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 ).
The opening is notable for naming the religion outright. Outside quotations of the Qurʾān, such as Q 3:19, “the religion with God is Islam”, on the Dome of the Rock ( QMI-INS-012 ), this is the only text in the catalog in which a writer calls his own faith al-islām ; it stands beside the undated prayer from Najrān that asks forgiveness for “the Muslims” as a community ( QMI-INS-055ak ). The month is written dhī al-ʿaqdah , which the editor marks (sic) against the usual al-qaʿdah . The text closes with a warning against anyone who effaces it, “whoever erases it, may God disgrace him in the hereafter, amen”; the editor reads wa-ajzāhu , “may He requite him”, but in undotted script jīm and khāʾ share one form, and wa-akhzāhu , “may God disgrace him”, gives the familiar wording of such curses, akhzāhu Allāh . The inscription comes from the same site and the same publication as the inscription of ʿAlī ibn ʿAbdallāh of 93 AH, which quotes the opening of Āyat al-Kursī ( QMI-INS-041 ). The image is the editor’s facsimile, not a photograph. A prayer for Ḥafṣ ibn ʿAbdallāh from the same site is dated Dhū al-Qaʿdah 113 AH ( QMI-INS-055agb ).
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.