QMI-INS-070 · c. 2nd c. AH
Qurʾānic Inscription of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Yaʿqūb (Q 7:54), Wādī Malkān
النقش القرآني لعبد الرحمن بن يعقوب (الأعراف ٥٤)، وادي ملكان
Wādī Malkān, south of Makkah, Saudi Arabia
- إن ربكم الله
- الذي خلق السموت (السماوات) وا
- لأرض في ستة أيام ثم
- استوى على العرش يغشى اليل (الليل)
- النهار يطلبه حثيثا والشمس و
- القمر والنجوم مسخرت (مسخرات) بأمره ألا له
- الخلق والأمر تبارك الله رب العلمين (العالمين)
- وكتب عبد الرحمن بن يعقوب بن
- مسلم بن أبي طرفة
Indeed, your Lord is God, who created the heavens and the earth in six days, then established Himself upon the Throne. He covers the night with the day, which pursues it swiftly; and the sun and the moon and the stars are subjected by His command. Surely His are the creation and the command; blessed is God, Lord of the worlds. And ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Yaʿqūb ibn Muslim ibn Abī Ṭarafah wrote [this].
The whole of Qurʾān 7:54 (Sūrat al-Aʿrāf), cut in seven even lines on a dark boulder in Wādī Malkān, south of Makkah, and signed in two further lines by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Yaʿqūb ibn Muslim ibn Abī Ṭarafah, who gives four generations of his descent. The verse sets out God as Creator of the heavens and the earth, His establishment upon the Throne and His command over night and day, sun, moon and stars, and closes “blessed is God, Lord of the worlds”. It is one of the longest continuous Qurʾānic quotations among the rock inscriptions of the catalog.
Reading and dating: Ahmed W. Shaker (QMI).