Introduction. Epigraphy, the Qurʾān, and the Religious Landscape of Arabia

1.1 Ancient South Arabian

Over 15,000 South Arabian inscriptions date from the late second millennium BCE to the sixth century CE. However, only about fifty South Arabian epigraphic documents are dated according to a year that appears to have been lunar-solar. Before the first century CE, paleography remains the best tool to uncover the dating of the corpus. The mention of Sabean rulers in Assyrian texts and several historical events found in other “external sources” (e. g., the mention of an Egyptian revolt against the Achaemenids in the fourth century BCE) further help archaeologists to trace the history of writing in the region. The inscriptions from South Arabia employ one script known as Sabean. This name derives from the fact that it originated in the kingdom of Saba with the capital Maʾrib, the most prominent kingdom of the region between the eighth century BCE and the third century CE. However, the Sabean corpus is written in four different languages (Ḥaḍramitic, Qatabanic, Minaic, and Sabean), named after the four most powerful kingdoms of the area (Ḥaḍramawt, Qatabān, Maʿīn, and Saba’).^[1]

1. Ḥaḍramitic, attested in the region of Ḥaḍramawt, is the least studied South Arabian dialect. It is attested in hundreds of inscriptions that span a millennium. Ḥaḍramitic monumental inscriptions are attested only after the seventh century CE when the neighboring Saba profoundly influenced the kingdom. Ḥaḍramitic is the dialect once used in the region where eastern Yemen is today found.

2. Qatabanic is attested in brief inscriptions, often broken into several pieces, mainly located in the capital of the kingdom of Qatabān, Timna, and its necropolis.

3. Minaic is primarily attested in the northern region of South Arabia from the eighth century BCE. However, some Minaic epigraphic evidence was discovered in North-West Arabia (especially Dedan and Hegra) and Egypt and linked to the thriving trade of the Mineans.

4. Sabaic is the best attested dialect of South Arabia. It has been documented for a thousand years. The epigraphic evidence dating from the eighth to the fourth century BCE is labeled Early Sabaic. After Middle Sabaic, the inscriptions from the last two centuries of South Arabian history (fourth to sixth CE) are classified as Late Sabaic and linked to the kingdom of Ḥimyar. The latter managed to unify the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula at the dawn of the fourth century after subjugating the nearby kingdoms of Saba’ and Ḥaḍramawt between 275 and 300. The last inscriptions of this group date to the 550s, when the kingdom of Ḥimyar entered a declining phase, leading to its collapse and fall to the Sasanians, followed by the Muslim conquests and the establishment of the Caliphate.

5. Several Sabean inscriptions were uncovered in Ethiopia and Eritrea at the dawn of the 20th century. These inscriptions are monumental and generally classified as Ethiopic Sabaic.

The Ancient South Arabian corpus comprises monumental inscriptions on stone and precious metals (mainly bronze), seals, incisions on wood sticks and palm leaves, and rock graffiti. Altars or statue bases often feature epigraphic evidence. Professional scribes generally wrote monumental inscriptions according to the instructions of the rulers and elites of the South Arabian kingdoms. The content of monumental inscriptions is highly formulaic and impersonal. Several of them commemorate a religious event or the construction of buildings and public infrastructures. The corpus bears several prescriptive texts too. Contracts, letters, and archival lists constitute the content of the wooden sticks and palm leaves corpus. This corpus is written in cursive, probably by professionals. However, they differ from the monumental inscriptions by using first and second-person pronouns, as their daily-life content makes them less impersonal. Instead, rock graffiti are written by common people who did not receive professional scribal education. They usually contain the author’s name (and lineage), even though a brief religious invocation can also be featured similarly to the graffiti attributed to the Ancient North Arabian corpus. They attest that literacy was a widespread practice in the south of the Arabian Peninsula.

