This study was published for the first time in 2011 in a book titled: DeArabizing Arabia: Tracing Western Scholarship on the History of the Arabs and Arabic Language and Script (ISBN: 978-0-9849843-0-5)
by Saad D. Abulhab
CHAPTER 3
The al-Namārah Nabataean Arabic Inscription (328 CE)
3.1 Introduction
The inscription of al-Namārah
is by far the most important, controversial, and challenging pre-Islamic Arabic
inscription— it is the earliest discovered but youngest dated inscription of
only three Nabataean inscriptions considered by Western scholars today as fully
Arabic. It is also the oldest Arabic document on record with relatively good
classic Arabic language. Dated 328 AD and written in clear cursive forms, it
was hailed by many scholars as definite evidence that the modern Arabic script
had evolved from the late Nabataean script. Many prominent Muslim scholars
(who lived only a few centuries after the script’s assumed birth around the 3rd
century) believed it was derived from the Arabic Musnad script. al-Namārah inscription is also extensively cited
by historians as an important reference to the historical events of the early
decades of the prominent pre-Islamic Arab Lakhmid kingdom (al-Lakhmiyyūn)
of Hīrah, modern day Iraq. Despite more than a century since its
discovery in 1901, the reading of al-Namārah inscription is still
questionable, even at present time.
Dussaud, the French archeologist
who discovered al-Namārah stone near Damascus and transferred it to
Paris for further examination, had possibly misread the most important part of
the inscription—the first line. Based on his reading, it is generally believed
today that al-Namārah was the gravestone of king Umruʾū
al-Qays al-Bidʾ, the second king of the kingdom of al-Ḥīrah
and the most significant pre-Islamic Arab leader. Dussaud’s reading was
partially influenced by an unfortunate mistake in today’s Arabic language
grammar textbooks. To make matters worse, other scholars who read al-Namārah
in the past century uncritically strived to uphold Dussaud’s reading
fundamentals thus reinforcing its equally uncritical acceptance. To prove, at
any cost, that al-Namārah was Umruʾū al-Qays
tombstone, some were even willing to present readings that manifestly contradicted
the rules of Arabic grammar, geographical facts, and recorded history.
In order to re-read al-Namārah
inscription, I found it necessary to re-read the Umm
al-Jimāl Arabic Nabataean inscription as well since the two
inscriptions had contained identical words and shared similar historical facts
and timeframes. To read the two inscriptions, I had to also read Raqqush and
numerous other Nabataean, Palmyran, and Arabic Musnad inscriptions to study
the linguistic usage of similar words and phrases.
Regarding al-Namārah
inscription, I will, using the tools of the Arabic language, demonstrate
through in-depth analytical reading that it is not the tombstone of King Umruʾū
al-Qays bin ʿAmrū, or even about him. Written, most likely,
several years after his death, the inscription recorded the important
accomplishments of a previously unknown personality, ʿAkdī,
who was possibly one of Umruʾū al-Qays bin ʿAmrū
army generals, an Arab tribal leader who collaborated with the Romans, or
maybe a top ranking Arab soldier in the Byzantine Roman army. According to my
reading, the opening sentence was only a swearing (vow) to the soul of King Umruʾ
al-Qays bin ʿAmrū, similar to the customary opening sentence used
by Arabs and Muslims since the 7th century, Bism Allāh al-Raḥmān
al-Raḥīm بسم
الله الرحمن
الرحيم. The main
topic of the inscription was the apparent defeat of the prominent Midhḥij
tribe of southern Arabia in the hands of ʿAkdī’s fighters and
the possible subsequent control of Yemen by the Byzantine Roman Empire. The
final sentence concluded the inscription by informing the reader about ʿAkdī’’s
death, maybe in the battlefield, and stating that his parents should be happy
and proud of him. This narration is consistent with how soldiers are typically
mourned.
I am hopeful that my new readings
of al-Namārah and Umm al-Jimāl inscriptions would
prompt scholars in this field to re-examine the current readings in a
fundamentally different way. I hope that future history textbooks and the
Louvre museum will not state as certain that al-Namārah inscription
stone was the gravestone or epitaph of King Umruʾū al-Qays bin ʿAmrū.
I also hope that future publications would correct the obvious current
readings’ errors of the Umm al-Jimāl Nabataean inscription.
As a linguistic side benefit, I am optimistic that future Arabic language
grammar textbooks would cease repeating a common grammatical error regarding
simple feminine demonstrative pronouns by re-examining a poem line from Alfiyyat
Ibn Mālik. Certainly, my new readings could add even more critical,
historical, and linguistic importance to al-Namārah inscription
itself, since the language used in this inscription was clearly and
essentially classic Arabic. This can incontrovertibly prove that the grammar
and language of the Quran are deeply rooted and developed in Arabia, long
before Islam. That is, they are not Islamic or Abbasid inventions as many
Western scholars claim.
Because
a successful reading of any involved inscription, like al-Namārah,
requires a comprehensive and organized vision, I divided my reading into
convenient sections corresponding to the main topics conceived as preliminary
tools to read the full inscription. I have also provided detailed sketches and
images to guide the reader into a full visual understanding of the topic of
this particular study. Throughout this chapter, I will transliterate (following
Library of Congress rules), translate, and write in Arabic various words and
phrases to benefit the expert as well as non-expert readers.
3.2 Historical and Geographical
Overview
It is problematic to read the
inscriptions of Umm al-Jimāl and al-Namārah without
studying first the historical events taking place during the second and third
centuries CE — particularly during the early decades of the third century CE
and during the reign of King Umruʾū al-Qays bin ʿAmrū
of the city of al-Hīra,. The name of this king was mentioned in the
first line of al-Namārah inscription. Arab and Muslim historians
knew Umruʾū al-Qays bin ʿAmrū, as Umruʾū
al-Qays al-Bidʾ, meaning the first. (The desert town of al-Ḥīrah
is located less than 30 miles south of Babylon, the famed Mesopotamian city
that had fallen to the Persians over eight centuries earlier.)
Luckily, al-Namārah inscription
had provided a precise date that can easily be checked against the more
accurate dates provided by the remains left by the three main power players in
the Arabian Peninsula during that time: the Persians, the Roman Byzantines,
and the Yemenite Arabs. Several other Arab kingdoms existed too, but they were
either very weak or tightly under the control of either the Persians or the
Romans who fought for the conquest of new territories in the peninsula. After
the fall of the northern Arab Nabataean kingdom of Petra at the hands of the
Romans (105 CE), the kingdom of Yemen became the only Arab power challenging
their rule in the south. Because of repeated Roman attacks, and in order to
defend their territory, the Yemeni kings had occasionally forged close ties
with the Persians. [6][30]
According to several Muslim
scholars, ʿAmrū bin ʿUday, the father of King Umruʾū
al-Qays bin ʿAmrū, was the first king of the ethnically Yemenite
Lakhmid kingdom (later, called al-Manādhirah Kingdom by the Arabs)
to designate al-Ḥīrah as the capital city. The Ḥīrah
Kingdom became the most powerful member of a tribal alliance known as the Tannūkh
Kingdom, which was established around the 1st century CE by Mālik
bin Māhir of Yemen. The Tannūkh Kingdom controlled a vast
area extending from ʿŪmān in the south to al-Ḥīrah
and the Syrian Desert near Damascus in the north, occupying the entire west
coast of the Persian Gulf, historically known as the Gulf of Baṣrah. Islamic Arab era scholars linked the Lakhmid
and Tannūkh kingdom to the powerful Maʿad tribe of
Yemen. The three kings who ruled Tannūkh before king ʿAmrū
bin ʿUday visited Ḥīrah extensively and
regularly, but probably had their capital in Bahrain or even Yemen. Most of Ḥīrah’s
original population had eventually moved north to the Anbār area
before it was made the capital city by King ʿAmrū bin
ʿUday. [14][20]
King ʿAmrū bin ʿUday’s
father was probably a northern Arab. His mother was the sister of Judhaymah
al-Abrash who was the first king and the founder of the Tannūkh
Kingdom dynasty. He maintained close relations with the Persians and ruled
before and after the time of King Ardashīr bin Bābik (224-241
CE), the first king of the third and last Sassanid dynasty, and the son of the
Zaradust priest, Bābik, who had earlier toppled the last king of
the second Sassanid dynasty. [15]
It seems that Judhaymah al-Abrash,
a Yemenite Arab, had decided to offer his sister to a northern Arab from the Ḥīrah
area to establish closer blood relation with the northern tribes. The practice
of marrying sisters and daughters to link with other tribes is quite common
among Arab tribes. As we shall see later, both of the words Tannūkh
and Judhaymah will appear briefly in the important Arabic Nabataean
inscription, Umm al-Jimāl, found south of Damascus and believed to
be dated 250 CE. According to sources, King ʿAmrū bin ʿUday
took advantage of the temporary weakening of the Sassanid Persian Empire after
the death of King Ardashīr bin Bābik and decided to invade the
Persian-controlled Arab areas of Bilād al-‘Irāq (Mesopotamia) with
the help of the Romans and the Arab tribes north and west of Ḥīrah.
[20][30] His action had therefore reversed
the traditional alliance of the previous, purely Yemenite, kings of Tannūkh
with the Persians.
After the death of King ʿAmrū
bin ʿUday in the year 288 CE, his son, Umruʾū al-Qays
bin ʿAmrū took over and decided to expand on his father’s
attacks even further to include all Persian-controlled areas in Arabia. He was
the first Arab leader who seriously attempted to unify all parts of the Arabian
Peninsula in a single kingdom challenging both the Romans and Persians, and
was therefore considered the most revered man in Arabia before Islam. Taking
advantage of further conflicts within the Sassanid Persian royal family, he
had even crossed the Persian (Arabic) Gulf to raid the heartland of Persia.
Pre-Islamic Arabic poetry spoke of several virulent raids by the Arab tribes
against the Persians in Bilād al-‘Irāq. It is known that poems are
the most important record-keeping evidence of the Arab tribes who
traditionally relied on memory, not writing, to document their events. King Umruʾū
al-Qays succeeded in bringing most of the Arabian Peninsula under his
control except for the powerful Yemen and the Roman-controlled Arab kingdom in
Syria, known as al-Ghasāsinah Kingdom. History recorded that,
because the Roman supported the campaigns of Umruʾū al-Qays, the Persians
were forced to accept a deal with the Romans (298 CE) whereby they ceded many of
their previously captured territories in Mesopotamia.
A decade later, a new powerful king
took over Sassanid Persia. He was Shabur
II (309-379 CE) known to the Arabs under the nickname Dhū
al-Aktāf ذو
الاكتاف (the
owner of the shoulders.) It was believed that he had pierced his Arab prisoners’
shoulders to tie them together after captivity. Shabur II regained
control over most of the areas lost to the Romans and their Arab allies. It was
said that he had captured Ḥīrah, the seat of King Umruʾū
al-Qays, after a bloody battle in the year 225 CE, three years before the
date mentioned in al-Namārah inscription. [14][15] However, it is not known whether
King Umruʾū al-Qays had survived that battle. Only after the
discovery of al-Namārah and subsequent Dussaudʾs reading had
experts claimed that King Umruʾū al-Qays had escaped to
Damascus and died in the city of Bosra on December 7th, 223 Bosra
(equivalent to 228 CE), which is the date mentioned in the inscription.
