Saudi discoveries are rewriting the history of Arabic script

The Al-Haqqun inscription

The new find has extra significance because it has been dated by the Saudi Heritage Commission.

It is an inscription made by a so-called Ka'b bin Amr bin Abd Manat in Mount Al-Haqqun in the Hima Cultural Area, a UNESCO World Heritage site some 200 km north of Najran City.

Researchers trace it back to the year 390 in the Bosra Calendar, which corresponds to 485 AD, though some experts believe the inscription was made some hundred years after the date estimated by the Commission.

 Whether it dates back to 485 AD or 585 AD, the Al-Haqqun inscription corresponds to another – the Thawban inscription, also found in Najran – which is the oldest such writing made in the Hejazi script, dating back to 470 AD.    

The inscription by Ka'b bin Amr consists of seven words and a date given in the numerical values that the Arab Nabateans had adopted from the Phoenicians. It loosely reads that Ka'b bin Amr bin Abd Manat inscribed those words, indicating the year.

Unlike similar inscriptions in the Hejazi script made by Christian Arabs, this one suggests Ka'b bin Amr was an Arab pagan. It is possible he was a merchant from the north-west of the Arabian Peninsula or the south of the Levant, since people in those areas used to follow the Bosra Calendar, which had been adopted by the Nabatean Kingdom after it fell to the Roman Empire in 106 AD.

By adding this year (106) to the year mentioned in the inscription (390), we get a rough match with the estimated Gregorian year of inscription (485).

Al-Kalbi's theory and Amr the Scribe

Before the recent discoveries from the pre-Islamic era, the conventional thinking about Arabic script's origins in the Hejaz had prevailed for some 12 centuries. The theory was set down by Abbasid historian and Arab genealogist Hisham ibn-Al-Kalbi (737-819 AD). He claimed that the Hejazi script was passed down from the pre-Islamic Arab Muntherites in Al-Hirah to the Arabs of Mecca, who spread it in the rest of the Arabian Peninsula.

Al-Kalbi explains his theory as follows:

"Bishr ibn Abd-al Malik, brother of Ukaydar ibn Abd-al Malik ibn Abd-Aljin, the ruler of Dawmat al-Jandal (a town in northern Saudi Arabia today), was a Christian who often visited and stayed in Al-Hirah. Bishr learned how to write the Arabic script from the people of Al-Hirah. Later, he visited Mecca for trade. There, he was seen writing by Sufyan ibn Umayyah ibn Abd-Shams and Abu-Qais ibn Abd-Manaf ibn Zahrah ibn Kilab. They asked Bishr to teach them how to write, which he did.

"Later, Bishr, Sufyan, and Abu-Qais visited the city of Taif for trade. They were accompanied by Ghaylan ibn Salama Al-Thaqafi, whom they taught how to write the Arabic script. Bishr then travelled to the land of the Mudhar, where he also taught the Arabic script to Amr ibn Zarurah ibn 'Adas, who became known as Amr the Scribe.

"Bishr then travelled to the Levant, where he also taught the script to several people, including three men from the Tai tribe. These men in turn taught it to a man from the Bani Kalb tribe, who taught it to a man from the area of Wadi al-Qura (in the north of the Arabian Peninsula). When the latter returned home, he also taught many of his kinsmen how to write."

Remarkably, this ancient theory is similar to another theory about the spread of paganism from Iraq to Mecca and the rest of the Arabian Peninsula. In fact, the historians of the Abbasid Era often sought to portray Iraq as the one and only source for all Arab pre-Islamic sciences, arts, thoughts, and beliefs.

For a very long time, Al-Kalbi's theory was uncontested and regarded as the absolute truth of the origins of the Arabic writing system.

But when Arab heritage researchers attempted to verify Al-Kalbi's theories in their archaeological excavations in Al-Hirah, they came up empty-handed. The excavations did not reveal any inscriptions or writings in the Hejazi script that would support Al-Kalbi's and similar theories.

The Levant and the orientalist theory

Countering Al-Kalbi's established theory, European orientalists started to formulate a theory in the late 19th century that the Arabic Hejazi script emerged in the early 6th century in the Levant. This theory was based on three dated inscriptions that were discovered in parts of Syria.

The first was an Arabic-Greek inscription discovered by the famous French explorer William Henry Waddington (1826-1894) in the southern Syrian village of Harran al-Lajah. The inscription belongs to an Arab dignitary named Sharahil ibn Thalem who erected a shrine to honour a Christian saint and immortalise his victory over the Jews of Khaybar, a historical town in Saudi Arabia's western region.

 The inscription reads:

 "I am Sharahil ibn Thalem, and I have erected this martyrdom shrine in the year 463 (in the Bosra Calendar, corresponding to 568 AD) a year following the ruining of Khaybar."

In the parallel Greek text, Sharabil also mentions the Christian saint, John the Baptist.

Relatedly, the renowned Arab mediaeval historian Al-Tabari mentions that a king of the pre-Islamic Arab Ghassanids who lived in the southern Levant named Al-Harith ibn Thalem attacked and destroyed Khaybar upon the command of Al-Harith ibn Jabalah Al-Ghassani.