Each South Arabian kingdom had a distinct pantheon made of five main deities. The main god of Saba was Almaqah, Qatabān worshipped ʿAmm, Hadramawt Sayīn, and Maʿīn and Ḥimyar ʿAthtar. Several inscriptions dedicated to the gods of the pantheons request health, rainfall, and protection. The last polytheistic inscription of South Arabia dates to 380. After South Arabia’s unification under the kingdom of Ḥimyar, the rulers of South Arabia adopted a Scriptural monotheism.^[2] Therefore, lexemes such as ’ln (“God,” also spelled ’lhn, ’lh, or ’’lhn), B‘l/Mr’ S1myn (“Lord of the Heaven,” sometimes “of Earth” is added), and Rhṃnn (“Merciful”) substitute the polytheistic theonyms attested in earlier periods. At the same time, several epigraphic pieces of evidence mention “the People of Israel” (s2‘bn Ys3r’l) and the Jews (Hd/Hwd/Yhd), bearing evident Hebrew and Aramaic loanwords. After the massacre of the Christian community of Najrān in 522 (whose presence in South Arabia in the fifth century is attested in the literary and epigraphic sources) and the intervention of the neighboring Christian kingdom of Aksūm, the inscriptions bear Christian formulae, proving that the ruling classes had turned towards Christianity.^[3] Ḥimyar remained Christian until its fall to the Sassanians in the second half of the sixth century CE, when the epigraphic evidence of the region ceased to exist, with the possible exception of palm leaf and wood stick documents.^[4]

Ancient South Arabian inscriptions can provide valuable insights into the cultural context of the Arabian Peninsula, as suggested by recent studies on the pagan gods mentioned in the Qurʾān and in South Arabian epigraphy. As the corpus offers insights into the religious and cultural practices of pre-Islamic Arabians, it can help us reconstruct the historical and cultural context in which Islam arose.

1.2 Ancient North Arabian

50,000 inscriptions found in southern Syria, south-eastern Jordan, and north-western Saudi Arabia are datable between the early first millennium BCE and the fourth century CE. This corpus is labeled Ancient North Arabian. Most of the inscriptions consist of brief rock graffiti featuring personal names. Scholars usually divide the corpus into several groups: Dadanitic, Hismaic, Safaitic, and Taymanitic. This categorization is based on graphic differences rather than linguistic variants (note the isogloss formed by the determinative article h-, in contrast to ’al-, the determinative article attested in Old Arabic, mentioned later in this introduction). Many of these inscriptions were discovered in the thriving North Arabian oasis of Dadān, Taymāʾ, and Dūmah, and as such, their dialect is known as “Oasis North Arabian”.

While Dumaitic is attested in only a few epigraphic documents found in the oasis of Dūmah in North Arabia, Dadanitic inscriptions are primarily located in the oasis of al-ʿUlā, ancient Dadān in northern Ḥijāz, an important commercial city in the desert of modern Saudi Arabia. Dadān was the capital of the kingdoms of Dadān and Liḥyān. Between 1932 and 2000, scholars used to divide the inscriptions found in the oasis into Dedanite and Lihyanite on the basis of letter shapes, but nowadays, the entire corpus is labeled Dadanitic. Dadanitic is the only Ancient North Arabian dialect that features monumental inscriptions. The corpus of Taymanitic derives its name from the north-western Arabian oasis of Taymāʾ. Taymanitic epigraphic evidence was once considered part of the “Thamudic” corpus as Thamudic A, named on the basis of the corpus’s attribution to the inhabitants of Thāmud. The Taymanitic corpus was produced between the ninth and the seventh century BCE and includes seals and hundreds of rock graffiti. Hismaic similarly used to be considered as part of the “Thamudic” corpus, and as such, it used to be known as “Thamudic E”. Scholars have relabeled this group of inscriptions as “Hismaic” as they were primarily found in the homonymous desert of Ḥismā between southern Jordan and north-west Saudi Arabia. Hismaic is the only Ancient North Arabian dialect that does not feature a definitive article. However, in a similar fashion to the other groups, most of the Hismaic epigraphic corpus consists of brief graffiti. Thamudic B, C, and D found in the north and central regions of the Arabian Peninsula are still known by the “Thamudic” label and await to be better categorized by scholars. Hismaic has also been called “South Safaitic” in the past, despite being quite distinct from the Safaitic corpus. It is attested in southern Syria, north-eastern Jordan, and Saudi Arabia from the end of the first millennium BCE to the fourth century CE. The Safaitic corpus is named after the volcanic sheets known as Ṣafā. However, the inscriptions are mainly attested in other parts of the Syrian Ḥarrah (lit. “basalt”, referring to the basalt desert of southern Syria and northern Jordan). Scholars have discovered Safaitic inscriptions in Palmyra, Madāʾin Ṣāliḥ, and Pompeii too, but they were written mainly by nomads in the Arabian Peninsula. Finally, Hasaitic epigraphic evidence mainly comprises north-eastern Arabian epitaphs written in the Sabean Ancient South Arabian script.