I have to mention, however, that
there is no other evidence supporting the above claim except the supposed evidence
of al-Namārah inscription. Nonetheless, based on my reading
of the first line of the inscription as a vow to his soul, I am prone to think
that he died earlier, possibly in the battle of Ḥīrah, 325
CE. After the death of king Umruʾū al-Qays, the Roman and
Persians fought extensively all over Arabia until the year 363 CE when they
finally signed a treaty acknowledging Persian supremacy over Iraq. [15]
Consequent to fierce Arab attacks
on the Sassanid forces stationed in Mesopotamia (330 -370 CE), descendants of
king Umruʾū al-Qays were allowed to go back to al-Ḥīrah
and rule under the protection of the Persians. Finally, the Muslim Arabs
defeated the Persians in the battle of al-Qādisiyyah (638 CE) which
effectively put an end to the Sassanid Empire. [14][30]
In the early decades of the 4th
century CE, Yemen, the seat of the oldest known Arab kingdoms in the peninsula,
was a prime target for both the Romans and the Persians. The Yemenites were
generally referred to by the rest of the Arabs as al-Ḥimīriyyīn,
and depending on whom and when, Yemen was additionally known as Midhḥij
or Maʾad. The tribes of Midhḥij and Maʾad
are the largest and most powerful tribes in Yemen. Being the most powerful
among the Arab kingdoms of that time, Yemen had maintained its status as an
independent kingdom.
As mentioned earlier, King Umruʾū
al-Qays was never able to control Yemen. In fact, during his time around
the year 300 CE, a Yemenite king named Shammar Yuhar‘ish, was
able to unify Yemen including Haḍramawt to create a powerful
kingdom. [6] If logic matters, It would be
impossible that a defeated king Umruʾū al-Qays, who had just
lost his capital city of al-Ḥīrah in a bloody battle around
the year 225 CE, would accomplish the highest military victory of his times—
the conquest of Yemen— at the same time of al-Namārah (328 CE.)
Reportedly, king Shammar
Yuhar‘ish had maintained close relations with the Persians by sending a diplomatic mission
to the Sasanian court at Ctesiphon, al-Madāʾin, Iraq. [6] Khawārizmī, a
prominent Muslim
scholar who lived during the early Islamic centuries called him Shimr Yarʿish
or Abū Karab Bin Ifrīqis, which could mean he was of African
origins as per the use of the word Ifrīqis. No diacritic vowel was placed on the first word
shimrشمر
. This could indicate
that his name was either Shimr — a classic Arabic name—, or Shammar —
a well-known name of a prominent Arab tribe in Northern Najd. I do
believe though, it is the former because al-Namārah inscription
has one mīm letter in the name. Khawārizmī further
wrote that King Shimr was called Yarʿish (trembling) because
he was suffering of a nervous condition that made him tremble. According to Khawārizmī,
King Shimr Yarʿish was, as claimed by some, nicknamed king Dhū
al-Qirnayn (the one with two horns) contrary to the belief of many who
thought this was a nickname for the Macedonian conqueror, Alexander the Great.
Further, Khawārizmī
listed King Shimr Yarʿish as the 20th king of Yemen
before Islam and listed king Umruʾū al-Qays bin ʿAmrū
as the 21st king of al-Ḥīrah before Islam. [14] This means, the two kings had
ruled approximately during the same period.
In fact, the dates reported by Khawārizmī’s
coincide well with the dates provided by historians today. Most importantly,
this coincidence would make it highly probable that King Shimr Yarʿish
was indeed the king of Yemen during the times of al-Namārah
inscription.
While it is not impossible that
King Umruʾū al-Qays bin ʿAmrū could have died in the
year 328 CE, the historical evidence, including al-Namārah inscription,
indicates otherwise. Again, I do
believe that he died between the years 309 CE after Shabur II took
power, in 325 CE, the year al-Ḥīrah
was captured. As we shall see later, when reading al-Namārah, the
historical analysis above could become vital to the understanding of the
events, dates, and names appearing in the inscription.
3.3 Rereading the Umm al-Jimāl Nabataean Arabic Inscription
As mentioned earlier, according to Western
scholars, among the numerous Nabataean inscriptions discovered so far, only
three were written fully in the Arabic language. Dated 328 CE, al-Namārah
was the latest inscription of the three. The two earlier inscriptions are Umm
al-Jimāl, found in the same area, around Damascus, where al-Namārah
was found, and Raqqūsh, found in Madāʾin Ṣālaḥ,
not very far south of Damascus in Northern Ḥijāz. Both areas
were previously Nabataean territories. Raqqūsh indicated the date
of 267 CE while Umm al-Jimāl, which explicitly mentioned the names Judhaymah
and Tannūkh, was dated around the year 260 CE, clearly a successful
estimate when checked against our geographical and historical review in the
previous section. The two inscriptions are therefore older than al-Namārah
by at least 60 or even 70 years. This would make them useful references for
this study. As we shall see later, reading the three inscriptions together is
valuable for the separate reading of each one of them correctly.
While Raqqūsh and Umm
al-Jimāl were decidedly gravestones, al-Namārah could be
either a gravestone or an honoring monument (I shall come back to this later.)
Further, as Raqqūsh and Namārah included several text
lines, Umm al-Jimāl was brief. Unlike in Namārah Umm
al-Jimāl the language used in Raqqūsh was not classic
Arabic entirely.
Moreover, the Nabataean script used
in both inscriptions was not solidly cursive, and did not follow closely current
Arabic cursive rules. Both inscriptions clearly started with the word dnh
دنه, but scholars
read the word differently in Raqqūsh where the first letter dāl
was slightly attached to the second letter nūn forming another
possible shape. The Arabic word qabrū (tomb) was mentioned three
times in Raqqūsh, and was read as such by all scholars. The same exact
word though in Umm al-Jimāl was read as a person’s name, Fahrū,
which clearly was an error, as I will demonstrate later. [11]
Figure
(3.1) Arabic Nabataean inscription Raqqūsh, dated 267 CE,
with author’s improved tracing. Numbers added to facilitate discussion.
Figure
(3.2) Arabic Nabataean inscription of Umm al-Jimāl, dated
around 250 CE, with current and author’s tracing and reading for comparison.
Numbers added to facilitate discussion.
Unfortunately, I was unable to view
enough photographic details of either inscription. However, for the purpose
of this study, I feel it is adequate to rely on the available Nabataean
tracing of Raqqūsh. A word of caution: without retracing it
personally, I would be reluctant to offer a full letter-by-letter transcription
or modern Arabic reading.
As for Umm al-Jimāl,
examining a high-resolution picture of the stone was very sufficient to
illustrate the validity of my new tracings of a few key words in the
inscription. Accordingly, I provided here the above original photo and another
zoomed-in photoshoped image of the eroded re-traced area of the stone, along
with current tracing — a letter-by-letter Arabic transcription and
corresponding modern Arabic translation. Based on this new tracing, a new
detailed reading emerges that significantly differs from the current reading.
In Figure 3.1, the first word in Raqqūsh
and Umm al-Jimāl was clearly a three letter word dnh, but
scholars differed both on its tracing and reading in Raqqūsh. Some
read it as th ته, claiming it was an Arabic simple
feminine demonstrative pronoun; this is neither correct nor possible since the
following word qabr is a masculine noun. [23] Others read it as the Arabic letter
dhāl, probably for the simple masculine demonstrative dhā
ذا, which would
contradict directly with the reading of word #4 in the same inscription
showing dhā spelled as letter dāl with dot above
followed by alif. [11] Yet, few traced it as dh.n.h
for dhnah ذنه claiming this
was a northern Arabic feminine demonstrative pronoun.
However, most scholars traced word
#1 in both inscriptions as dnh, a word present in numerous other fully
Nabataean inscriptions, and read it as an assumingly Aramaic masculine
demonstrative. I traced it in both as dnh, too, but I read it as adnāh,
أدناه, a
word used in Arabic to point to a nearby object or text that is located
generally below the horizontal visual level. The beginning alif with hamzah
above was possibly omitted because the word was possibly pronounced dnāh
دناه, in
the local Arab Nabataean dialect. Raqqūsh and most other
inscriptions used several local dialect words, notably bir for bin,
or ʿabdh for ʿabd. Otherwise, beginning alif-hamzah
could have been omitted, just as the second alif between the letters nūn
and hāʾ was omitted, consistent with Arabic writing throughout
the 8th century CE, as evident in all available inscriptions and manuscripts.
The
Arabic word adnāh is utilized extensively today in the meaning of
“see by, or near, you”, “see below” or “the following below.” It can be used
effectively as a gender neutral demonstrative in the meaning of hunā
هنا as in “here”
or “here in”. When I searched for the use of this word in older Arabic
references, I was surprised that I could not find any documented evidence of
its usage in that contest. Assuming my reading is correct, which it is, this
would make the two inscriptions the earliest Arabic references documenting the
usage of the word in such manner. The word danā,
a classic Arabic verb, means “became physically close or near to someone or
some object.” [13] Among numerous examples, the Quran
(53:9) used it in ثُمَّ
دَنَا
فَتَدَلَى
فَكَانَ
قَابَ قوْسيْن
أَوْ أَدْنَى. Also, the Islamic
Ḥadīth used ʾadnāh min nafsih to describe
how Prophet Muhammad had a visiting Arab king sitting — physically — very
close to him. [17][26] Less likely, this word could be idnah
إدنه for the
imperative: “come close to,”omitting beginning alif-hamzah with kasrah.
Regardless of how one would read the first word dnh, the most important
fact is that it was explicitly used as a word pointing to a masculine object: qabr
قبر and
consistently used as an opening word for most Nabataean gravestones,
including these two.
In Umm al-Jimāl
scholars spelled the next word after dnh, as n.f.sh.ū, and
read it نفشو supposedly
from a “Semitic” feminine noun napšʾ or from Arabic nafs as
in the Quran (89:27)يَا
أَيَّتُهَا
النَّفْسُ
المُطْمَئِنّةُ . This same
word can also be pronounced in Arabic as nafas in the sense of “inhalation
or breathing” which would be a masculine noun. It is not clear, how scholars
pronounced this word found in various Nabataean inscriptions as napš or
napiš, still, in both cases it would be a feminine noun. Even before
analyzing the meaning and usage of nafsh, one can already suspect
through Umm al-Jimāl that its current reading is questionable since
the word dnh was used in Raqqūsh, and many other Nabataean
inscriptions to point to qabrū, a masculine noun. This
contradiction can only be solved by relating dnh as adnāh, a
neutral Arabic demonstrative pronoun, as I have argued above. As we shall see
later, dnh was used to point to a feminine noun, mqbrtʾ, in
at least one Nabataean inscription from Petra. Alternatively, dnh
could be pointing to a third masculine noun and the second word nafsū
is not a noun (I shall discuss this soon.)
Still, it is also possible that the word nafsū was actually naqshū
نقشُ, for the classic Arabic masculine
noun, naqsh (etching), used to indicate the act of writing or sketching on
all mediums including epitaph’s stones and even sand. [13][22] Unlike the Nabataean letter fāʾ,
which is a left starting loop with a right side downward vertical stem, the
letter qāf is a circle attached in the middle to a downward
vertical stem. This was evident in the three inscriptions.
Reading the second word (let us
call it #2) of Umm al-Jimāl as naqshū can conflict with
the current reading of word #3 of the inscription, which is thought to be Fihrū
for Fihr فهر, a classic
Arabic name. Even though it is possible to read the opening phrase (based on
our reading of the second word as naqshu) as adnāh naqshu
Fihrū bin Sāllī, after examining the photo of Figure 4.1 and
even according to the current tracing it is clear that word #3 of Umm
al-Jimāl is not Fihrū. It is qabrū, followed
by a first name containing the letters fāʾ , rāʾ and
alif/hamzah as in Faraʾ فَرء or Firāʾ
فِراء, an old
Arabic male name meaning “wild donkey” which is known for its excellent skills
to escape hunters! This name was possibly modified to Faruʾ فرُء according
to old Northern Arabic and Aramaic practice of using wāw sound at
the end of names.
