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 ).
Unlike the building texts of Hishām in this catalog, which name him as “the servant of God” ( QMI-INS-055ab , QMI-INS-055o ), this one gives only his name and title, in the manner of a ruler’s decision rather than a pious dedication. Hishām is also named in the Baysān market text ( QMI-INS-093 ) and as the father of the emir Muʿāwiya in the Andarīn tax letter ( QMI-INS-055ac ). Nothing further about ʿAwsajah or the place of the meadow is known from the material available to the catalog; the exact find-spot is unrecorded.
Hishām appears as the father of a woman who prayed on the desert routes in QMI-INS-055ae , where she gives her father’s name and title.
Source: Sulaymān al-Mayhūbī (@alulawildlife), post on X, 21 August 2021. Reading as supplied for the catalog.