SCRIPTS AND
SCRIPTURE
Writing and Religion in
Arabia circa 500–700 CE
Edited by Fred M. Donner and
Rebecca Hasselbach-Andee
THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
LATE ANTIQUE AND MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC NEAR EAST • NUMBER 3
Table of Contents
List of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .vii
List of Abbreviations and Sigla . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Maps of Arabia and Adjacent Regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xv
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xvii
1.
Scripts and Scripture in Late Antique Arabia: An Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Fred M. Donner
2.
The Oral and the Written in the Religions of Ancient North Arabia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Michael C. A. Macdonald
3.
The Religious Landscape of Northwest Arabia as Reflected in the Nabataean,
Nabataeo-Arabic, and Pre-Islamic Arabic Inscriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Laïla Nehmé
4.
One Wāw to Rule Them All: The Origins and Fate of Wawation
in Arabic and Its Orthography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Ahmad Al-Jallad
5.
ʿArabī and aʿjamī in the Qurʾān: The Language of Revelation in Muḥammad’s Ḥijāz . . . 105
Robert Hoyland
6.
Scripture, Language, and the Jews of Arabia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Gordon D. Newby
7.
Script, Text, and the Bible in Arabic: The Evidence of the Qurʾān . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Sidney Griffith
8.
Language of Ritual Purity in the Qurʾān and Old South Arabian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Suleyman Dost
9.
The Invention of a Sacred Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
François Déroche
10.
Script or Scripture? The Earliest Arabic Tombstones in the Light of Jewish
and Christian Epitaphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Kyle Longworth
11.
Religious Warfare and Martyrdom in Arabic Graffiti
(70s–110s ah/690s–730s ce) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Ilkka Lindstedt
v
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
12.
Writing and the Terminological Evolution of the Qurʾānic Sūrah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Adam Flowers
13.
The Adversarial Clansman in Qurʾānic Narrative and Early Muslim
Antipatrimonialism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Hamza M. Zafer
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
11
Religious Warfare and Martyrdom in Arabic Graffiti
(70s–110s ah/690s–730s ce)
Ilkka Lindstedt
University of Helsinki
In a recent history of Rome in antiquity, Mary Beard writes that the
Romans did not start out with a grand plan of world conquest. Although eventually
they did parade their empire in terms of some manifest destiny, the motivations that
originally lay behind their military expansion through the Mediterranean world and
beyond are still one of history’s great puzzles.1
Change the word “Romans” to “Muslims” or “Arabs” (depending on your viewpoint and
emphasis), and the question and the debate are transferred to the early Islamic-era Middle
East. Whereas most or all scholars agree that the early Muslims did not envisage a world
conquest or empire building at the outset of their conquests, the agreement ends there.
Modern researchers have put forward a wide variety of interpretations—for example, material, climatic, religious, and nativist—of the original impetuses of the conquests as well as
the reasons for their success.2 It has also been recently suggested that instead of military
conquests we should discuss the spread and settling of early or proto-Muslims in new
areas of the Middle East in different, more nonviolent terms, since many areas were incorporated into the nascent empire through more or less peaceful treaties.3 Hence the word
“expansion” might be preferable to “conquest.”4
The reason that the modern explanations diverge so much is at least partly because our
sources are very problematic: most scholars have relied on Arabic and non-Arabic literary
evidence, which is in many cases much later and full of dogmatic and tendentious biases.
This study endeavors to do something novel. It surveys the available epigraphic evidence
related to concepts of warfare and martyrdom. While I cannot claim that this survey will
clinch the debate in favor of any of the scholarly points of view, I will argue that the Arabic
1 Beard, SPQR, p. 17. I thank Laïla Nehmé, Kaj Öhrnberg, Jens Scheiner, Tommaso Tesei, the editors of
this volume, and the anonymous peer reviewer for reading and commenting on an earlier version of this
essay. I am also grateful to the participants in the “Scripts and Scripture: Writing and Religion in Arabia,
ca. 500–700 ce” symposium for fruitful discussions on this and other topics.
