QMI-INS-050b · 98 AH
Inscription of al-Ḥakam ibn al-Ḥakam, Kos
نقش الحكم بن الحكم، قوص
Psalidi, Church of Saint Gabriel, Kos (Cos), Dodecanese, Greece
- الحكم بن الحكم بالله واثق
- في المحرم من سنة ثمان
- وتسعين وكتب
- مخلوف
Al-Ḥakam b. al-Ḥakam: trust in God! In Muḥarram of the year eight and ninety, and wrote Makhlūf.
A profession of faith dated to Muḥarram 98 AH (August–September 716 CE), cut into the first column of the Church of Saint Gabriel at Psalidi, near Kos. The writer, al-Ḥakam ibn al-Ḥakam, expresses trust in God (wāthiq bi-llāh). The formula is built on the root w-th-q, meaning trust or covenant, and was very common in the Near East; Imbert notes that this example is dated, which is rare.
Source: Imbert, Frédéric. “Graffiti arabes de Cnide et de Kos : premières traces épigraphiques de la conquête musulmane en mer Égée.” In Constructing the Seventh Century, ed. Constantin Zuckerman, Travaux et Mémoires 17 (Paris, 2013), 731–758, 746–751, graffito K3, photo 10, fig. 10. The text is marked there as unpublished before this study (graffito inédit).