In the Hadith, Prophet Muhammad
told Abū Sufyān: “You are as they say, all hunting is in the belly of the wild
donkey’”. Translated from the Arabic text: يا
أبا سفيان!
أنت كما قال
القائل : كل
الصيد في جوف
الفرإ . [13] The three partially damaged
letters for Faruʾ can
clearly be traced in the subsequent space, which is suspiciously wide for an
intentional space! To illustrate my point, I provided a partial image of the
stone utilizing the Brush Strokes filter utility in Photoshop to emphasize
stroke edges and reveal the new traced letters. The third word (we indicated
with #3) has only one prominent long horizontal stroke connected to the letter rāʾ
on the left, just as it was the case with medial letter bāʾ in
qabru of Raqqūsh (words #3, #4, and #5). There is a short
downward line pointing to the left that seems to be stone discoloration, not a
stroke. Nevertheless, even if it were a stroke, the formed shape would surely
not resemble the Nabataean letter hāʾ. A second short,
left-pointing, downward line just below the letter rāʾ is not
a stroke either, as it resembles an extensive crack. The only difference
between the word qabr we see in Umm al-Jimāl and the one in Raqqūsh
is that the upward line stroke forming the medial letter bāʾ in Umm al-Jimāl
was not vertical. Instead, it was pointing left as it was the case with the
previous word nafsū and the following word Faraʾ—
clearly a scribe hand-writting style. One can even spot another faded
parallel, left-tilted line connecting to the horizontal stroke of that letter
thus forming a classic Nabataean medial letter bāʾ, slightly
affected by a possible scriber style or error, stone discoloration and crack,
or a subsequent alteration. Moreover, the first letter of this word is clearly
qāf, not fāʾ, which can easily be compared to
the many letters qāf in al-Namārah and Raqqūsh.
Reading word #3 in Umm
al-Jimāl as qabrū or qabr would allow more
possibilities for the meaning and usage of the previous word. An alternative to
my reading of the word as naqshū, could be nafsū, but
in the meaning of nafsuhū, hūwa nafsuhū, for
“itself”, referring to qabr. This reading would fit well with reading dnh,
either as a masculine, or as a neutral demonstrative. The beginning phrase
could then be “this itself is the tomb of” similar to hadhā hūwa
qabr هذا
هو قبر, a standard usage on gravestones in Arabic, or hadhā
nafsuhū qabr هذا
نفسُهُ قبر. To
summarize, an initial modern Arabic reading of the opening phrase of Umm
al-Jimāl inscription could be either dnh naqshū qabr Faruʾ
bir Sāllī هذا نقشُ
قبر فرُء بن
سالّي, or dnh
nafshū qabr Faruʾ bir Sāllī هذا هو
قبر فرُء بن
سالّي.
However, I should now bring
attention to a curious fact: my reading of the opening phrase in Umm
al-Jimāl as nafsū qabrū or nafsū qabr is
intriguingly identical to the usual opening phrase in the Arabic Musnad
script found on eastern Arabian tombsʾ inscriptions: nafs.w.qabr نفس و قبر. King Judhaymah, whose name appears in
the Umm al-Jimāl inscription, was linked to the eastern Arabian
area where the Tannūkh kingdom was supposedly situated before
moving to al-Ḥīrah, as I indicated in my review section
above. Most scholars read that phrase as nafs wa-qabr and translated
it as “funerary monument and grave of”, by assuming that the middle wāw
was “and”. Based on this and other readings of Nabataean, Hebrew, and
Palmyra inscriptions, most scholars assumed that the word n.p.š (also
n.f.š or nafs) was used individually in the sense of “funerary monument”
or “memorial stele” (we shall discuss that in detail later.) Analyzing the Musnad
script is outside the scope of this chapter, however, the very likely meaning
of this phase should beروح
و قبر “soul and grave of.” Alternatively,
with the striking similarity between the Musnad letters fāʾ
and ʿayn, both in the Musnad Liḥyanī and Sabaʾī
styles, the word nafs could also be naʿsh نعش which
is the classic Arabic word for coffin or deathbed. It is highly unlikely that
the word nafs was commonly used among the Arabs in the meaning of “memorial
stele,” but would suddenly disappear from usage, without a trace, only a couple
of centuries later! Most important, even if the word was indeed nafs (not
nafsū) in these few Musnad inscriptions, it is extremely crucial to
observe that it was consistently used together with qabr as an opening
phrase or prologue. None of the available burial Musnad inscriptions used the
word nafs alone as a main introductory phrase preceding a name. [5][31] As mentioned earlier, based on the
Umm al-Jimāl evidence, the phrase nafs.w.qabr could have
been used to mean hadhā huwa qabr هذا هو قبر “this is the
grave of,” consistent with all other Arabic usage throughout history.
In Arabic, the three letters word nafs
is rather complex; consequently, I have some explaning to do. The root of
the word is nafas, meaning “breath” from which two main types of usage
were derived. The first includes “soul”, “life”, “person”, or “being”; the
second “self” as in “same”, “identical”, “itself”, “himself”, and “herself”. [13] This first primary usage could
even be traced to the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh where the god-man name Ut.napištu.m
(the Sumerian mythological prototype which inspired the story of Biblical
Noah who survived the flood) can literally be translated as “eternal great
soul-being”. Just like Arabic, Hebrew used napšā and Aramaic Syriac
used napištu. The Nabataean tomb inscriptions used l.napš.h extensively
in the meaning of “for himself”; but the words napšā
and napštā had also appeared in few other cases. [11] Palmyrenes used to portray the dead either in
relief or in statues placed on tombs. [24] They usually referred to a statue
as ṣalam (as in Arabic ṣanam). But they might have
had also referred to it — although
rarely — as napšā, or napeš
to mean “the same” or “the identical”, which 1) it conforms to the
second main usage of the word in Arabic just mentioned, and 2) it fits well
when naming a personal statue. The Nabataeans, instead, used an architectonic
form (a cone topped by inflorescence) placed on a cylindrical or square base
that they might have, arguably, referred to as napšā, or napeš,
too. These memorial stones can be carved or engraved into rock faces with an
identifying inscription that occasionally accompany them and is normally
located in the base. [24] [29]
Although unlikely, it is possible
that the Nabataeans had explicitly used the word nafash for their
architectonic-shaped personal memorial monuments, instead of their frequently
used word naṣb (as in Arabic نصب,) and for
monuments they erected for their idols. It is my firm opinion that scholars
who read Umm al-Jimāl, which was discovered after al-Namārah,
rushed to replicate, verbatim, Dussaud and other scholarsʾ readings of the
word napš to mean“memorial Monument” or “funerary Monument”.
Some even stretched its meaning to shahidat qabr, which can be
translated to “tombstone” or “burial monument”. To emphasize the usage of the
word napš, Healey referenced Le Nabatéen, by Gantineau who
defined the word as such, offering only two Nabataean inscriptions as evidence:
Umm al-Jimāl which Gantineau called the Fahrū inscription,
and al-Namārah!
In his indispensible book about Madāʾin
Ṣāliḥ tombs inscriptions, Healey further opined that this
“Pyramidal stele carved in the rock” could explain the “mysterious” absence of
inscriptions from the numerous tombs found in the city of Petra, which he
believes had banned tombs inscriptions. [10] Surprisingly though, the Umm
al-Jimāl stone and its inscription do not even conform to the physical
and inscriptional characteristics of a typical so-called Nabataean napš,
which rarely included any type of inscription except for an occasional name.
Furthermore, the majority of the hundreds of Nabataean tombs’ inscriptions
found so far had consistently used the introductory phrase dnh kaprʾ
or dnh qabrʾ. My reading of the two inscriptions listed by Healey,
in which he read the word napšʾ in the meaning of “burial monument” and the
other word, napštʾ, as “two burial monuments,” [10] led me to a different conclusion.
My initial analysis of the two
inscriptions, the Madeba and Strasbourg inscriptions revealed that the word napš
was actually used in its usual Arabic language meanings of “identical”,
“same”, “similar”, or “itself”. The opening phrase of Strasbourg inscription as
of his tracing dʾ napšʾ dy ʾabr br
mqymw dy bnh lh was possibly ذا هو نفس
الذي لأبار بن
مقيمو الذي
بناه له, or “This is
the same [tomb] that belong to ʾabār son of mqymw which
his father built for him”. The word dy is
similar to the Arabic word usage of dhī and dhū in the
meaning of “which belongs to”. [13] Also notice that dʾ (or
dā), which is spelled exactly as the classic Arabic masculine
demonstrative dhā, is unlikely a Nabataean feminine demonstrative
as believed by some scholars today. Clearly, it was used in the Nabataeean Raqqūsh
inscription (the fourth word we indicated as #4) after a masculine noun, qabrū,
not a feminine! In fact, dʾ was not used in this and several other
Nabatatean inscriptions listed by Healey as a simple demonstrative pronoun,
but as a neutral gender identity or emphasis pronoun. Very likely, its usage is
related to that of classic Arabic as in: dhā, huwa dhā or
dhā huwa as in dhātih (ذاته) ذا هو،
هو ذا for masculine, and in hiya
dhā or dhā hiyah as in dhātihā(ذاتها) ذا هي، هي ذا for feminine.
As for Madeba inscription, the
opening phrase dnh mqbrtʾ wtrty napštʾ dy ʿlʾ mnh dy
ʿbd was likelyادناه
(هذه)
هي المقبرة
والثلاثة
المشابهة لها
التي اعلى
منها التي, or
“This is the tomb, and the three identical ones that are above it, which ...” Or saying it in other words “Below is
the tomb, and the other three that look just like it that sit above it that …”
The letter tāʾ in napštʾ is likely referring to
feminine noun mqbrtʾ. The number word was possibly tlty,
from the Nabataean word for “three” tlt, not trty, which Healey
linked to tryn, supposedly a Nabataean number word meaning “two.”
Supporting this argument, the inscription listed three, not two, owners after
the opening phrase. I do believe though
that the number word tryn, for two, is actually tnyn, because all
other Nabataean number words are identical to Arabic and the Nabataean letters nūn
and raʾ can easily be mixed up. This can be verified in Raqqūsh,
where the first word of the sixth line is clearly wtnyn, not wtryn. Still, even if the number was actually “two,”
the Madeba opening sentence would beادناه
(هذه)
هي المقبرة
والاثنين
المشابهة لها
(عينُها) التي
اعلى منها التي.. or “Here below is (or this is) the
tomb and the two identical to it (that sit) above it, which…”
As a conclussion, I am convinced
that the best way to analyze the language used in any Nabataean inscription is
to rely on classic Arabic first. I see no solid evidence to presume that the
word nafsh or nafs, in an opening phrase of an Arabic or
Nabataean burial inscription, would necessarily mean “funerary monument” or
“memorial monument”. Furthermore, it is vital to observe that the word qabr
was consistently used whenever a burial place was involved, whether in Musnad,
Nabataean, or Palmyrene inscriptions. It is not impossible that the phrase nasfu
qabr could have been used to mean shāhidat qabr or “grave
marker” (stele), which may lead us to believe that the word nafs alone
could have been used to mean “marker” or shāhidah. However, in such
case, it is of paramount importance to observe that there is no solid evidence
in any Musnad or Nabataen inscription where the word nafs alone
was used to mean stele, let alone memorial monument. It is very unlikely,
therefore, that the ʾUmm al-Jimāl inscription was part of a
monument that was erected without an actual grave in a cemetery, which in turn,
is the only possible case that can justify using the word nafs, by itself,
in the meaning of “memorial monument” in an opening phrase.
