QMI-INS-055ad · 105–125 AH
Inscription of the Meadow of ʿAwsajah, al-ʿUlā
نقش مرج عوسجة، العلا
al-ʿUlā, Saudi Arabia (exact find-spot unrecorded)
- هذا المرج لعوسجة
- قضا له به هشام أمير ا
- لمؤمنين
This meadow (al-marj) is ʿAwsajah’s; Hishām, Commander of the Faithful, awarded it to him by judgment.
A short text carved on a rock face at al-ʿUlā recording that a meadow (marj) belongs to a man named ʿAwsajah, by award of the caliph Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik. It carries no date; because it names Hishām as Commander of the Faithful it belongs to his caliphate, 105–125 AH (724–743 CE). The verb qaḍā lahu bihi (“he adjudged it to him”) is a legal one, and the text reads as a record of a judgment or grant of grazing land by the caliph himself, set up where the beneficiary could point to it. The spelling qaḍā with a final alif is archaic, and the word al-muʾminīn is divided across the line end (amīr a-/l-muʾminīn).
Source: Sulaymān al-Mayhūbī (@alulawildlife), post on X, 21 August 2021. Reading as supplied for the catalog.