2 Donner, “Islamic Conquests,” critically surveys the explanations given in earlier scholarship on these
two distinct questions.
3 Donner, Muhammad and the Believers.
4 I thank Professor Jens Scheiner for pointing me to this observation.
195
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ILKKA LINDSTEDT
graffiti show that the early Muslims in general viewed fighting and falling in God’s path in
religious terms and as religiously inspired. But all the epigraphic data surveyed here seems
to derive from a specific, Marwānid period in history, so it remains open as to what, if any,
conclusions can be drawn about the earliest phase of expansion on the basis of these data.
I have argued elsewhere that Arabic graffiti form an important and still rather underused corpus for the study of the social history of the early Islamic Middle East.5 In
an online text6 I have analyzed graffiti that show that early Muslims were eager to put
into writing their statements of piety, which were then read aloud by people passing by;
another article looks in particular at the development of Muslim religious identity.7 The
latter study uses as its main evidence about one hundred Arabic inscriptions dated to the
640s–740s ce. Although the epigraphic corpus creates interpretive difficulties because of
repetitive formulae and so on, this set of data was selected because it is explicitly dated
and, it appears, written by the in-group (proto- or early Muslims) themselves. It thus proffers unique evidence for the processes of identity construction and maintenance in the
Middle East of that era.
To recapitulate the findings of that article, we can give the following simplified timeline for the development of Muslim identity as reflected in Arabic epigraphy: inscriptions
evince indeterminate monotheist formulae up to the 70s/690s, when the first instances
of emphasis on the Prophet Muḥammad surface.8 Designations referring to different religious groups outside the nascent Muslim in-group appear around the same time, in the
70s–90s/690s–710s. Following this time, in the 80s–100s/700s–720s, we have references to
specifically Muslim rites such as pilgrimage, prayer, and fasting. The processes of marking
the boundary are further cemented in about the 100s/720s, when “Muslims” and “Islam”
begin to solidify as words that refer to a specific religious community distinct from others.
Following the same avenues of inquiry, this study employs first- to second-/seventh- to
eighth-century Arabic graffiti to study expressions of willingness to participate in religious warfare (jihād fī sabīl allāh) and to achieve martyrdom (shahāda, istishhād).
DEFINING “GRAFFITI”
First, something must be said about the word “graffiti,” since it is an expression that some
scholars find pejorative. It is not thus used in this essay. Readers, too, should shed the negative implications they might associate with graffiti. Merriam-Webster defines a “graffito”
rather neutrally as “an inscription or drawing made on some public surface (such as a rock
or wall); also: a message or slogan written as or as if as a graffito.”9 The word is used as an
5 Lindstedt, “Arabic Rock Inscriptions”; Harjumäki and Lindstedt, “Ancient North Arabian and Early
Islamic Arabic Graffiti.” I have been inspired especially by Frédéric Imbert’s studies on similar topics:
“Califes, princes et poètes,” “Le Coran dans les graffiti,” “Inscriptions et graffiti arabes de Jordanie,” “L’Islam des pierres,” “Réflexions sur les formes de l’écrit.” See also Robert Hoyland’s classic study “Content
and Context of Early Arabic Inscriptions.”