Before analyzing the final line of
the Umm al-Jimāl inscription, it is worth mentioning that although
this inscription was not a bilingual inscription, it was discovered next to a
separate stone with a Greek inscription, which appears to be an exact
translation of the Nabataean text (see Figure 3.2.) Despite my belief that the
Nabataean inscription should be the main reference to use in our ongoing
analysis (pronouncing Arabic names can be deceiving in the Greek translation),
I will analyze the first four or five words of the Greek inscription which, by
all accounts, seems to support our new reading of the Nabataean text. Although
there were no spaces in the Greek inscription, as evident in Figure 3.2, the
first five words seem are Η
CΤΗΛΗ ΑΥΤΗ
ΦΕΡΟΥ CΟΛΛΕΟΥ.
According to my reading of the Greek text, the first line can be translated in
English as “This is the stele (grave marker) of Feroo Salleoo”. Clearly, the
first name was ΦΕΡΟΥ or Feroo, not Fehroo — there is no
indication of the guttural sound of the Arabic letter hāʾ
anywhere in the word, unless the reader was invoking past Phoenician letter he
origin of the Greek Ε! My belief, the inscription used
the Greek sound OY
(sounds like oo as in wood) at the end of the first name ΦΕΡΟΥ to substitute for either Alif-Hamzah
or Dhammah-Hamzah. You may recall, according to my reading of the
Nabataean inscription, the word was either Faraʾ or Faruʾ.
The sound OY
was repeated at the end of the last name CΟΛΛΕΟΥ (Salleoo) too — in spite of the
existence of the letter Yāʾ at the end of that word in the
Nabataean text. The repeated use of the sound OY further indicates that the first name was not necessarily
ending with a wāw as experts (evidently depending mainly on the
Greek text) mistakenly assumed. I will discuss again this Aramaic and Northern
Arabic usage of the sound wāw after names, later. In addition, using the word CΤΗΛΗ (Stele) would not necessarily mean that this word was an
exact translation of nafs, because translating a text is not linear;
that is, it is not a word-for-word process. At best, this type of usage could
mean that some Nabataean Arabs used nafsu qabr combined to mean stele.
Figure
(3.3) Transcription of the he Greek Umm al-Jimāl
inscription.
More observations on the Umm
al-Jimāl inscription reading include the following:
1. Word #4 was read malk for
Arabic king. However, after careful tracing of the Nabataean text, we can clearly
see a second letter mim; therefore, the correct reading should be mmlk,
for classic Arabic mumallik مُمَلّك, which
literally means, “the one who crowned or gave kingship to”; meaning in current
context: “the founder of the dynasty of”. Moreover, reading word #4 in this way
would accurately fit the meaning conveyed by word #5 Tannūkh, king
Judhaymahʾs tribe, which, as you will see below, was inaccurately
read as Dannūkh.
2. Word #5 (Tannūkh): The first
letter of this word is clearly a Nabataean letter tāʾ, not a dāl.
As stated earlier in our history review section, King Judhaymah
al-Abrash, Umruʾū al-Qaysʾ uncle, was the
founder of the Tannūkh kingdom, or, using the inscription words, he
was the one who crowned them. This assertion can be substantiated by the fact
that Arab history never recorded the existence of a tribe or kingdom in Arabia
under the name Dannukh.
3. The final phrase would then be mumallik
Tannūkh, or “the one who started the Tannukh dynasty”.
To summarize, a leter-by-letter
transcription of Umm al-Jimāl is as follows: “dnh nfsu qbr fra
bir sali rabu jdhimat mmlik tannukh.” Line-by-line, the Arabic text is: دنه نفسو قبر
فرء - بر سلي
ربو جذيمت -
مملك تنوخ. In modern Arabic it says: أدناه
(هذا) هو قبر
فرُء بن سالّي
مُربّي جُذيمة
مؤسس مملكة
تَنّوخ, or أدناه روح وقبر
فرُء بن سالّي
مُربّي
جُذيمة مؤسس مملكة
تَنّوخ. Translated
to English, it says: “Below is (itself) the tomb of Faruʾ bin
Sālī, custodian of Judhaymah, crowner of Tannūkh,”
or “This is the soul and tomb of Faruʾ bin Sālī,
custodian of Judhaymah, crowner of Tannūkh.”
Before proceeding to the next
section, I need to elaborate on the important usage of the letter wāw
at the end of nouns. For example, notice
the words qabrū for qabr, Kaʿbū for Kaʿb,
and Ḥijrū, for Ḥijr in Raqqūsh. This
practice is consistent with that of most pre-Islamic northern Arabic inscriptions
that are available today, whether written in Nabataean or Arabic Jazm
scripts. As we shall see later, al-Namārah added wāw
after all names too. The Arabic inscriptions of al-Jazzāz (410 AD),
Sakkākah (late 4th Century), Zabad (512 AD), and Ḥarrān
(568 AD) had all added wāw after the names. This is a known Aramaic
and Northern Arabic usage which was likely incorporated into theses languages
due to Greek or Roman influence. [1][21] In fact, the use of wāw
is by itself a solid proof that most, if not all, Arab tribes which migrated
north — centuries before the Tannūkh kingdom era, especially the ancestors
of the Nabataeans — had heavily adapted the neighboring Aramaic culture. On
the other hand, classic Arabic teaches us that the wāw of ʿAmrū
is added to distinguish the Arabic name ʿAmr from ʿUmar.
My belief is that wāw originally existed in the name ʿAmrū,
and should be pronounced, at least when it is applied to ʿAmrū bin
ʿUday, father of Umruʾū al-Qays, who was likely a
northern Arab, not a Yemenite.
3.4
Arabic
Grammar Prelude: Is tī a Simple Feminine Demonstrative Pronoun?
Before reading al-Namārah,
it is important to thoroughly examine the first word of the inscription. The
word is clear and legible and has two letters: tī تي. Dussaud
claimed this word was an Arabic simple feminine demonstrative pronoun, meaning
“this is.” Throughout the 20th century, all subsequent readers of al-Namārah
agreed with him without any debate!
For example, in his comprehensive
reading of 1985, Bellamy allocated only one line to address the word where he
referred his readers to consult with two old reference books for further
explanation. [7] The first book was an enhanced
English translation of an older Arabic grammar textbook that was initially
published in 1857 in German; and the second was a British book published in
1930 and had for a subject the history of the Arabs of the western peninsula.
The author of the first book listed
among his other references, Alfiyyat Ibn Mālik, a long Arabic poem
comprising one thousand verses summarizing the grammar of the Arab language. [32]
Written by the great Arabic linguist, ʾIbn Mālik, about
eight centuries ago, the Alfiyyah is the most authoritative reference
for textbooks on modern Arabic grammar. Notably absent from his references was
an important Arabic language reference book, Lisān al-ʿArab,
written during the same period of Alfiyyah by another great Arabic
linguist, Ibn Manẓūr.
Both of these references are manuscripts that became widely available
after the emergence of Arabic typography in the 18th century.
Being a collection of poems, Alfiyyat
Ibn Mālik is only useful when read by a professional linguist. In
fact, many revered scholars, like Ibn ʿAqīl, wrote volumes of manuscripts
to explain it. Unfortunately, these scholars had to rely on a manuscript that
could have possibly included unclear words, missing verses, and scribes’
mistakes. Contemporary scholars mainly rely on these older explanations of the
manuscript, known as tafsīr. On the other hand, Lisān al-ʿArab,
predating Alfiyyat Ibn Mālik, was written with explicit explanations
by the original author along with generous examples from pre-Islamic poetry
and the Quran.
To summarize the simple
demonstrative pronouns in Arabic grammar, Ibn Mālik wrote a single
line (verse) of a poem:
بِذا
لِمُفْرَدٍ
مُذكَّـرٍ
أَشِـــــرْ
|
|
بِذي
وذِهْ ؟؟ تا
على الأنثى
اقتَصِرْ |
Translated into English the line
says “use dhā to point to a masculine noun, and limit yourself to dhī
and dhih ?? tā
for a feminine.” In the original
manuscript, the unclear and disputed word between dhih and tā (marked
with two question marks by the author) was either a genuine word, a corrected
word, or a crossed out word. Researching
several old tafsīr books, I discovered that scholars had read this
unclear word quite differently. [8] However, most scholars of the Islamic
Arab civilization era decided to omit this unclear word and simply list the
only three known Arabic simple demonstrative pronouns for a feminine noun: dhī,
dhih, and tā. I am listing below in Arabic a few of these
verse readings.
بذا
لِمفْرَدٍ مُذكّــرٍ
أشــرْ |
|
بـذي
وذِهْ تـا
على الأنـثـى
اقـتَـصِـرْ |
بِذا
لِمُفْرَدٍ
مُذكّــرٍ
أَشِــرْ |
|
بِذي
وذِهْ تي تا
على الأنـثى
اقـتَصِرْ |
بذا
لِمفْرَدٍ
مُذكّــرٍ
أشــرْ |
|
بذي وذِهْ
نسى نا على
الأنثى
اقتَصِرْ |
بذا
لِمفْرَدٍ
مُذكّــرٍ
أشــرْ |
|
بذي
وذِهْ
تي ته على
الأنـثى
اقـتَصِرْ |
Apparently, some overzealous and
persistent scholars decided to read this unfortunate scribe’s error by
replacing it with one or more words. Almost all of these scholars justified
their readings in Islamic religious terms. Those who claimed it was tī, explained how this reading would be
consistent with the Islamic teachings allowing four wives for one man [sic]!
With the passing of time, more Islamic scholars joined in. Some had even
claimed that Arabic has nine simple demonstrative pronouns for a feminine
noun. Some even claimed that, unlike a man, a woman does not have a specific
social status; therefore, she must be pointed to with multiple pronouns. To
conclude, unfortunately, the Arabic grammar textbook listed by Bellamy, which
most likely was Dussaudʾs main reference too, listed nine simple
demonstrative pronouns including tī, as many Arabic grammar
textbooks do today.
It is inconclusive whether the
scribe’s error in the manuscript of Alifiyyat Ibn Mālik was the
reason behind these claims. Clearly, Ibn Mālik used the word, Iqtaṣir,
which is an imperative verb meaning “limit yourself to.” My impression is that some Muslim scholars
during Ibn Mālik’s time were busy making up feminine pronouns to
support their religious claims and theories, a trend that evidently prompted Ibn
Mālik to write his grammatical poem in that strong manner to correct
them. [12] A simple online search today would
lead to more of such Muslim scholars who are overly obsessed with the topic of
females and Islam. Ironically — I must observe — to support their arguments,
some Muslim scholars desperately tried to explain that the imperative verb iqtaṣir
was referring to the masculine in the meaning of “do not use any of these
pronouns for masculine” rather than what Ibn Mālik intended the
meaning to be, which is, “use only these pronouns for feminine.”
