Milestone Of Bāb Al-Wād From The Time Of ‘Abd al-Malik, 65-86 AH / 685-705 CE
Islamic Awareness
© Islamic Awareness, All Rights Reserved.
First Composed: 10th September 2000
Last Modified: 6th December 2005
| Tweet |
|
|
Assalamu ʿalaykum wa rahamatullahi wa barakatuhu:
(a)
(b)
(c)
Figure (a) original inscription, (b) its trace and (c) its contents.
[
] encloses letters supplied to fill a lacuna
Date
65-86 AH / 685-705 CE.
This milestone was found in a ruin north of the watchtower at Bāb al-Wād on the road from Jerusalem to al-Ramla. It has diacritical strokes for ث، ن and ي, as seen in the last line.
Size Of The Slab
57 cm. x 39 cm.
Script
Written in kufic script. Notice also the ornamentation in the bottom of the slab that is unlike the simplicity shown in the earlier inscriptions.
Contents
The translation of the inscription is:
- The highway [
- Servant of God ʿAbd al-Malik,
- Commander of the Faithful, God's mercy be upon him.
- From Iliya [i.e., Jerusalem] to this milestone
- there are 8 miles.
Location
Département des Antiquités Orientales, Musée du Louvre.
References
[1] M. van Berchem, Matériaux Pour Un Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum, 1920, Tome 2 / 3, Mémoires publiés par les membres de l'Institut Français d'archéologie orientale du Caire, Imprimerie de l'Institut français d'archéologie orientale: Le Caire, Plate I.
[2] M. van Berchem, Matériaux Pour Un Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum, 1922, Tome 2 / 1, Jérusalem "Ville", Mémoires publiés par les membres de l'Institut Français d'archéologie orientale du Caire, Imprimerie de l'Institut français d'archéologie orientale: Le Caire, No. 2, pp. 18-19 and p. 21. The inscription was also reproduced by Adolf Grohmann in Arabische Paläographie II: Das Schriftwesen. Die Lapidarschrift, 1971, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften Philosophisch - Historische Klasse: Denkschriften 94/2. Hermann Böhlaus Nachf.: Wein, p. 83.
[3] M. Sharon, Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum Palaestinae, 1999, Volume II, Brill: Leiden, pp. 4-7.
The images above are reproduced from the stated sources under the provisions of the copyright law. This allows for the reproduction of portions of copyrighted material for non-commercial, educational purposes.
With the exception for those images which have passed into the public domain, the use of these images for commercial purposes is expressly prohibited without the consent of the copyright holder.