QMI-INS-055agb · 113 AH
Inscription of Ḥafṣ ibn ʿAbdallāh, Jabal Usays
نقش حفص بن عبد الله، جبل أسيس
Jabal Usays, Syria; now in the National Museum, Damascus (inv. ʿ/15106)
- اللهم أصلح عبدك
- حفص بن عبد الله وكتب
- في ذي القعدة سنة ثلث
- عشرة ومائة
O God, set right Your servant Ḥafṣ ibn ʿAbdallāh. And he wrote [this] in Dhū al-Qaʿdah of the year thir- teen and one hundred.
A short prayer from Jabal Usays, asking God to “set right” ( aṣliḥ ) His servant Ḥafṣ ibn ʿAbdallāh, dated Dhū al-Qaʿdah 113 AH. The verb asks for more than forgiveness: it is a prayer that the man’s life and affairs be made sound. The number “three” is written thlth , without the long alif , as usual in first- and second-century dates. The slab was later taken to the National Museum in Damascus.
Six years later, in the same month of Dhū al-Qaʿdah, a man named Ḥafṣ cut a profession of faith at the same site ( QMI-INS-055kb ). The name, the place and the month invite the thought that both are by one hand, though the later text gives no father’s name and the identification remains open. Both come from the same publication as the inscription of ʿAlī ibn ʿAbdallāh of 93 AH ( QMI-INS-041 ). The image is the editor’s facsimile, not a photograph.
Source: Abū al-Faraj al-ʿUsh, Muḥammad. "Kitābāt ʿArabīyah Ghayr Manshūrah fī Jabal Usays." Majallat al-Abḥāth 17, no. 3 (September 1964): 361, text no. 42, plate 26. National Museum, Damascus, inv. ʿ/15106.