Regrettably, I could not examine
the original manuscript of Alfiyyat Ibn Mālik. Fortunately though,
the text line being discussed is a poem text line; meaning it can easily be
checked against the well-known Arabic poetry rhyming scale Arabic typography
background with an eye to distinguish and ميزان
الشعر to determine the
correct reading. Coming from an understand Arabic letters’ shapes, and using
the simple fact that Ibn Mālik had used wāw between dhī
and dhih, I concluded that the puzzling word before tā
must be another wāw, since in Arabic, one cannot add another item
to an existing item without using wa before. It is my impression that
the scribe had simply written a badly executed letter wāw with very
small loop and long downward stroke, which can easily be confused with final yāʾ. Here is what I believe Ibn Mālik
poem line said:
بذا
لمُفْرَدٍ
مُذكّــرٍ
أشِــرْ |
|
بذي وذِهْ
وتا على
الأنثى
اقتَصرْ |
To test if my belief holds any
truth, I sent an enquiry to Saʿdī Yūsuf (one among the
most prominent Arab poets today whom I have the honor to know and befriend). I
included in my email five versions of the Ibn Mālik poem line,
including mine, and asked him which one would be the correct one according to
Arabic poem rhyming rules. He replied promptly, stating that the correct one
was my version, using waw before tā. I was not surprised that this would be his answer
since Ibn Manẓūr, who had studied the most important Arabic
grammar books of his time, did not list tī as a simple feminine
demonstrative pronoun in his dictionary textbook, Lisān al-ʿArab.
[13]
The second reference listed by
Bellamy for the word tī was page 152 of Ancient west Arabian,
by Chaim Rabin. [7] Rabin hinted that tī
was used as a simple feminine demonstrative noun by quoting from Bukhārī,
who wrote that prophet Muhammad had addressed ʿĀʾisha,
his youngest wife, with the phrase kaifa tīkum كيف تيكم. Rabin must
have thought that using tī in the compound demonstrative word tīkum
would mean that it was also used as an independent simple feminine
demonstrative pronoun. Writing his book three decades after the discovery of al-Namārah,
he then listed the tī of al-Namārah as second
reference! [25] Plainly said, this is wrong and
misleading. The tī of tīkum is derived from tā,
the classic simple feminine demonstrative pronoun. Ibn Manẓūr
extensively discussed this topic in his introduction to the letter tāʾ
in Lisān al-ʿArab. He explained that tā is the
simple feminine demonstrative pronoun and that it can be used as a standalone
word to point to a single feminine. He further explained: Tayyā is
the diminutive demonstrative pronoun of tā which can possibly be
used for a younger female too. Clearly, when pointing to a single feminine
noun as a third distant party, tā can be combined to form a new
compound demonstrative pronoun, as tī, but one cannot use this
part as a standalone word. For example, the words tīka, and tilka
are derived from tā, not tī. The Arabs used tīka
instead of tāka, but some had used tālika, instead of tilka,
which Ibn Manẓūr called the ugliest usage in the language. [13]. Other than this occurrence claimed
by the readers of al-Namarāh, I could not find a single example for
using tī as a simple feminine demonstrative pronoun, be that in the
Quran, Arabic poetry, or anywhere else.
Even if one were to find such an example, it would be of a wrong usage
and surely a post Islamic example. The three simple feminine demonstrative
pronouns in Arabic are tā, dhī, and dhih.
3.5
Rereading
al-Namārah Nabataean Arabic Inscription
Taking into account the numerous Musnad
Arabic inscriptions available today, al-Namārah or any of the
three other known Nabataean Arabic inscriptions cannot be classified as the
earliest Arabic language documents on record. Although the classic Arabic
language of al-Namārah is truly remarkable, the inscription
quality is not impressive. Moreover, the quality of the stone and the efforts
put to prepare it, are much higher than the quality of the inscription and the
efforts put by the scribe, and most likely, this scribe was definitely not the
same person who prepared the stone. Surely, al-Namārah stone as a
whole does not look like a stone worthy of a king’s tomb or monument. Despite
visible damages, possibly including a complete breakup of the stone into two
or more pieces, most of the words of al-Namārah inscription are uncomplicated
to read by a person familiar with the Nabataean and Arabic scripts. Out of the
several erosions that afflicted the stone, only one or two areas of erosion had
somewhat affected the reading of the inscription. Although reading al-Namārah, a
fascinating archeological and philological task, can be very challenging, it is
not very complicated once the first two lines, and particularly the first two
words, of the inscription are read correctly. Numerous scholars studied al-Namārah
after Dussaud, but Professor Bellamy of the University of Michigan should get
the highest credit for re-reading al-Namārah from scratch and
presenting original corrections along with fresh new pictures, in the eighties
of last century.
The first time I read al-Namārah
was in 2008, the year I published my first article about the history of the
Arabic Jazm script. My involvement in Arabic typography brought me earlier
into the field of history of the Arabic script. In my earlier readings, I
utilized available pictures and tracings, particularly those provided by
Bellamy. With the help of my patient brother who visited the Louvre Museum in
2009, and the aid of the great technology inside his digital camera, I was able
to examine the stone in person and obtain numerous detailed pictures of
the areas disputed by previous readers including myself. I have provided, in
Figure 4.4, the original Nabataean tracing of al-Namārah by
Dussaud, along with his initial Arabic reading as referenced today by most
textbooks. Thanks to Hassan Jamil, my ex-student and assistant who taught me
Photoshop, I was able to provide my new tracing (Figure 3.5) of al-Namārah
with eleven new changes —out of the eleven, three are Bellamy’s and six are
mine. To assist the readers locating these new tracings and compare them with
the old ones, I assigned a number to each affected area on Dussaudʾs original
tracing (Figure 3.4.) Also, in Figure 3.5, I provided my own letter-for-letter
Arabic transcription followed by my translation into Arabic of the
inscription, where I added all necessary dots, diacritic vowels, punctuations,
and missing letters alif in accordance with my new reading. I also
provided a full Arabic explanation for my readings. In addition, for those who
want to confirm the tracings of this study, I supplied a clear image of the al-Namārah
stone (Figure 3.3.)
Figure
(3.4) A photo of al-Namārah stone hanging on a wall at
the Louvre Museum, Paris. © Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons. [20]
Dussaud’s
tracing of al-Namārah Nabataean inscription
Dussaud’s
letter-by-letter Arabic transcription |
|
Figure
(3.5) Dussaud tracing of al-Namārah inscription with his revised
letter-for-letter Arabic transcription and
translation. [11]
Figure
(3.6) New
tracing by the author of the Nabataean text of al-Namārah
inscription with an equivalent letter-by-letter Arabic transcription and a
modern classic Arabic translation.
Line 1
Demonstrating that Dussaudʾs
reading of the first word tī was inaccurate, would most certainly
open the way to question all current readings of the inscription. After all, if
the writer of al-Namārah
inscription had wanted to use a demonstrative pronoun for a tombstone, he would have certainly used dnh,
the one utilized in Umm al-Jimāl, Raqqush, and all
other Nabataean tombstone inscriptions. Still, in order to fully accomplish
the difficult task of challenging Dussaud’s reading, we are faced by an even
more difficult task — how to read this unusual and difficult word? To begin, I
started in Aramaic where tī is thought to be a simple
demonstrative pronoun for a singular masculine noun. The name of the Syrian
village Tīshūr, Ṭarṭūs providence, is
believed to be derived from an Aramaic
compound name made of tī (this) and shūr (wall), a
masculine noun in both Aramaic and Arabic. [3][9]
However, the second word, nafs,
of al-Namārah is a feminine noun — as I have pointed out when
re-reading the Umm al-Jimāl inscription. The extremely rare
instance where nafs can be treated as a masculine noun in Arabic is not
applicable here. Considering that al-Namārah language is relatively classic Arabic, it
is seriously unlikely that it would start with an Aramaic word, let alone the wrong
Aramaic word.
Regardless of the nature of the
word nafs, feminine or masculine, one needs to first reinvestigate its
meaning and usage in al-Namārah. As stated, since this word rarely
appeared within the opening phrase of the Nabataean inscriptions but commonly
within the Musnad inscriptions of eastern Arabian tombstones (always combined
with the word qabr), scholars believe this word means “funerary monument”.
However, no other existing evidence can attest to such common usage among
Muslim Arabs. As I illustrated through my reading of the Umm al-Jimāl,
Madeba, and Stratsbourg inscriptions above, this word was likely misread or
even mistraced in these inscriptions. Among the long list of its usage in
Arabic (compiled by major Muslim scholars who lived a couple centuries after al-Namārah),
“tombstone” or “funerary monument” were both clearly absent. Two Arabic
Nabataean inscriptions, dated few decades before al-Namārah and
found in the same geographic area, and numerous other Musnad and Nabataean inscriptions,
had consistently used the word qabr in relation to a burial place. Why
would al-Namārah then use nafs alone?
Even if the word nafs was
actually used individually in few inscriptions to mean tombstone, this should
certainly not limit it to that usage or exclude others, especially since the absolute
majority of the other inscriptions had consistently used it otherwise. The fact
that Umm al-Jimāl had used nafsū with final wāw,
while al-Namārah used nafs without wāw, is by
itself a significant piece of information that needs to be examined closely.
Furthermore, al-Namārah stone does not even resemble a typical
Nabataean or non-Nabataean nafesh. I am of the opinion that in
the context of al-Namārah, the word nafs should be read as
“soul” — its common usage —, or “blood” — a less common but a very valid usage,
given the events surrounding Umruʾū al-Qays defeat. As it
will be emphasized throughout my re‑reading, the overall text contents,
paragraphs, sentences, and information on the events cited in the inscription
— whether read with classic Arabic or having Nabataean Arabic in mind — do not
match the current reading of this word as “funerary monument.”
My reading of nafs in the
meaning of “soul” would leave only a couple of possibilities for the reading of
the previous word, tī.—it was either used to swear by or call upon
the soul or blood of Umruʾū al-Qays, a very common Arab practice
even today; or to bring the attention to or call upon his glory. It was customary
that the Arabs, even before Islam, use introductory sentences before starting
with their main topic as Muslims routinely do today by starting with an attention-grabbing
swear sentence such as, Bism Allāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm.
Accordingly, I believe there could be four possible readings for tī.
The first and most likely reading
of it is tayā تَيا, a combined word composed of two parts, ta and yā.
The first part is the swearing letter tāʾ, known as tāʾ
al-qasam تاء
القسم, as in ta-Allāh تَالله. Contrary to common belief today, starting with the swear
letter tāʾ was not limited to Allāh. For example,
the Arabs used ta-Ḥayātika تحياتك when swearing by someone’s life. They also used ta-rabbi al-kaʿbati تربّ
الكعبة when swearing by the god of kaʾbah in Mecca—
even before Islam. [4][13] Based on
this reading, they may have used tayā rabbi al-Kaʿbatati تيا ربّ
الكعبة. The second part, the letter/word yā is ḥarf
tanbīh حرف
تنبيه commonly used to call, or call upon, the attention of someone
or something as in yā Allāh, or yā fulān, or yā
ʿIrāq. [13] Therefore, I read the first two words of al-Namārah
as ta-yā nafs تيا
نفس, as in qasaman yā nafs
قسما يا
نفس, or bikī yā nafs
بِكِ
يا نفس, which would mean, “swear by thee Oʾsoul of”, or “in thee,
Oʾsoul of.”
The second
possible reading is that tī could also be tayā تَيا, but this time the two parts are used together as ḥarf
tanbīh. Ibn Manẓūr listed several examples where yā,
combined with additional letters before it were used as one word in the
meaning of yā. The additional letters before yā were
possibly used to add more emphasis, admiration, or to express feelings for
revenge and sorrow. The few examples listed in his Lisān al-ʿArab
included āyā آيا, ʾayāأيا , and
hayā هيا, but not tayāتيا
. [13] My
thinking, based on Ibn Manẓūr examples, is that tayā
and several other combinations of yā had existed in classic Arabic.
The third
possibility is that it could actually be tī تي, but was used either as a feminine pronoun hadhihī هذه in the meaning of ḥarf tanbīh, solely to
swear and give attention and admiration, or as a swearing letter tāʾ
with final letter yāʾ to replace the kasrah diacritic.
