Page 5 - Christianity among the Arabs

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documentation is unclear, but many scholars have suggested
that the inscriptions terminate before the fourth century C.E.,
as there are no references to Christianity among the writings.

In 2019, I led an epigraphic survey to the Harra with Dr. Ali Al-
Manaser of the Queen Rania Institute for Tourism and

Heritage at the Hashemite University (Jordan). During our
campaign, in a remote area known as Wadi al-Khudari, we
discovered a small footpath that led to a dry seasonal lake.

Following the path, we came upon a small cairn abounding
with inscriptions—more than a hundred texts covered its
stones. It seems that those using the lake in ancient times

would camp by this cairn, and people who knew how to read
and write would pass the time by carving inscriptions. Most
of them were Safaitic, but a few Greek texts were also

recorded. Many of the Safaitic texts described giving drink to
animals and circumstances of drought, indicating that this
was perhaps one of the final places of water during the dry

season.

One text especially

stands out. The

inscription is carved
in a slightly different
script style and sits
apart from the rest

on a partially buried
stone. Its author

identifies himself as Wahb-EI, that is, “gift of god” in Arabic.
He gives nine generations of his genealogy and then adds a
memorial text, grieving for his uncle whom he describes as
belonging to the tribe of Ashlal (“and he grieved for his

maternal uncle the Ashlalite”).

The inscription reads like a typical Safaitic composition, until

we pay close attention to the wording of the closing
invocation: h ‘sy nsr-h m-kfr-k, “O Tsay (‘sy) help him against
those who deny you.” In this sentence, the word 'sy follows

the vocative particle h (Arabic: ha), which is commonly used
in Safaitic to begin an address to a deity. This shows then
that 'sy was understood as a divine name (perhaps
pronounced Tsay in the Safaitic dialect), though one