QMI-INS-055ae · 105–125 AH
Inscription of Umm Salamah bint Hishām
نقش أم سلمة بنت هشام
Desert route, north-western Arabia (exact site not named in the publication)
- اللهم اصحب أم
- سلمة ابنت هشام
- أمير المؤمنين صحبة
- دائمة … سهل؟ … الله …
O God, accompany Umm Salama, daughter of Hishām, Commander of the Faithful, with a companionship lasting … (uncertain) … God …
A short prayer by a woman who names herself by her father: Umm Salamah, daughter of Hishām, Commander of the Faithful. It asks God to accompany her with a lasting companionship (ṣuḥbah dāʾimah), a travelling prayer of the kind cut along the desert routes. The last line is badly eroded and is read only in part. The word “daughter” is spelled ibnat, with a final tāʾ, an archaic spelling. The text carries no date. Because it names Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik as Commander of the Faithful it belongs to his caliphate, 105–125 AH (724–743 CE).
Source: Desert Team (Farīq al-Ṣaḥrāʾ), “Nuqūsh nisāʾiyyah ʿalā ṭuruq al-qawāfil”, alsahra.org, 5 September 2016 (updated). Reading by Muḥammad Shafīq al-Bayṭār.