6 Lindstedt, “Writing, Reading, and Hearing.”
7 See Lindstedt, “Who Is In, Who Is Out?” with references to theories of social psychology.
8 Cf. Longworth, “Script or Scripture?”—chapter 10 in this volume.
9 Merriam-Webster, s.v. “graffito.”
RELIGIOUS WARFARE AND MARTYRDOM IN ARABIC GRAFFITI
197
analytical concept in the study of Greco-Roman10 as well as ancient Arabian epigraphy,11
and I do not see any need to shun it in connection with Arabic epigraphy.12
So how is the word “graffito” used in the present study, and why? Although all categorizations are always somewhat simplifying, the following remarks can be offered. The
criterion, as I apply it to early Arabic lapidary inscriptions, divides the corpus into two
parts: (1) monumental inscriptions, such as building inscriptions and epitaphs, and (2)
graffiti. The main difference between the two types is that while monumental inscriptions
often have both an author (who might or might not be identical with the commissioner
of the inscription) and a hand (scribe) who are different persons, a writer of a graffito is
both the author and the hand of her or his text. This commissioned and planned nature
of monumental inscriptions sets them apart from most graffiti. Indeed, graffiti are often
written spontaneously, and composing and writing the text are one and the same course
of action, although we must of course allow that some time and thought went into planning the text of a graffito. The division into monumental inscriptions and graffiti does not
result from a premodern categorization present in Arabic: all types of inscriptions were
simply called kitāb,13 a word signifying in fact all written texts in any form and length and
on any sort of material. The division proposed here is, then, a modern, etic, and contextual
categorization—nevertheless, one that I hope is useful.
It must be noted that the mode or tool of writing does not play a role in my classification: both monumental inscriptions and graffiti can be either engraved or painted, produced
with chisel, charcoal, brush, or other means.14 But usually only graffiti are scratched on a
surface. The script of graffiti can be equally or even more elegant or beautiful—obviously
subjective criteria in any case—than monumental inscriptions.15 Many of the Arabic graffiti
are very skillfully and charmingly engraved, but this feature does not make them any less
graffiti. The surface of writing, however, is somewhat different in the case of monumental
inscriptions and graffiti: whereas the latter were written wherever a suitable surface was
found, the stones on which monumental inscriptions were written were often specifically
shaped for that purpose.
In any case, most surviving early Arabic inscriptions are lapidary (instead of on portable items) and engraved (instead of painted).16 Notably too, most of them fall into the
category of graffiti rather than monumental inscriptions.17 Indeed, all the texts used in the
present study are lapidary, engraved graffiti. All of them have been published in scholarly
studies. This article, then, does not present new finds of Arabic epigraphy (although some
inscriptions are reread); rather, the study analyzes inscriptions and uses them as evidence
for social history.
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
Baird and Taylor, Ancient Graffiti in Context.
Macdonald, “Uses of Writing in Ancient Arabia.”
Imbert also uses it; see, e.g., his “Le Coran dans les graffiti.”
See below in Epigraphic Evidence, nos. 1, 2, and 6.
Baird and Taylor, “Ancient Graffiti,” p. 3.
Chaniotis, “Graffiti in Aphrodisias,” p. 194.
See, at more length, Lindstedt, “Arabic Rock Inscriptions.”
See the appendix in Lindstedt, “Who Is In, Who Is Out?”
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ILKKA LINDSTEDT
I will dwell on the graffito form somewhat more in order better to place it in its cultural context, particularly by giving analogues from the fields of Greek and Latin epigraphy.
I will not touch on modern graffiti, since it is my contention that they reflect a rather different form of expression. The main difference between them and their premodern counterparts is naturally that the majority of the former are anonymous or pseudonymous,
while the majority of the latter are signed. Furthermore, it seems a modern phenomenon
for graffiti to be seen (by some people, at least) as somehow illicit or subversive vandalism;
producing graffiti did not seem to have held these projections in antiquity, when some of
the graffiti were actually written by the elite members of society.18 Many of the Arabic
graffiti, for instance, are expressions of piety and faith, and writing them would not have
been seen as anything other than legitimate, even commendable, activity.
