QMI-INS-050l · c. 85–110 AH
Prayer for Mercy on Ṣafiyyah bint Shaybah ibn ʿUthmān, Wādī al-ʿUsaylah (Makkah)
نقش صفية بنت شيبة بن عثمان، وادي العسيلة
Wādī al-ʿUsaylah, Makkah region, Saudi Arabia
- رحمت (رحمة) الله علا (على)
- صفية بنت شيبة
- بن عثمن (عثمان) وكتب
- أبو عدي
The mercy of God be upon Ṣafiyyah bint Shaybah ibn ʿUthmān. And [this] was written by Abū ʿAdī.
In Wādī al-ʿUsaylah, near Makkah, a writer who gives only his kunyah, Abū ʿAdī, carved four lines asking God’s mercy on a woman: “The mercy of God be upon Ṣafiyyah bint Shaybah ibn ʿUthmān”. It is one of the few texts in the catalog that names a woman, and here the prayer is for her and not for the writer. The valley holds the dated Qurʾānic inscriptions of ʿUthmān ibn Wahrān of 80 AH and of Umayyah ibn ʿAbd al-Malik of 98 AH (QMI-INS-025, QMI-INS-046).
Photograph: Walīd ʿAbd al-Muḥsin. Dating: QMI. On Ṣafiyyah bint Shaybah: Ibn Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt al-kubrā; Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, al-Istīʿāb; Ibn al-Athīr, Usd al-ghābah; Ibn Ḥajar, Tahdhīb al-tahdhīb and Taqrīb al-tahdhīb.