QMI-INS-093 · 120 AH
Inscription of the Umayyad Market, Baysān
نقش سوق الأمويين ببيسان
Baysān, Jordan Valley, entrance gate of the Umayyad market
- بسم الله الرحمن
- الرحيم أمر بهذ[ا]
- البنيان عبد الله
- هشام امير المؤمنين
- على يد الامير اسحق
- بن قبيصة وفي؟ سنة
- [ ] ومئة
In the name of Allāh, the Compassionate, the Merciful. Ordered this building the servant of Allāh (ʿAbd Allāh) Hishām, Commander of the Faithful, [to be built] by the governor Isḥāq bin Qabīṣa (completed in ? the year) [ ] and one hundred.
The entrance gate of the Umayyad market at Baysān had two stone piers. Each bore a decorated stone frame and a gilded mosaic inscription. The second inscription, attached to the left pier, was uncovered in 1996. It measures about 135 cm in length and 120 cm in width. Its letters are the same size as those of the first inscription, and the spacing matches, so the two were planned together. The first inscription survives in four lines of prayer: the Basmala, the shahāda (“there is no god but Allāh, one, without associate”), and “Muḥammad is the messenger of Allāh”. Its lower part is lost. Khamis suggests the three missing lines held Qur’ān 9:33 (the verse on the religion of truth).
The second inscription has seven lines in square Kufic. It opens with the Basmala and continues: “Ordered this building the servant of Allāh (ʿAbd Allāh) Hishām, Commander of the Faithful, [to be built] by the governor Isḥāq bin Qabīṣa.” The governor was in charge of jund al-Urdunn. The seventh and last line held the date of construction, but it is largely destroyed. Only the words “and one hundred” survive, and they begin in the middle of the line. In the Arabic and English readings, brackets mark restored or lost words and the question mark marks an uncertain word.
The date is a restoration. Khamis argues that since the inscription was carefully planned, down to the spacing of letters and words, room for only one word before “and one hundred” makes sense. Taking the years 118–125 (the reign of Hishām runs from 105 to 125 AH), the only plausible solution is twenty. That gives 120 AH (December 737 to December 738 CE). He takes this as the year the new market was completed, with the stoa and its portal along the south-facing front.
The inscription names the caliph, the governor, and the construction in one text, which is why Khamis reads it as a foundation record of the market. Eleven years after its completion, the market collapsed in the earthquake of 749 CE that devastated Baysān and large parts of Palestine.
For another public work ordered in Hishām’s name, with the same formula of command, see the pool inscription ( QMI-INS-055ab ), dated only to his reign (105–125 AH).
For another text of Hishām’s reign recording a decision of the caliph about land, see the meadow inscription from al-ʿUlā ( QMI-INS-055ad ).
Source: Elias Khamis, “Two Wall Mosaic Inscriptions from the Umayyad Market Place in Baysān,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 64, no. 2 (2001): 159–176.