Studies on Greek and Latin epigraphy have noted that graffiti often interact with each
other: they cluster in places where they respond to earlier graffiti.19 This phenomenon is
probably true for Arabic graffiti as well (e.g., see below, Epigraphic Evidence, nos. 19–20),
but detailed studies on the topic have yet to be conducted. The social context of the Arabic
graffiti is sometimes clearly present in the texts themselves, which, for example, ask God
to forgive “whoever reads this inscription and then sincerely says ‘amen’” (ghafara allāh
li-man qaraʾa hādhā al-kitāb thumma qāla āmīn maḥḍan; see below, Epigraphic Evidence,
no. 6).20
Who wrote graffiti?21 John Bodel remarks that, in the framework of ancient epigraphy
at least, the prevalence of graffiti in some regions and eras offers clues that the ability to
read and write extended beyond the educated elite,22 although it does not in most cases
mean that the writers and readers of graffiti possessed significant amounts of formal learning or literary proficiency.23 Graffiti are often formulaic, so many of the writers perhaps
mastered (or copied) only a few pious phrases, but there are a number of cases of very original graffiti in which the engraver reveals significant skill in composing a text (e.g., below,
no. 19). Were Arabic graffiti written by the upper echelons or the lower classes of society?24
There is no simple answer to this question. What we can say is that the great majority of
graffiti were written by people whose names are not attested in Arabic historical, biographical, or other literary works. So for all we know, they did not belong to the political elite,
nor were they part of the emerging group of religious scholars. But since the writers of
the graffiti possessed at least basic skills in writing Arabic and some religious knowledge,
they probably came from a background of at least moderate economic, social, and cultural
capital (if we do not suppose that being able to read and write Arabic was ubiquitous in the
early Islamic Middle East, which abilities seem unlikely). In any case, Arabic graffiti offer us
18 Baird and Taylor, “Ancient Graffiti,” pp. 3–4.
19 Ibid., p. 7.
20 See also Macdonald, “Literacy in an Oral Environment,” pp. 94–96.
21 For interesting ideas on who wrote Safaitic graffiti and why (as well as much else besides), see ibid.
in its entirety.
22 Bodel, “Inscriptions and Literacy,” p. 746.
23 Ibid., p. 758.
24 For the same question in the Greco-Roman environment, see Baird and Taylor, “Ancient Graffiti,” pp.
11–16.
RELIGIOUS WARFARE AND MARTYRDOM IN ARABIC GRAFFITI
199
evidence on individuals who are mute in other types of evidence: if they had not put up their
mark on stones and rocks, we would have no idea that they ever existed, much less access
to their expressions. What is more, the epigraphic record is often explicitly dated by the
writers, thus giving us invaluable dated evidence for the early Islamic period.
THE CORPUS OF THIS STUDY
Having stated some reasons in general why I believe Arabic graffiti are such valuable
evidence, let me say something in particular about the twenty graffiti that are used in
this study. They comprise published Arabic graffiti dealing with religious warfare or martyrdom.25 Geographically, most of the inscriptions discussed here come from Jordan and
Saudi Arabia.
Six of them are explicitly dated in the 70s–110s/690s–730s. The rest of them are undated (although no. 19 can be dated to the late first or early second century ah on the basis
of the names mentioned). This percentage is actually a rather good one—30 percent of the
whole set are dated inscriptions. Frédéric Imbert, who collected a corpus of 192 premodern
Arabic inscriptions from Jordan, notes that 19 percent of them are dated. But the inscriptions from the first through third centuries ah in Imbert’s corpus are even more rarely
dated (a tally which, of course, supposes we can suggest paleographically or contextually
that some undated inscriptions are from the early period).26 All in all, we should be happy
to operate with a corpus that is at least partially dated.
But I will go one step further and suggest that, at least as a working hypothesis, the fourteen graffiti that are undated in all likelihood belong to the decades of the
70s–110s/690s–730s as well. Their formulae are very similar to the dated ones, so there is
no reason to exclude such a dating for them, although it is of course possible that some of
them are later imitations of earlier models. Paleographically, I find no reason for excluding
this early dating, although number 10 could be of a later date. Let me reemphasize that
the proportion (30 percent) of dated graffiti is rather high in the corpus—a fact that should
warrant offering at least conjectural dating for graffiti with similar formulae. I willingly
concede that assigning this dating to the entire corpus is hypothetical, and new finds could
change the picture. But at the moment I know of no graffiti dated later than the 110s/730s
that might contain personal statements of religious warfare and craving for martyrdom.
