QMI-PRE-001 · c. 7th
Inscription of Ḥanẓalah b. ʿAbd ʿAmr
نقش حنظلة بن عبد عمرو
Karmat ʿAddās al-Naṣrānī, near al-Ṭāʾif
- بسمك ربنا
- أنا حنظلة بن
- عبد عمرو
- أوصي ببر الله
In your name, our Lord I am Ḥanẓalah son of ʿAbd-ʿAmr I urge (you) to be pious towards God
Found on a boulder about 100 m uphill from an abandoned mosque attributed to ʿAlī, in karmat ʿAddās al-Naṣrānī near al-Ṭāʾif. The inscription is undated. Its Paleo-Arabic script points to the late 6th or early 7th century CE, before the oldest surviving Qurʾanic manuscripts. The opening formula b-sm-k rb-n is a variant of bismika allāhumma, which the Quraysh used before the Islamic basmala was standardized, and its “Lord” (rabb) rather than “God” (Allāh) also points to a pre-Islamic date. Both this opening and bismika Allāhumma predate the standard basmala, which was not yet the accepted opening of a text at this time. Compare the Ḥismā inscription of ʿAbd Shams b. al-Mughīrah ( QMI-PRE-002 ), which opens with bismika Allāhumma .
Directly below it is a second inscription by ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā b. Sufyān ( ʾnʾ ʿbdʾlʿzy br sfyn , “I am ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā, son of Sufyān”). It opens with the same formula, b-sm-k rb-n , and closes its exhortation with the same wording, “I urge (you) to be pious towards God” ( ʾwṣy b-br ʾllh ). Al-Jallad and Sidky note identical formulae and paleographic uniformity, and suggest that one person may have carved both for two friends, or that the second was inspired by the first. Both are dated by the same paleography to the late 6th or early 7th century CE. The name ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā supports this date: ten of the 102 men whose names Muḥammad changed were called ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā, so the name was common in Muḥammad’s lifetime, and its bearer may have kept it.
Al-Jallad and Sidky identify the writer with Ḥanẓalah b. ʿAbd ʿAmr, a Companion killed at Uhud in 3 AH (625 CE). This is probable, not proven, since five Companions bore the name. If it holds, the inscription predates his conversion and was likely carved before the hijra (622 CE). The word “son” (bn) was cut lightly with a different tool, so it was probably added later.
Source: Al-Jallad, Ahmad, and Hythem Sidky. “A Paleo-Arabic Inscription of a Companion of Muhammad?” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 83, no. 1 (2024): 1–14.