QMI-INS-041 · 93 AH
Inscription of ʿAlī ibn ʿAbdallāh
نقش علي بن عبد الله
Jabal Usays, Syria
- الله لا إله إلا هو الحي ا
- لقيوم * وكتب علي بن عبد
- الله في شوال سنة
- ثلث (ثلاث) وتسعين
“God — there is no god but He, the Ever-Living, the Self-Subsisting” [Q 2:255, opening]. And ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd- allāh wrote [this], in Shawwāl of the year three and ninety.
Quotes the opening of Āyat al-Kursī (the "Throne Verse," Qurʾān 2:255), widely considered the greatest verse in the Qurʾān according to a hadith in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, in which the Prophet asks Ubayy ibn Kaʿb which verse he considers greatest and confirms his answer — this same opening line. Undated inscriptions with the same verse have been found at the same site on Jabal Usays in Syria. A small dotted circle after "al-Qayyūm" likely marks the boundary between the Qurʾanic quotation and the scribe's own words, a device also seen in the Ḥafnat al-Abyaḍ inscription (no. 10) dated 64 AH. The same site and publication preserve a profession of faith signed by Ḥafṣ in 119 AH (QMI-INS-055kb). So does a prayer for Ḥafṣ ibn ʿAbdallāh dated 113 AH (QMI-INS-055agb).
Source: Abū al-Faraj al-ʿUsh, Muḥammad. "Kitābāt ʿArabīyah Ghayr Manshūrah fī Jabal Usays." Majallat al-Abḥāth 17, no. 3 (September 1964): 241.