QMI-INS-055kb · 119 AH
Inscription of Ḥafṣ, Jabal Usays
نقش حفص، جبل أسيس
Jabal Usays, Syria
- ربي الله وديني
- الاسلام عليه توكلت
- واليه انيب واليه ا
- لمصير وكتب حفص في
- ذي العقدة (كذا) سنة تسع
- عشرة ومائة
- من محاه وا
- خزاه الله
- في الآخر
- ة آمين
My Lord is God, and my religion is Islam. In Him I trust, and to Him I turn, and to Him is the return. And Ḥafṣ wrote [this] in Dhū al-Qaʿdah (sic) of the year nine- teen and one hundred. Whoever erases it, may God disgrace him in the hereaf- ter. Amen.
A profession of faith cut at Jabal Usays, in the basalt country south-east of Damascus, by one Ḥafṣ in Dhū al-Qaʿdah 119 AH. Its opening joins a short creed, “my Lord is God and my religion is Islam”, to Qurʾānic wording: ʿalayhi tawakkaltu wa-ilayhi unību recalls Q 42:10, “That is God, my Lord; in Him I trust and to Him I turn”, and wa-ilayhi l-maṣīr, “and to Him is the return”, closes several verses (as Q 40:3 and 64:3). The word al-maṣīr is divided across the line end after the alif of the article (a-/lmṣyr), and al-ākhirah is broken before its final letter (al-ākhir-/ah).
Source: Abū al-Faraj al-ʿUsh, Muḥammad. "Kitābāt ʿArabīyah Ghayr Manshūrah fī Jabal Usays." Majallat al-Abḥāth 17, no. 3 (September 1964): 290–291, text no. 87.