In the latter case, it would be read tī nafs as in bi-nafs بنفس or wa-nafs ونفس, commonly used to swear by someone’s soul. Swearing tāʾ is normally
attached to a word and used with a fathah diacritic, but it is possible
that it was given kasrah when used with a feminine noun like nafs.
This is consistent with the typical Arabic association of kasrah with
feminine. Since pronouncing ta with kasra when attached to nafs
is awkward, a final yāʾ was probably used to represent kasrah,
as practiced in pre-diacritic Arabic poetry writings.[13]
The forth,
an extremely unlikely possibility, is that tī could also be tayā,
but in the meaning of ṭawbá طوبى or taḥyā تحيا (long live.) The inscription may have started with the phrase taḥyā
nafs تحيا نفس but the ḥaʾ
after tāʾ was possibly omitted by design or by mistake. This
possibility is highly unlikely since I have not found any evidence linking tī
or tayā with such usage. Also, taḥyā is usually
used with a living person, not the soul of the dead.
Reading the
first two words of al-Namārah is crucial to the reading of the rest
of the inscription. In the case of the first three reading possibilities here
above reported, swearing by or calling upon Umruʾū al-Qaysʾ
soul, the phrase should then be followed by a single major action or event announcement,
not a group of events. As for the fourth possibility, the non-swearing
readings above, a list of accomplishments is certainly possible. Regardless of
which reading is used, the inscription has become much less likely a burial
epitaph than a memorial monument. The first three swearing readings open up
other possibilities for reading the rest of the inscription, since they
indicate that this inscription is not about Umruʾū al-Qays.
The next questionable word of the
first line was klh Dussaud traced the word as klh accurately, but
read it wrongly as kulluh. It should be kulluhā (meaning,
“all of them”) referring to the previous word al-ʿArab (the Arabs,
or the Arab tribes); both are feminine nouns. However, the next challenging
words of the inscription are dhū and the two words following it.
As I explained earlier, in Arabic dhū is usually used in the
meaning of ṣāḥib or wa-lahu (“owner of” or “he
who owns”), normally for laqab or kunyah (last name), or in the
meaning of “who or which belongs to”, or “of”. In both cases, it should be
followed by a noun. However, in classic Arabic, dhū was also used
in the meaning of alladhī (he who), followed by a verb. In al-Namārah, the next word was either asad (lion)
or asara (took someone as prisoner). I believe it was the noun asad,
and the previous word was either dhū, normally used for nicknames
or other titles, or dhū in the meaning of “who belogs to”, not alladhī.
It follows, I read the last
three-word phrase as dhū asadu al-tāj in the meaning of “the
one who owned asad al-tāj,” possibly a nickname or title referring
to a figure of lion adorning the top of an actual crown. Or in the meaning of
“the one who belongs to asadu al-tāj”. This refers to the Asad
tribe as the one with the crown or the one whose kings wore a crown, a
well-known history fact.
In order to read dhū as
alladhī, to fulfill Dussaud’s and all current readings of the
inscription, one must read the word after dhū as a verb. Scholars,
who read the word after dhū as a verb, possibly asara, assara,
or even asada, claimed that the word which followed and which can easily
be traced as the noun al-tāj (crown,) was actually referring to the
well-known historical city Thāj or Thaʾj near the
modern-day city al-Ḍahrān.
Even so, if this were true, one
would not refer to it as al-Thāj using al. In fact, Arabic
poetry had never used al with city names like Thāj or Najrān.
Additionally, in Arabic the object of the verb asar or assara must
be people, not a city. One does take people, particularly soldiers, as
prisoners and not a city! Tweaking the reading of al-tāj, some
scholars claimed it was actually al-Tājiyyīn, possibly a tribe
name, or al-Thājiyyīn, the people of the city of Thāj.
However, I was not able to trace the two or three additional letters needed for
al-tāj to become al-Tājiyyīn or al-Thājiyyīn.
Since those who read the word as the verb assara had also read each
subsequent word mlk as the verb malaka, one may ask as why al-Namārah would use assar only for al-Taj
or al-Tājiyyīn. A more pertinent question would be,
why not use malaka? It would certainly fit the meaning better.
Those who opposed reading al-tāj
as “the crown” explained that Arab kings had never wore crowns. This is erroneous.
History teaches us that some of the northern Arab kings of Ḥīrah
and even Najd, home of the Bani Asad tribes, wore crowns.
Even if this were not true, we do know that Umruʾū al-Qays had
carried many attacks in Persia whose kings did wear crowns. Since Persia
historically used a lion as a national symbol, we cannot exclude the
possibility that Umruʾū al-Qays had managed to seize a crown
with a lion effigy — this earned him the appellation: dhū asad
al-tāj (the one with the lion of the crown), a valid Arabic phrase in
terms of grammar and semantics. According to Muslim scholars, King Umruʾū
al-Qays was known for his many appellations. Doing so, that is to have
multiple nicknames, is an established Arab tradition since time immemorial, through
the Abbasid times, and even today. One would be surprised, if al-Namārah would mention king Umruʾū
al-Qays without following it with one of his many titles or appellations.
It is unfortunate that the appellation listed in al-Namārah was not among those that Muslim
historians accorded to him. [14][30]
Struggling to read the word
following dhū as a verb to prove Dussaudʾs general
classification of al-Namārah, some scholars hypothesized that assar
was an equivalent to the verb nāla (won). They read the second word
as “is”; that is, as al‑tāj (crown), and read the three-word
phrase as alladhi nāla al-tāj (he who won the crown). Yet, I
found no evidence that assara or asara was used in such manner.
Bellamy read the last four-word
phrase as wa-laqabahu dhū Asad wa-Midhḥij (and his
appellation as “the one who owned Asad and Midhḥij tribes”.)
I do agree with his tracing of the loop following Asad as possible
letter wāw, but disagree with his tracing of the word that
followed as Midhḥij. Doubly important, why would al-Namārah lists Umruʾū al-Qaysʾ
as king of Asad and vanquisher of Midhḥij in Line 2
(according to Bellamy’s reading) when his appellation already included them on
Line 1? However, I believe Bellamy’s tracing of alif as possible wāw
would change dhū asad al-tāj ذو
اسد التاج to dhū asadūl-tāj
ذو
اسدولتاج which would
conform to the way with which al-Namārah pronounced the name Umruʾū
al-Qays as Umruʾul-Qaysمرء لقيس and, as I shall
discuss later, the way it pronounced fursān al-Rūm as fursanūl-rūm
فرسانولروم. On
the other hand, even if all Bellamyʾs tracing and reading of the last
phrase of Line 1 were correct, this would still agree with my reading of dhū
as the common dhū and not alladhī, and with my reading
of the phrase as one of the king’s titles or appellations.
Reading the first two and the last
three words of the first line was, without a doubt, the most demanding task in
reading the Arabic language of al-Namārah. In comparison, reading the rest
of the inscription is straightforward. If dhū was alladhī,
one would expect a series of action (i.e. verbs) afterwards, all connected by wa (and). If it was simply the typical word dhū
for appellations, one should then expect either additional titles connected by
wa, or an announcement for an extraordinary
event or a decree. Only in the second case could one start a new sentence with
the letter wāw (not in the meaning “and”), which would normally be
followed by a non-verb, as in wa-qad, or wa-akīran. The fact
that Umruʾū al-Qays was the king of Asad and Nazār,
is neither new nor an extraordinary announcement. The Quran stated many
sentences with wāw, but it consistently used non-verb afterwards,
as in the example of Quran (53:1) wa-al-najmi
idhā hawá والنّجمِ
إِذَا هَوَى, where the word
al-najm (the star) is a noun.
In my opinion, reading the word mlk,
which appears twice in the second line, as the verb malaka is a major
mistake since the first one was preceded by the letter wāw. I read
both as the noun malik (king of), as this same word was read by all
scholars in Line 1 in the phrase malik al-‘Arab. Muslim scholars wrote
that banī Asad of Najd and banī Nazār of Ḥijāz, are ʿArabun mustaʿribah
(Arabized Arabs), not ʿArabun ʿāribah (pure Arabs.) They
are the descendants of ʿAdnān, not Qaḥṭān (presumably
a “pure” Arab.) Accordingly, ʿAdnān, a descendent of Isma‘īl, is the father (some wrote grandfather)
of Nazār of Ḥijāz and Maʿad of Yemen,
and great grandfather of Muḍar. Depending on what time period,
these mixed Arab groups were customarily referred to as Maʿad, Nazār,
or Muḍar instead of ʿAdnān. [2][28] It is evident, therefore, that after
stating that Umruʾ al-Qays was the king of all Arabs — the single
largest group of people in the area — the writer of al-Namārah needed to state that Umruʾū
al-Qays was also the king of both Asad and Nazār, two of
the largest three mixed tribes in Arabia. The third group is Maʿad
of Yemen. Yet, it is also possible that the term “all Arabs” was referring to
all nomadic Arab tribes as distinguished from tribes that had settled down in
cities and specific geographic areas and established kingdoms.
Based on my readings of the word malik
above as noun, I had suspected right from the begining, that the letter wāw
after the next word, mulūkahum, should actually be a part of that
word. This would make reading Arabic smoother, especially since the next word,
h.r.b is a definite verb, as we shall see that later. This, of course,
was not required for my reading of al-Namārah up to the word mulūkahum.
As explained above, a sentence announcing an extraordinary event, like defeating
the powerful Midhḥij, can start with wāw in the meaning
of wa-akīran (at last or finally), or hā-qad. However,
tracing and inspecting the Nabataean text, I can unmistakably see that the wāw
after mulūkahum is actually connected to it. The downward stroke of
this wāw is not vertical. It is pointing to the right. The final
letter mīm of mulūkahum has a prominent
lower-connecting stroke fading just before it reaches the downward stroke of wāw.
I read this word as mulūkahumū not mulūkahum. This
final wāw is referring to the people of Asad and Nazār.
In Arabic grammar, it is called wāw al-Ishbaʿ (saturation wāw)
or wāw al-ṣilah (relating wāw) and is usually
used after mīm al-Jamʿ (plural mīm) to emphasize
its dhammah diacritic. The word mulūkahumū is the last
word of the opening sentence of al-Namārah. It does not only conclude the
opening sentence in anticipation of the main subject of the inscription, but it
surely makes the reading of the first word of al-Namārah, tī, as “this”, impossible.
The Arabic root of the word after mulūkahumū
could either be haraba هرب (run away) or
hadhdhaba هذّب
(disciplined), a verb in both cases. Tracing this word as hrb
is accepted by all scholars. Since the word that comes after was Midhḥij,
the name of the prominent Yemenite tribe, this verb must be in past tense and
when read in Arabic must have a shaddah on the letter rāʾ
to become harraba هرّب (forced the object to run away) in order to refer to the subject committing the action of
the verb. If Midhḥij is the object, as I read it, the subject can
then be a name appearing before or after the verb. The only other possibility
is to treat Midhḥij, a feminine noun, as the subject, not the object
of the verb; in such case, one must say harabat Midhḥij, adding
the feminine letter tāʾ after bāʾ. Since
there was no tāʾ, this word must be harraba (defeated
them or made them run away.) Hadhdhaba would not make sense after
reading the next line.
Given that harraba was the first
word of the new main event announcing a sentence/paragraph that followed an unrelated
opening sentence, and since it was definitely a verb followed by a name within
a three-word sub-sentence, the next word ʿAkdī عَكْدي must be the
subject name according to classic Arabic. It cannot be an adjective or adverb
since this would leave the three-word sub-sentence incomplete. I agree with
Dussaudʾs reading of the phrase as harraba Midhḥij ʿAkdī,
but I read it in the meaning of the phrase harraba ʿAkdī Midhḥij,
where ʿAkdī is the subject فاعل who defeated
the object مفعول
به Midhḥij.