It seems, then, to have been an epigraphic theme that blossomed for a period of time but
was then abandoned.
There are some later monumental inscriptions, however, that contain similar formulae related to holy war; but in them, the statements are never personal—they are related
to the ruler or the Prophet. For instance, in some late second to early third century ah
25 After I had finished writing this article, two important new studies came out: Ghabbān, Kitābāt, and
al-Saʿīd and al-Bayṭār, Nuqūsh, which present inscriptions from the Ḥismā. (The two books contain some
overlapping material.) Their inscriptions contain numbers 19 and 20 below and, in addition, some undated inscriptions dealing with religious warfare that are not included in the present study (see Ghabbān,
Kitābāt, pp. 161, 172–73, 207, 234, 272). The new inscriptions do not alter the conclusions of this article.
26 Imbert, “Inscriptions et graffiti arabes de Jordanie,” pp. 46–47.
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gravestones from Egypt, Muḥammad’s deeds are characterized as jihād.27 In later monumental inscriptions, the ruler and commissioner of the inscription proclaims having waged
jihād, as a good ruler should do.28 Although shahāda always means “martyrdom” in the
graffiti used in this study, in some later epitaphs it also means “testimony of faith”—for
instance, in a 245 ah gravestone from Egypt.29 But these occurrences do not, I believe, have
much to do with the subject of this study, nor do they change the proposed date for the
undated Arabic graffiti dealing with jihād and martyrdom.
Incidentally, if it is really the case that all the inscriptions presented here are from the
late first or the early second century ah (a suggestion that I put forward with considerable
caution), then it shows how subjective and conjectural the suggested paleographical datings are: different inscriptions in the undated set (nos. 7–20 below) are dated by modern
scholars to the first, second, third, or fourth century ah. My suggestion is that the third
and fourth centuries are, in all likelihood, too late.
JIHĀD AND MARTYRDOM IN THE QURʾĀN
In this section I will offer an overview of religious warfare and concepts of martyrdom
as they are found in the Qurʾān, a text containing revelations that most likely go back to
the life of the Prophet Muḥammad (d. 11/632), although, according to classical Muslim
scholarship, the Qurʾān was collected as one volume only after his death, perhaps in the
30s/650s.30 I will survey the Qurʾānic material because I believe that it offers the most
important background for the later appearance of similar (but not identical) formulae in
Arabic graffiti.31 The reader who is well versed in the Qurʾān can safely skip this section. I
will not discuss here the ḥadīth corpus or the development of the jihād theory in Islamic
legal literature, since they are later than the inscriptions used in this study.
I do not wish to linger on the late antique context of concepts of religious warfare but
wish merely to state that war and fighting were sometimes motivated by religion or, at
least, seen in a religious vein in the pre-Islamic Middle East.32 Interestingly, Tommaso Tesei
suggests that the concept that soldiers who fell in battle became martyrs was present in
Heraclius’s war propaganda more or less contemporaneously with the Qurʾān.33
27 ʿAbd al-Tawab and Ory, Stèles islamiques de la nécropole d’Assouan, vol. 1, p. 3; Miles, “Early Islamic
Tombstones from Egypt,” p. 218.
28 E.g., Combe, Sauvaget, and Wiet, Répertoire chronologique, vol. 12, no. 4588 (dated 666 ah); Bel, “Inscriptions arabes de Fès,” pp. 363–65 (dated 756 ah).