Literacy in the region appears to have been widespread. Ancient North Arabian inscriptions mostly comprise short graffiti that appear to have been carved by settled people and nomads alike. According to Michael Macdonald, nomads carved inscriptions such as the ones forming the corpus of Safaitic to pass the time.^[5] Michael Macdonald has suggested that nomads inhabiting the Syro-Arabian desert wrote the Ancient North Arabian inscriptions to overcome boredom during their often-solidary herding. Writing, however, never replaced mnemonic literature. Yet, as observed by Ahmad al-Jallad, most inscriptions are highly formulaic in content, suggesting that the writers must have been taught how to and what to write, whether for boredom or other reasons. Moreover, although most inscriptions simply contain personal names (using patrilineal genealogies), these names are rarely repeated in different texts, pointing to the fact that the writers did not write more than one graffito in their lifetime. If the motivation behind the inscriptions is really to pass time, we would expect to find several graffiti written by the same individual. Although it seems plausible that many of the inscriptions were epitaphs or produced for other funerary purposes, this explanation cannot be convincingly applied to the whole corpus of Ancient North Arabian epigraphic evidence. Al-Jallad has suggested that writing in Safaitic was a category of rock art subjected to aesthetic and stylistic formulae.^[6] It appears likely that more than one purpose led to the redaction of the thousands of graffiti classified as Ancient North Arabian. Writing as a pastime and a funerary or religious motivation may have concurred. Indeed, many inscriptions contain formulaic curses and/or prayers which sometimes point to ritualistic aims, whether asking for protection, requesting rain, or invoking a dead relation. In all cases, the inscriptions are highly formulaic, suggesting they belong to a specific genre and cultural tradition. The inscriptions mentioning sacrifices and pilgrimages were possibly read aloud during religious rituals. The epigraphic evidence remembering a deceased one or an event may have held a similar mnemonic and ceremonial function. Drawings accompany several inscriptions.

Ancient North Arabian inscriptions ceased towards the end of the fourth century CE. Roughly at the same time, an increase in Nabatean-Arabic and Old Arabic inscriptions is registered.^[7] Although archaeologists have not discovered Ancient North Arabian inscriptions dating from the late fourth century, it is possible that their scripts were used on other supports. However, as the earliest attestations of Arabic coincided with the disappearance of Ancient North Arabian, it is plausible to imagine that a series of cultural changes played a role in the disappearance of epigraphic Ancient North Arabian, and it is possible that migrations in North-West Arabia destabilized the use of local scripts in favor of emerging ones. The relationship between Ancient North Arabian dialects and Arabic is also an object of debate. One of the problems comes from the difficulty of considering Ancient North Arabian dialects as a single linguistic family. Scholars in the past labeled the group as “Proto-Arabic”. Although these dialects share a script, they are not necessarily considered a homogenous category. The most noticeable feature that differentiates the Ancient North Arabian corpus from Arabic is the definitive article, being almost usually h- in Ancient North Arabian and ’al- in Arabic. A series of grammatical peculiarities appear to be shared by Safaitic and Arabic. However, studies on the intertwined history of the Ancient North Arabian corpus and Arabic are still in their infancy.

Ancient North Arabian inscriptions can provide valuable insights into the cultural context of the Arabian Peninsula, as demonstrated by recent studies on literacy which focused on the corpus. Moreover, as the corpus offers insights into the religious and cultural practices of pre-Islamic Arabians (as suggested by recent studies on the pagan gods mentioned in the Qur'an and attested in North Arabia),^[8] it can help us reconstruct the historical and cultural context in which Islam arose.

1.3 Old Arabic

A small corpus of inscriptions, between the fourth century and the sixth century CE, have been labeled “Old Arabic” or “Paleo-Arabic” and they are considered to be the “ancestors” of classical Arabic.^[9] For example, the corpus features two lines of a Nabataean graffito (ʿOboda); the epitaph of Imru’ al-Qays (328, al-Namārah); fragments of a graffito (455 – 56); part of a trilingual inscription (Arabic, Greek, and Syriac) on a lintel of a martyrion (512, Zebed); a graffito (528, Jabal Says); part of a bilingual (Arabic and Greek) inscription on the lintel of a martyrion (568, Ḥarrān); an inscription (sixth and seventh centuries, Qaṣr Burquʿ); an inscription with a cross (548/49, Dūmat al-Jandal); Christian inscriptions (fifth-century, Najrān). A lost inscription (560, monastery of Hind the Elder at Ḥīrah) is preserved in two transcriptions of al-Bakrī (d. 1094) and Yāqūt (d. 1229). An epitaph from Qaryat al-Fāw in South Arabian script and two inscriptions in the Dadanitic script were only written in the Arabic language. Several new inscriptions classified as “Paleo-Arabic” have been found by the Ṭāʾif-Mecca Epigraphic Survey Project, and they are in the process of being published.