In Arabic, one can use both phrases, but should differentiate between
them by using appropriate vocal accents on the object and subject. This vocal
differentiation was never marked in writing until after Islam. The Quran and
Arabic poetry have plenty of similar examples. In the Quran (35:28) innamā
yakhshá Allāha min ʿibadihi al-ʿulamaʾu إِنَّمَا يَخْشَى اللَّهَ
مِنْ
عِبَادِهِ
الْعُلَمَاءُ, where the
verb yakhshá is the first word followed immediately by Allāh,
the object, and then comes the subject, al-ʿulamaʾu. [18][19]
However, assuming that ʿAkdī
was a name in the phrase harraba Midhḥij ʿAkdī, one
should also consider the possibility that Midhḥij was a personal
name and is the subject. In such case, ʿAkdī, as the object,
would be the personal or tribe name of the defeated party. Although this
possibility is valid from a grammar and language angle, it would not fit at all
with all readings of the last line of the inscription where the victorious
(either ʿAkdī, or Umrūʾ al-Qays) was treated
as a hero, not a villain. Similarly, the assumption that ʿAkdī
was a last name, as in haraba Midhḥij ʿAkdī,
would not work with the rest of the inscription.
Luckily, from the viewpoint of
research, the word ʿAkdī appeared
twice in the inscription. The last sentence started with the two-word phrase ʿAkdī
halak (ʿAkdī died.) This phrase is, by itself, solid
proof that ʿAkdī
is a name of a person
and that this inscription is about him, not Umruʾū al-Qays.
The main event of the inscription was his triumph over Midhḥij.
Not a very common name, ʿAkdī sounds
like a classic Arabic name. Many of Arabic names are formed by adding final yāʾ
after a noun or after another name derived from a three-letter Arabic root, as
in Ramzī from Ramz, Saʿdī from Saʿd,
Ḥusnī from Ḥusn, … etc. The name of the hero of al-Namarāh was ʿAkdī derived
from the classic Arabic word ʿakd عكد. It is that simple! With a simple
Arabic Google search for the name ʿAkdī, one can find many
using it as a last name in an Arab desert town in Algeria, called Umāsh
أوماش ! The fact that the name ʿAkdī
was mentioned without the name of his father could mean that he was either an
associate of Umruʾū al-Qays, from a slave background like the
famous Arab hero ʿAntarah (who many think was originally a slave)
or a high ranking Arab soldier of the Roman Army.
According to Lisān al-ʿArab,
although the root word ʿakd can be used in a variety of meanings;
however, its primary meaning is, “the lower back part of the tongue.” For that reason, it was used in the meaning
of aṣl (origin) as Libzbarski suggested. The word is probably
related to ʿiqd عِقد (tie).
[7][13] Likely, the derived word ʿakdi
does not mean “strong” or “powerful”, as most Arabic publications desperately claim
today following Caskel’s reading, but “original” اصلي. Besides, one
can not see how anyone could read the same word Akdī in two ways at the same time: as “the
strong” القوي, and “with
strength or strongly” قوّتاً!
Bellamy thought this word was ʿakkaḍá
عكضى, which he
desperately tried to make derive from a two-word phrase ʿan kaḍá
عن
قضى with
the letter nūn assimilated, the letter qāf replaced,
and the letter yāʾ ignored. He thought this word meant
“thereafter”. [7] His reading of the word as an
adverb would make sense if one would go along with Dussaudʾs reading of
the previous text. But even then, his convoluted assumptions to arrive to this
unknown word, ʿakkaḍá, raise more questions but give no
answers. For example, why can’t an inscription, with relatively good classic
Arabic language, use baʿda dhālik, instead? Why is there no
reference to ʿan kaḍá, as “thereafter” in any
historical Arabic reference? In the first place, why would the writer of the inscription
use a non-crucial adverb twice?
Bellamy should be given due credit
for tracing and reading two higly debated words in the beginning of Line 3. I
verified his tracing and I agree with it. He traced the first word as yzjh
and read it yazujjuhā. The missing final alif after hāʾ
is consistent with the word kulluh for kulluhā in Line 1 and
with another word banīh for banīhā, in the end of
Line 3. Yazujju has many meanings, but in al-Namārah context, it means, “to engage
someone in a fierce battle.” Dussaud traced that word as bzji and read
it as bi-zjāy, a non-existing Arabic word! The second traced word
by Bellamy was rtj, which he read as rutuji in the meaning of
“gates of”. I agree with his tracing of the word, but disagree with his Arabic reading
and the meaning he gave to it. The presence of fī (in) rather than ʿalá
(on) before the word indicates that it does not mean gates in this context. The
word fī (in) needs a location where one can be physically “in” not
“near to”. One cannot say in Arabic fī abwāb Najrān (in
the gates of Najrān), but ʿalá abwāb Najrān
(on/at the gates of Najrān.) I read the word rtj as rutuji,
or possibly ritāji, in the meaning of “narrow roads of” or
“narrow road of” as given by Lisān al-ʿArab, which indicated
that the words rutuj or marātij are the plural forms of the
word ritāj for “narrow road”, as in the Quran verse وأرض
ذات رتاج. [13]
Categorically therefore, only this reading
is grammatically correct as it is in agreement with the historical and geographical
facts of Najrān and Yemen, which are known for their narrow roads
and mountainous valleys. The use of the word harraba in the second line
was apparently deliberate. The crushing battle was in and around Najrān,
where Midhḥij had escaped to for cover. Further, scholars read the
word Shimr as Shammar, probably hinting to the well-known Shammar
tribe of northern Najd. Reading the word as a tribe name rather than an
individual name is clearly influenced by reading the following word mlk
as the verb malaka. This hasty reading is yet another example of how
scholars did all they can do to prove that al-Namārah was listing Umruʾū
al-Qays accomplishments.
Two facts attest to the following
conclusion: 1) geographically, in the sense of distance and location, the Shammar
tribe had nothing to do with Najrān or Yemen, and 2) a renowned
king of Yemen who ruled in the time of al-Namārah carried the first
name Shimr. [2][6][14] Moreover, I wonder why al-Namārah, which had added wāw
after every single name in the inscription, would skip that practice only with
the name Shammar! I read the word
Shmr and the wāw that followed as one word, Shimrū,
referring to King Shimr Yarʿish of Yemen, and therefore, I read the
next word that followed as mālik (king of), not the verb malaka
(owned).
The last two words of the third
line are wa-bayyana banīhā, as in wa
mayyaza bayna banīhā (distinguished appropriately between its
people). Bellamy read the two words as wa-nabala bi-nabahi
(treated its nobles gently). His reading would fit fine with his and my reading
of the fourth line, which included two important words, al-shuʿūb
followed by wa-wakkalahunna. For a victorious army, discriminating between
the defeated (as in treatment of women, children, and elders differently) is
contrary to the usual indiscriminate rampage. In other words, it is a sort of
gentle treatment reserved for the vanquished. Tracing the first word by
Bellamy as nbl, which he read as nabala, is possible. Conversely,
tracing the second word as bnbh, which he read as bi-nabahi is
impossible since the third letter is clearly yāʾ, not bāʾ.
I read the first word as bayyana, as did Dussaud even though the
vertical stem of the final letter nūn was unusually high.
In Arabic bayyana in the
meaning of mayyaza (distinguished between) or in the meaning of wadhdhaḥa
(clarified) is the past tense for yubayyin. Among many diverse modes of
usage, the Quran (2:118) used the following: قَدْ بيَّنَّا الآيَاتِ
لِقَوْمٍ يُوقِنُون. The root
word, bayn is among the few Arabic words that can be used to give an
opposite meaning. Generally, it is used to express either separation or
togetherness. [13] As for the second word, I believe
it is banīhā, as in abnāʾihā (its sons
or people). The word bnh should be read as banīhā,
since we are referring either to the Midhḥij tribe or to Maʿad,
both of which are feminine nouns. Dussaud read this word, banyihi, as in
quwwatihi (his steadfastness). This would fit well with the rest, but it
needs to be followed by lil-shuʿūb, not al-shuʿūb
as illustrated in the next word of Line 4.
The fourth line presents no
obstacles to read. In the beginning, Dussaud read it correctly, but a few
decades later, he reversed position. The word wwklhn should be read wa-wakkalahunna
(put them under the protection of), a classic Arabic word that is grammatically
correct. [13] As it happened, al-Namārah included the usual letter nūn
with shaddah at the end, which is possibly used here for emphasis and
confirmation and it is referring specifically to the plural feminine noun al-shuʿūb.
This word is the second widely‑utilized taxonomic term used in the
Arab tribal and modern systems as synonym for the word “people”. A tribe or qabīlah
is divided into shuʿūb, plural for shaʿb, which
in turn is divided into buṭūn. We read in the Quran (9:36)
إِنَّ
عِدَّةَ
الشُّهُورِ
عِندَ اللّهِ
اثْنَا
عَشَرَ
شَهْرًا فِي
كِتَابِ
اللّهِ يَوْمَ خَلَقَ
السَّمَاوَات
وَالأرْضَ
مِنْهَا أَرْبَعَةٌ
حُرُمٌ
ذَلِكَ
الدِّينُ
الْقَيِّمُ
فَلا
تَظْلِمُواْ
فِيهنَّ
أنفُسَكُمْ. The word fīhhunna
فيهنّ is referring to the plural feminine word shuhūr
(months). [18][19] The word shahr
(month) is a single masculine noun, but when converted to plural form, it becomes
shuhūr, a feminine noun. Similarly, the word shuʿūb, plural of the masculine
noun shaʿb, is a plural feminine noun. This may explain, partially,
why the word al-ʿArab, a single feminine noun, in the first line
was referred to with kulluhā, not kulluhunna or kullahum,
and why the feminine noun, Midhḥij, for a single tribe, was
referred to with the words, yazujjuhā, not yazujuhunna or yazujuhum,
and banīhā not banīhunna, or banīhum.
The contested word(s) of the fourth
line was frswlrwm. The first three-letter part frs
can be faras (horse), fāris (horseman or equestrian), or Fāris
(Persia). Reading the word as “horse” cannot be considered. To read history
correctly, it is literally impossible for the word to be read as Persia and
that is because the previous word was clearly wa‑wakkalahunna, and
the following word was clearly indicating the Romans (there has never been an
incidence in old Arabia where an area was put under the simultaneous protection
of the Romans and the Persians.) During
the time of al-Namārah, found in a Roman-controlled
territory, these two powers were engaged in heated battles. Consequently, it
was highly improbable to share domination of Arabia as partners.
At this point, we are left with
only one possibility as how to read frsw, which is fursānū (horsemen)
plural of fāris. I am inclined to believe there is a medial nūn
between the letters sīn and wāw, which I will discuss
in detail later. Accordingly, I read the two words as a compound: fursānūl-rūm,
فرسانولروم, for fursān
al-Rūm, فرسانُ
الروم, similar to
the reading of Umruʾul-qays مرُء لقيس
earlier in the inscription for Umruʾ
ū al-Qays أمرُؤ
القيس. The alif
of al-Rūm was omitted because it was preceded by a word ending
with the letter wāw, namely fursānū. This practice
has largely fallen out of use in modern Arabic writing. The name Umrūʾ
al-Qays, is pronounced with heavy dhammah accent (as if there was a
letter wāw) after hmazah as in Umruʾū-l-qays أمرُءولقيس or Umruʾu-l-qays
أمرُءُ
لقيس. This is why
the beginning letter alif of al-Qays, not same as hamzah,
was also omitted. In fact, in modern Arabic, a majority of people write the
name with wāw beneath hamzah as in Umruʾū
al-Qays أمرُؤ
القيس. Some still
write it as ʾUmruʾu al-qays أمرُءُ
القيس. In
comparison, the alif of al is not omitted when the previous word
ends with a soft dhammah diacritic, like maliku al-Asadiyyin in
the second line. The letter wāw after the nūn in fursānū
could be the plural wāw normally seen when a perfect masculine plural
noun ending with wāw and nūn, is added to another noun
to complete its meaning, as in banū Asad for banūn Asad.
