QMI-INS-055ag · 110 AH
Inscription of Muḥammad ibn Kathīr, Mawlā of Saʿīd ibn al-ʿĀṣ
نقش محمد بن كثير مولى سعيد بن العاص
al-Madīnah region
- اللهم
- تغفر لمحمد
- ابن كثير ابن
- أبي حكيم مو
- لى سعيد بن العا
- ص ماتقدم من
- ذنبه وماتأخر
- آمين رب العالمين
- وكتب يوم الأ
- ربعاء لأربع عشرة
- مضين من صفر
- سنة عشرة ومئة
O God, forgive Muḥammad ibn Kathīr ibn Abī Ḥakīm, client (mawlā) of Saʿīd ibn al-ʿĀṣ, what has gone before of his sins and what has come after. Āmīn, Lord of the Worlds. And [this] was written on Wednesday, when fourteen [nights] had passed of Ṣafar, in the year ten and one hundred.
A prayer for forgiveness from the Medina region, dated to the day: Wednesday, the fourteenth of Ṣafar 110 AH (May 728 CE), in the caliphate of Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik. The writer, Muḥammad ibn Kathīr ibn Abī Ḥakīm, names himself as a client ( mawlā ) of Saʿīd ibn al-ʿĀṣ, the Qurashī governor of Kufa under ʿUthmān and of Medina under Muʿāwiyah, who died around 59 AH. Half a century after the patron’s death, the client still defines himself by that tie, which says something about how long such relationships shaped a man’s identity in Medina.
The prayer asks forgiveness for “what has gone before of his sins and what has come after”, wording drawn from Q 48:2 and found in several other texts in this catalog, from Ḥafnat al-Abyaḍ in 64 AH to Qaṣr al-Kharrānah in 92 AH ( QMI-INS-010 , QMI-INS-040 ). The verb is written taghfir (تغفر) where the imperative ighfir would be expected.
One point about the date deserves notice. By the tabular Hijri calendar, 14 Ṣafar 110 fell on a Saturday, not a Wednesday. A month that began a day early or late by sighting would move the weekday by one day, but not by three, so the weekday and the year do not agree as published. In the tabular calendar 14 Ṣafar was a Wednesday in 111 AH. The photograph is worth a careful look at the year and the day before either is taken as certain. Two other texts from the same months of 110 AH are in the catalog: a pilgrim’s note of 1 al-Muḥarram and a profession of faith of Ṣafar ( QMI-INS-055af , QMI-INS-055aaa ). A second inscription from the same rocky ground, the prayer of Nūḥ ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Duʾalī, is dated 114 AH ( QMI-INS-055ah ). A signature in the name of Saʿīd ibn al-ʿĀṣ himself is also in the catalog ( QMI-INS-000d ). The same verse of Sūrat al-Fatḥ opens a prayer for a member of the Umayyad house at Khirbat Nitil in the Balqāʾ, of about 100 AH ( QMI-INS-055ai ).
Source: Published by Muḥammad al-Mughadhdhawī, 4 November 2017 (photograph taken 3 November 2017). Reading as published.