29 Oman, “Steli funerarie dell’Istituto Universitario Orientale,” p. 313.
30 Translations from the Qurʾān are my own.
31 For possible conceptions of holy war in the so-called Constitution of Medina and Arabic papyri, see
Hoyland, Seeing Islam, pp. 548–49. For the development of the ideologies of jihād and martyrdom more
generally and their meaning (or the lack thereof) for the early believers, see, e.g., Afsaruddin, Striving in
the Path of God; Cook, Understanding Jihad and Martyrdom in Islam; Donner, Early Islamic Conquests, pp.
55–62, 267–71, and Muhammad and the Believers, pp. 82–89; Firestone, Jihad; and Hoyland, In God’s Path,
pp. 61–65.
32 See, e.g., Bowersock, Empires in Collision and Throne of Adulis; Firestone, Jihad; Robin, “Arabia and
Ethiopia”; Sizgorich, Violence and Belief; Stoyanov, Defenders and Enemies of the True Cross.
33 Tesei, “Heraclius’ War Propaganda” and “‘The Romans Will Win!’”
RELIGIOUS WARFARE AND MARTYRDOM IN ARABIC GRAFFITI
201
It might be remarked that religious warfare is mostly lacking in the surviving corpus
of ancient Arabian epigraphy. In Safaitic graffiti, many writers describe raids and such,
but these activities never receive any religious tenor.34 In some Ancient South Arabian inscriptions, however, warfare does receive religious motivation and tone. In an early Sabaic
inscription, the author, who is probably the mukarrib Yṯʿʾmr Byn bn S¹mhʿly Ynf, states
that he has waged war against those who had injured the deity Almaqah: he killed four
thousand individuals and “assigned them (as sacrifice?)” (w-hṯb[hmw]) to said god as revenge.35 Nevertheless, the Ancient South Arabian examples are monumental inscriptions
containing royal boasting—hence they seem to me to have little in common with the Arabic graffiti discussed in this study. Moreover, they date to many centuries earlier than the
Islamic inscriptions. In chapter 2 of this volume, Michael Macdonald notes that many of
the Taymanitic graffiti mention war and contain phrases indicating that the writers were
“keeping watch” for Ṣalm, who was the main, perhaps even the sole, deity worshipped in
ancient Taymāʾ. Macdonald also suggests that the recurring phrase mn s¹mʿ l-ṣlm l twy,
“Whoever obeys Ṣalm shall not perish,” should be understood as a war cry. The Taymanitic
graffiti form an interesting Ancient North Arabian analogue to the early Islamic Arabic
graffiti dealing with warfare, but since they are much (possibly even a millennium) earlier,
we cannot speak of influence.
Let us now turn to the Qurʾān. I will survey the text as it is, without recourse to the
Muslim exegetical tradition or other Arabic literary sources that are traditionally used to
explain the Qurʾānic text, its historical context, and references.36 I will not try to trace a
development in the Qurʾān on this topic; I view it as problematic in the first place to suppose that there was a clear linear development (usually understood to be a progress from
more peaceful ideas toward a firmer embrace of warfare).37
What follows is not meant to suggest that fighting and martyrdom are the most important themes of the Qurʾān; in fact, verses discussing these themes occur somewhat
infrequently and, as noted by Reuven Firestone, the message of the Qurʾān on the topic
of war “is actually far from consistent.”38 But the verses are there, and they require being
discussed for the purposes of this study.
According to Badawi and Haleem, the word qitāl, “fighting,” occurs thirteen times in
the Qurʾān; qātala (with all its inflections), “to fight,” fifty-one times; jihād, “striving,” four
times; jāhada (plus inflections), “to strive,” twenty-seven times; and mujāhidūn, “those who
strive,” four times.39 These activities are often said to be done fī sabīl allāh, “in God’s path”
(e.g., Q. 8:74), or even fī allāh, “in God” (Q. 22:78, cf. Q. 29:69). They are depicted as arduous
tasks but always as something commendable—there is no Qurʾānic passage that states generally that fighting or striving are deeds that should be avoided (that is, if carried out by
34 Harjumäki and Lindstedt, “Ancient North Arabian and Early Islamic Arabic Graffiti,” pp. 73–74, with
references.
