
Inscription of Qaṣr al-Kharrānah
نقش قصر الخرّانة
Qaṣr al-Kharrānah, Jordan
- اللهم ارحم عبد الملك بن عمر واغفر له
- ذنبه ما تقدم منه وما تأخر من ما أسر وما أعلن
- وما أنت أعلم به، إن لم تغفر لي وترحمني
- أكن من الخاسرين، ربّ تمنّ عليّ إنك أنت المنّان وترحمني
- فإنك أنت الرحمن اللهم إني اسألك أن
- تقبل منه ]صـ[لاته وهيابته آمين رب العلمين رب
- موسى وهرون رحم الله من قرأه ثم قال آمين آمين رب
- العـ]لمـ[ين العزيز العظيم وكتب عبد الملك بن عمر يوم
- الاثنين لثلث بقين من المحرّم من سنة اثنين وتسعين
- اللهم اغفر لأم […] واسرح بنا أن نجتمع بنبي ونبيه في الدنيا
- والآخرة
O God, have mercy on ʿAbd al-Malik ibn ʿUmar and forgive him his sin, what came before and what came after, what he kept secret and what he made known, and what You alone know. If You do not forgive me and have mercy on me, I would be among the losers. Lord, bestow Your favor upon me; You are the Bestower, and have mercy on me, me, for You are the Merciful. O God, I ask You to accept from him his prayer and reverence [for You] — āmīn, Lord of the Worlds, Lord of Moses and Aaron. May God have mercy on whoever reads it and then says āmīn, āmīn, Lord of the Worlds, the Mighty, the Majestic. And ʿAbd al-Malik ibn ʿUmar wrote [this] on Monday, three [nights] remaining of al-Muḥarram, in the year ninety-two (24 November 710), O God, forgive Umm […], and let us be gathered with my Prophet and his, in this world and the next.
One of the best-known early Islamic inscriptions outside the Arabian Peninsula. It is painted in ink on the north wall of Room 51 at Qaṣr al-Kharrānah, a desert palace in Jordan that is often, though not conclusively, linked to the Umayyads. Nabia Abbott published the first nearly complete reading in 1946. Frédéric Imbert's 1995 study records the inscription as 60 × 26 cm, set 246 cm above the floor above the door, and describes it as archaic Umayyad Kūfī written in ink. The ink is fading, and several words remain uncertain (marked with brackets above). It is longer and more elaborate than most inscriptions in this catalog, and it invokes Moses and Aaron by name.
Sources: Abbott, Nabia. “The Ḳaṣr Kharāna Inscription of 92 H. (710 A.D.), a New Reading.” Ars Islamica 11–12 (1946): 190–195, at p. 192. — Imbert, Frédéric. “Inscriptions et espaces d’écriture au palais d’al-Kharrāna en Jordanie.” In Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan V, 403 ff. Amman, 1995, at pp. 404–406.