QMI-INS-055y · 109 AH
First Inscription of al-Rammāḥ ibn al-Ṣalt
نقش الرماح بن الصلت (الأول)
Najrān region
- ترحم الله على الرماح بن الصلت
- آمين وكتب في سنة تسع
- ومئة
May God have mercy on al-Rammāḥ ibn al-Ṣalt. Amen. And [this] was written in the year nine and one hundred.
A short prayer for mercy dated by year alone, 109 AH (727–728 CE), in the caliphate of Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik. It is the earlier of two inscriptions that al-Rammāḥ ibn al-Ṣalt left in the region of Najrān: a year later he returned and wrote a second prayer in almost the same words (no. 55z, 110 AH), and in that same year a man with the same father’s name, al-Mufaḍḍal ibn al-Ṣalt, wrote a prayer of his own (no. 55aa). The opening “tarraḥḥama Allāh ʿalā” (may God have mercy on) is the formula of the two other inscriptions from the Najrān region in this catalog, the inscription of Yazīd ibn ʿAbdallāh al-Sulūlī (no. 3, 29 AH) and that of al-Haytham ibn Ziyād at Shasʿā (no. 55d, 108 AH), and it seems to have been a favourite local way of opening a prayer for mercy. The letters are cut in a broad, shallow line on a weathered sandstone face, and the date runs onto a short third line (“wa-miʾah”). It is one of four inscriptions in this catalog dated 109 AH.
Source: Mishʿal ibn ʿAbdallāh (@mashalgrad). Photographs posted on X (formerly Twitter), 12 June 2026.