This is known as jamʿ al-mudhakkar al-sālim جمع
المذكر السالم
. The
word fursān is called mudhāf مضاف (qualified)
or translated literary from Arabic “the added word,” while al-Rūm
is mudhāf ilayhمضاف اليه (qualifier) or translated literally
from Arabic “the word which has been added to.” Otherwise, this wāw could also be wāw
al-ṣilah or wāw al-ishbāʿ to emphasize the ḍammah
diacritic on the nūn, as explained earlier when discussing the word
mulūkahumū in Line 2.
Dussaud, who initially read the
word frsw as fārisū (plural
for fāris?), appeared not convinced of his reading. This explains
why he decided to get rid of that reading later (when he re-read al-Namārah in the 1950s.) A justification
does exist to explain this obvious confusion: the area of the stone occupied
by the letters frsw appears significantly damaged. However, all what
the word needs to become fursānū is the letter nūn
between the letters sīn and wāw.
Fortunately, we do not need to
dream up the letter nūn. Retracing that area extensively by using
several photos, I observed that the down stroke of the letter wāw
was pointing to the right, not perfectly vertical as traced by Dussaud. More
important, the downward stroke of the previous letter sīn is
clearly making an upward u-turn, probably to form the small missing letter,
medial nūn, which was then connected to the letter wāw
just at the loop area. Furthermore, the
space between the letters sīn and wāw is suspiciously
wide. Nevertheless, and given that this particular surface is severely damaged,
we may never know for sure if there was ever a letter nūn in that
area of the inscription.
I believe my reading of frsw
as fursānū is more convincing than Dussaud’s. It is surely
more convincing than Bellamyʾs reading of it as fa-raʾasū فرأسو (to appoint
someone as their head or leader.) He read the two-word phrase fa-raʾasū
li-Rūmā. I cannot see how he traced hamzah between the
tightly spaced letters rāʾ and sīn. Hamza, unlike
alif, cannot be omitted in this case since al-Namārah used it consistently everywhere else.
Bellamy’s reading seems acceptable at first; but it would quickly crumple when
combined with the previous word wa-wakkalahunna (placed them under the
protection of.) According to Bellamyʾs reading, the defeated Midhḥij,
were put under the protection of the defeater (Umruʾ al-Qays), and
then accepted the Romans as their ultimate protectors. Why would an Arab king
work so hard for the benefit of the Romans? The Arab kings were never enthusiastically
subservient to either the Romans or the Persians. Their relation was primarily
for mutual protection. [6] Bellamyʾs elaboration on the
differences between raʾīs and malik is not convincing.
Also, his reading of the last word as the city Rūmā روما is confusing.
Even though the Arabs called the Byzantine Romans al-Rūm, these
Romans were not the Romans of Roma (current Rome of Italy). Why al-Namārah
would then speak of Rūmā?
We have no clue as to how and why
some readers read the word wwklhn as wa-kullahum in order to read
the whole phrase as wa-kullahum fursānan lil-Rūm (and made all
of them knights for the Romans). This highly speculative reading discards
arbitrarily one of the two letters wāw and dreams up a final letter
mīm, to replace the letter nūn, in wwklhn. Additionally, it adds a letter nūn
after sīn (as I did) and replaces the wāw by alif
tanwīn in frsw. It also
adds, arbitrarily, a second letter lām before lrum. This
and other peculiar readings are unfortunately the most popular ones in the Arab
world today; probably because the current major Western readings of al-Namārah have failed to convince many! [27]
The last phrase of Line 4, fa-lam
yablugh malikun mablaghah, which was read that way by all scholars, is clear
but tricky. It can mean, “Not even a king could accomplish what he has
accomplished” or “no other king has accomplished what he has accomplished”.
There is a subtle difference between these two interpretations. The second
could lead the reader to believe that it is referring to the only king
mentioned in al-Namārah, king Umruʾū al-Qays.
I beg to differ; that is, it refers to the first interpretation of the first
phrase — that is, the one referring to the accomplishments of ʿAkdī.
It is worth mentioning that it is common in the usages of the Arabic to brag
about something by stating, “not even a king has done
such or had owned such.” As I have explained already, according to history
textbooks before Dussaudʾs reading of al-Namārah, king Umruʾū al-Qays
was not able to control Yemen or Midhḥij.
To summarize, the third and fourth
lines of al-Namārah are describing the sole event of
the inscription, namely the defeat of Midhḥij, which was
introduced in Line 2. Their specific purpose appears to be informing the
reader about where the battle took place, how it was conducted, and what was its aftermath. All of the keywords appearing in the two
lines, Midhḥij, Najrān, al-shuʿūb, malik,
Shimr, and al-Rūm are linked to one geographical location:
Yemen, and to a single timeframe: circa 328 CE.
To continue, I read the single
event paragraph starting by the word harraba (in Line 2) until the end
of the Line 4 as follows: “ʿAkdī defeated Midhḥij,
then engaged them in a fierce battle in the narrow road(s) of Najrān,
the city of Shimr, the king of Maʿad, and separated its
people as it fits before placing them under the protection of the Roman cavalry,
a task that not even a king had accomplished before.” This reading is by no
means speculative. I based it on historical and geographical facts— especially
on the linguistic aspects of the inscription itself.
The final line of al-Namārah started with the word ʿAkdī,
which we have already discussed (and seen) when we read the second line.
Starting with this word in the final line was not a coincidence. The letters of
the final word of the previous line, mablaghahu, were exaggerated in
size and a generous space was left blank after it. It seems, therefore, that
the scriber deliberately wanted to start the conclusive sentence in a new
line. Starting with the name ʿAkdī, he wanted to remind the
reader, once more, that the inscription was about him. The second word after ʿAkdī
was clearly halaka (perished) therefore, the first phrase of the
sentence was ʿAkdī halaka (ʿAkdī perished) The subject name here is after the verb, exactly
as it was in the older Arabic Nabataean inscription, Raqqūsh,
which had used the phrase hiya halakat (she perished). [11] In good classic Arabic, the verb
is usually placed before the subject, but this is not required for
correct Arabic grammar.
After stating the year, month, and
day of his death, the scriber concluded the inscription (according to Dussaud)
with the phrase “bil-saʿd dhū waladahu.” In Arabic language
terms, this interpretation is incomprehensible.
That is, we cannot understand it in Arabic. Nor can we understand “yā-la-saʾdi
dhū wālawhu” meaning, “Oʾ, happiness for those who followed
him” according to Bellamy. Going further, I agree with Dussaudʾs tracing,
except for the first letter, which he read as bāʾ, not yāʾ,
as Bellamy did. One can easily see that the stroke for the letter bāʾ
was a vertical straight line throughout the inscription, unlike the stroke for
the initial yāʾ, which had always included a little dent. I am
unable to see the second wāw of wālawhu that Bellamy
traced with the intention to replace the letter dāl of wldh. It is my judgment that Bellamyʾs reading
of this word was clearly influenced by the assumption that al-Namārah
was King Umruʾū al-Qaysʾ epitaph. We read the last phrase
as yā li-saʿdi dhū waladah (Oʾ, the happiness of
those who gave birth to him). The first word is the letter yā known
as yāʾ al-tanbīh (exclamation calling upon for either
attention or admiration.) This is the same as theyā of tayā,
the first word of al-Namārah. It is used here to draw attention
to the word saʿd (happiness). Unlike the earlier dhū in
the first line, dhū in this phrase was followed by a verb waladahu
(gave birth to him), and therefore it is used in the meaning of alladhī
(those who). The closing phrase should be read in the meaning of “Oh, how happy
should his parents be,” a classic and familiar line used even today when
bringing the bad news of a fallen young soldier, not a king, to his parents!
3.6
Conclusion
For more than a century, it was
assumed that al-Namārah stone, which Dussaud discovered in
1901 (it is hanging today on a wall in the Louvre Museum in Paris,) was the tombstone
of one of the most important pre-Islamic Arab kings, King Umruʾū
al-Qays bin ʿAmrū. My tracing and reading of the inscription
suggests that such an assumption (based on Dussaudʾs initial reading) is
inaccurate. In fact, by rereading al-Namārah and the two other known fully
Arabic Nabataean inscriptions, according to Western scholars, Raqqūsh
and Umm al-Jimāl, I found out that al-Namārah inscription was actually about a
previously unknown military or tribal person named ʿAkdī, who,
while working with or under the Roman Byzantine army, managed to defeat the
powerful Midhḥij tribe of Yemen in the early 4th
century. The inscription included only three parts: an opening introductory
sentence swearing by the soul of king Umruʾū al-Qays bin ʿAmrū,
a long paragraph detailing the specifics of ʿAkdī’’s
accomplishments in a single battle, and a closing sentence announcing ʿAkdī’’s
death.
Below is my modern Arabic
translation and explanation of the al-Namārah inscription:
تَيا
(قَسماً يا ؛
يا) نَفسُ
(روحُ ؛ دَمُ)
امرؤ القيس بن
عَمْرو،
مَلِكُ
العَربِ
كُلّها، ذو
أسَد التاج
(كُنية)،
ومَلِكُ الأسَديين
(نَجْدْ)
ونَزارٍ (بنو
نَزار،
الحجاز) ومُلوكَهُمُ.
(لقد) هَرَّبَ
مِذْحِج
(قبيلة يمانية)
عكْدي (اسم
قائد)، وجاءَ
(اي عكْدي)
يزُجُّها
(يُقاتلها
بضراوة) في
رُتِجِ (طُرُقْ
ضَيّقة)
نَجران،
مدينة شِمْر
(شِمْر يَرعشْ)،
مَلِكُ
مَعَدٍ (بنو
مَعَدْ)،
وبَيّنَ (مَيّزَ
بَيْنَ)
بَنيها
الشعوب (فروع
قبيلة مذْحج)،
ووكَّلَهُنّ
(وضَعَهُنَّ
تحت حماية) فُرْسانُ
الروم، فَلمْ
يبلغْ مَلِكٌ
(اي حتّى مَلِكٌ)
مَبلَغَه (ما
بَلَغَهُ
عكدي). عكْدي
هَلكَ (مات ؛
قُتلَ) سَنَة 223
(328م)، يَومْ 7
بكسلولْ
(كانون
الاول)،
يالِسَعْدِ
(يالسعادةِ)
ذو (الذي)
وَلَدَه
(أنْجَبَهُ).
And the following is my reading of
the inscription translated to English:
In thee Oʾ soul of Umruʾū
al-Qays bin ʿAmrū, king of all Arabs, holder of the crown lion,
and king of al-Asadiyyin and Nazār and their kings. ʿAkdī
has defeated Midhḥij engaging it in a heated battle in the narrow
roads of Najrān, city of Shimr, king of Maʿad, and
befittingly differentiated between its people and placed them under the
protection of the Roman cavalry — not even a king could accomplish what he had
accomplished. ʿAkdī died on December 7th, 223 AD,
O’ the happiness of those who gave birth to him.
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