This means it is possible that Al-Harith ibn Thalem is no other than Sharahil ibn Thalem, who made the inscription of Harran, but Arab historians confused his name with the name of Al-Harith Al-Ghassani, thus the name Al-Harith ibn Thalem, which is commonly used in the tales of pre-Islamic Arabs.

Subsequently, other similar inscriptions were discovered across the Levant.

The oldest mentions a number of Arab Christian figures like Al-Sharh ibn Manaf, Hani' ibn Imru' al-Qais, and Al-Sharh ibn Saad amongst others, who built a church in the area of Khirbet Zabad, south of Aleppo, in the year 511 AD, and inscribed that date in Greek, Syriac, and Arabic. Since the 1930s, the prevalent belief was that this is the oldest inscription in the Arabic Hejazi script.

In the 1970s, another inscription was found in Mount Sais to the east of As Suwayda in Syria, mentioning Ibrahim ibn Mughirah al-Awsi, who was dispatched on a military exploration mission in the desert by Ghassanid King Al-Harith ibn Jabalah. The inscription dates back to 529 AD.

Several other inscriptions in the Hejazi script were later discovered, but none of them was dated, which makes them of little historical value in the quest for the origin of the Arabic script. One of these is the second Umm Al-Jimal inscription discovered in the northeast of the Jordanian desert.  

Saudi Arabia rewriting history

The theory claiming the Levant as the birthplace of the Arabic script became the prevalent theory in academic circles. But the dated inscriptions discovered in the last few years across Saudi Arabia cast new light on the history of the modern Arabic script, suggesting it dates as far back as the 5th century AD.

From a purely scientific point of view, the Thawban ibn Malek inscription discovered in Najran and dating back to 470 AD is the oldest inscription discovered in the Arabic Hejazi script. Some researchers believe this inscription is linguistically flawed with Nabatean influence, such as the use of the Nabatean word for month, "yarah." 

Thawban seems to have been an Arab Christian, as his inscription is topped with a cross symbol as was common in other inscriptions, though not all of them were dated. With the discovery of the Thawban inscription, it became clear that the Arabic Hejazi script was developed in the western area of Saudi Arabia rather than in the Levant.

The recent find of Ka'b ibn Amr inscription further reaffirms the pivotal role of the Kingdom's western region in the establishment and evolution of the Arabic script.

Links between languages

This is further supported by the inscriptions discovered near the cities of Al-Hijr and Al-'Ula dating back to the period of transition from the Nabatean alphabet to the Arabic Hejazi script starting from the 3rdcentury AD. These discoveries filled several gaps in previous research on the origin of the Arabic script.

Despite Nabatean and Arabic being closely related languages, the period of transition between the two languages largely remained a mystery to researchers.

A good example is the inscription by Raqush bint Abd-Manat discovered in the Saudi north-western area of Madain Saleh, which dates back to 267 AD. This inscription clearly includes elements of the Arabic language but is written in the standard script of the later Nabatean period. Accordingly, it was regarded by specialists as a representation of the linguistic transition from Nabatean to Arabic, rather than the scriptural one.

The same can be said about the famous Al-Namara inscription by Imru' al-Qais, a king of Al-Hirah, which was found in the Syrian desert. This inscription, which dates back to 328 AD, also uses the Arabic language written in standard Nabatean letters.     

In the 1970s, studies suggested that the transitional phase from the Nabatean alphabet to the Arabic Hejazi script took place in the south of the Levant, particularly in the area of Aqaba in Jordan today.

These claims were based on inscriptions made by Ghassanid kings, particularly the famous 'Uday ibn Tha'laba. However, none of the Aqaba inscriptions are dated, which makes them of little value in the search for the origin of the Arabic script.

The astonishing Al Mabiyat inscription

The groundbreaking find for the research was an inscription dating back to 280 AD in Al-Mabiyat, near Al-'Ula in the northwest of the Kingdom.

It filled the research gaps in the transitional period, confirming that the region was at the heart of the Arabic script's evolution. The inscription reads as follows: "…greetings to the tomb of his wife Ramnah bint Yousuf ibn 'Arar who descends from Qarya. She died on the 26thday of May in the year 175" according to the Bosra calendar.

Just like the discovery of Thawban ibn Malek's inscription sparked a shift in theories, this discovery at Al-Mabiyat has driven researchers to reconsider the history of Arabic script and epigraphy, as it clearly represents the transitional period between the late Nabatean letters and the Arabic Hejazi script.

The Al-Mabiyat discovery dates back to the 3rd century AD, and hence is the oldest evidence so far on the evolution of the Arabic script.

Researchers are eager to unveil new inscriptions in the Arabic Hejazi script, especially as amateur archaeologists discover new ones and publish their findings online. These include an inscription made by a king during the first quarter of the 6th century AD, which, if scientifically confirmed, could reveal more details about pre-Islamic history.