1.4 Pre-Islamic Arabian Poetry

Another significant corpus for the study of late antique Arabia is that constituted by pre-Islamic poetry. The central motifs of pre-Qurʾanic Arabian poems, as they have been identified by both pre-modern and modern scholars, include lamentation before the ruins of the camps (al-bukāʾ ʿalā l-aṭlāl), erotic prelude (nasīb), description of the poet’s journey (raḥīl), description of animals and nature (waṣf), panegyric (madīḥ), self-exaltation (fakhr), invectives (hijāʾ), and eulogies (rithāʾ). Arabian poets were often said to receive inspiration from preternatural creatures known as jinn,^[10] and it was as such conceived as a fearsome and mysterious gift that allowed the poets to manipulate reality while emphasizing the importance of communal memory. The corpus of pre-Qurʾanic Arabian poems – especially those of the so-called “itinerant poets” (ṣaʿālīk) who write about loneliness and poverty – have a nostalgic and melancholic tone, which is typical of love poetry. The material has also a profound socio-political function, aimed at praising rulers and protectors while extolling the glory of the tribe. While explicitly religious language is not heavily attested in the works ascribed to pre-Qurʾanic poets, references to God and to religious beliefs and practices are by no means absent from this corpus. Thus, glimpses of the religious life of the inhabitants of Arabia in the years before Muḥammad are quite frequently found in pre-Islamic poetry, albeit often mentioned only in passing. The word Allāh occurs very frequently in poems attributed to pre-Islamic times, surpassing the mention of the names of any of the idols the Arabs are said to have worshipped before Muḥammad. Moreover, many of the Qurʾān’s statements about the beliefs of its opponents find confirmation in pre-Qurʾanic poetry.^[11]

Pre-Islamic Arabic poetry and epigraphy comprise the only surviving inside testimony to the religious and cultural life of Arabia before Islam. However, unlike pre-Islamic epigraphy, which has attracted increasing scholarly interest in recent decades, the poetic corpus of pre-Islamic Arabia remains largely neglected, mainly due to doubts concerning its authenticity. With both Muslim-era poetry collectors and modern scholars questioning the historicity of some, or in some cases all, poetry^[12] said to have stemmed from pre-Islamic Arabia, this poetry, with all its potential to shed light on a significant period in the history of Arabia, had to take the back seat in research into the Qurʾanic milieu. As Peter Webb mentions in his article in this collection, one of the issues modern scholars have with the corpus of pre-Qurʾanic poetry is its oral transmission – the fact that it was probably only recorded after two to three centuries of being transmitted orally. Webb, however, argues persuasively that much of this poetry existed in written form in special collections well before the time it is believed to have been ultimately recorded, i. e., the third/ninth century. Thus, even if we do accept that pre-Islamic poetry was written down after a long period of oral transmission, many problems regarding the authenticity of this corpus become negligible.^[13]

Given the situation described above, it is not surprising that studies dealing with religious notions in pre-Islamic poetry are rare. Nevertheless, there have been some scholarly efforts in recent years to include extant pre-Islamic poetry in the study of the Qurʾān’s background and in investigations of the possible continuities and ruptures of religious beliefs and practices before and after Muḥammad, a long overdue corrective to the dismissive approach. Two important studies that survey religious trends across the entire corpus are Sinai’s work on Allāh in pre-Qurʾanic poetry cited above and Webb’s work in this collection, which attempts to reconstruct pre-Islamic ḥajj based on poetical evidence. Webb takes additional care to include only those verses in his survey that appear in early specialist poetry collections, a source that, he argues, is devoid of political agendas and, therefore, more likely to contain genuine voices from the period he examines in his article. Thus, Webb’s study, in conjunction with investigations of what pre-Islamic epigraphy has to say about ḥajj, brought here by Suleyman Dost’s paper, offers the most complete reconstruction of this Arabian rite that we have so far.