Page 141 - Arabian Studies (I)

The Yemenite Settlement ofThefbat 125

the earliest 769/1367—8. By 777/1376—7, however, before al-Afdal’s
death, the mint was once again in Tacizz. It is not possible to detect
from the sources the reason for this move, but there was no obvious
crisis in Tacizz which might have precipitated the transfer at the
beginning of the reign of al-Afdal. Thacbat was not of course the
‘Zitadelle der Stadt Tacizz\ as Zambaur would have us believe.3 2 It
is doubtful that Thacbat was better fortified than Tacizz and it was
perhaps little more than the whim of the monarch who thought
that the Tacizz mint was further from his residence than was wise.

The Inscriptions
No. 1: Plates I—III
No attempt need be made here to describe the situation of the
inscription today in the south wall of al-Masjid al-Ahmar, since the
blocks of stone in which it is engraved have clearly been built into
the mosque wall sometime between Niebuhr’s visit in 1763 and the
present day. Niebuhr’s copy33 has in the French translation the
caption ‘Inscription devant34 une Mosquee a Thobad proche cle
Tads'. The rectangular stones of the inscription are now built into the
wall of the mosque, having been placed there, not in the correct
11
order of reading, but in such a way as to fit neatly into the
construction of the wall (see Plates I—III).
After the publication of Niebuhr’s copy, the Kufic inscription was
first discussed briefly by J. Karabacek in 1896.3 5 Apart from the
fact that Karabacek did not appear to notice that Niebuhr’s copy was
incomplete at the beginning, he read the inscription correctly with
the exception of line 3 (Niebuhr’s line CD). In consequence, he
translates ‘Er baute, und baute fur seinem Bruder. . .’, reading the
verb band. He makes no comment on the style of the epigraphy -
indeed this is not the subject of the article — though he does
reproduce a copy of line 3. Perhaps naturally, he repeats Niebuhr’s
error in the name of the village and writes Thobad.
The inscription thus found its way into the Repertoire,36 The
village is here named simply Thobad. The inscription is described as
being ‘en caracteres arrondis, tenant du coufique fleuri' and the
translation of line CD (Karabacek’s line 3) is improved by reading the
noun bind': ‘Ceci est sa construction et celle de son frere . . .
It is also recognised here that something is wanting at the beginning
of the inscription.
Since the Repertoire reading and translation are acceptable, they
need not be repeated here. It is proposed, however, to publish the
photographs of the inscription as it is to be found today, and to
;