35 CSAI, siglum RES 3943, with commentary. See also CSAI, sigla RES 3945 and Ir 13.
36 For the sensible plea by the late Patricia Crone to read the Qurʾān with the Qurʾān, see her Qurʾānic
Pagans, pp. xi–xvi.
37 For the traditional understanding (and criticism of it), see Firestone, Jihad, pp. 50–65.
38 Ibid., p. 47.
39 Badawi and Haleem, Arabic–English Dictionary of Qurʾanic Usage, s.vv.
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ILKKA LINDSTEDT
the believers, not the enemy). Jihād, which at some later time becomes the most common
designation for religious (or sacred or just) warfare, is not necessarily always synonymous
with qitāl in the Qurʾān; it could also refer to other forms of exertion. But in many verses
the synonymity can be supposed. The expression fī sabīl allāh, moreover, is perhaps not
automatically related to fighting in the Qurʾān (even if fighting later becomes the primary
context for it), as can also be seen in the epigraphic evidence of this study.
Let me now give an exposition of the Qurʾānic verses. I will start with qitāl and qātala.
The passage Q. 2:216 states that “fighting [al-qitāl] has been decreed to you [plur.], although it is loathsome to you” (see also Q. 4:77; 47:20). In a much-discussed verse (Q. 9:29),
it is commanded: “Fight those who do not believe in God or the last day, who do not deem
illicit what God and His messenger have proclaimed to be such, and who do not believe in
the religion of truth even if they have been given the Book, until they humbly pay the jizya
ʿan yad.”40 Fighting is sometimes connected with “spending money” (anfaqa) in God’s path
(Q. 57:10). Although usually left anonymous, the enemy as well is mentioned as an active partner to fighting: “fight [plur.] in God’s path against those that fight against you”
(Q. 2:190; see also 3:13). In one verse (Q. 33:25), God is described as having saved the believers from the fight, thus showing that qitāl was seen as arduous.
This aversion to fighting is said to have been usual in earlier communities as well: after the life of Moses, the Banū Isrāʾīl are commanded to fight, but most of them turn away
(tawallaw; Q. 2:246); however, the Prophet Muḥammad (or so it appears—as is usual in
the Qurʾān, he is not explicitly mentioned in the passage) is somewhat more successful in
conveying the command to fight and leads the believers to their battle stations and victory
at Badr (Q. 3:121–27). Elsewhere the Qurʾān (8:65) enjoins him to encourage the believers
to fight, and many people are indeed said to have fought steadfastly on the side of the
“Prophets” (plur.; Q. 3:146).
But not all present in the Qurʾānic milieu are willing to fight: the hypocrites (alladhīna
nāfaqū) are said to have rejected the command and pretended not to know how to fight
(Q. 3:167), and the Qurʾān is worried that people might turn away from the battle (Q. 8:16).
Those who take part in fighting are also contrasted with those who stay behind (qaʿadū;
e.g., Q. 3:168; 9:81). In one verse, the Qurʾān (4:75) asks the audience why they are not
fighting in God’s path and for the weak men, women, and children. In some instances
(e.g., Q. 48:16), those unwilling to fight are described as “nomads” (aʿrāb). Citing Firestone,
the copious verses that display opposition to God’s commands to fight suggest “that the
Muslim community was far from unified in its view on warring on behalf of religion and
the religious community.”41 Below (in Discussion of the Historical Context), I will argue
that expressions and acts of fighting and sacrifice can be understood as costly signaling
through which individuals indicated that they were not free riders but devoted members of
the group. In the Qurʾān, “hypocrites” (munāfiqūn) and “those who stay behind” are particularly clear examples of free riders who were not willing to perform costly deeds, such as
40 The interpretations of the phrase al-jizya ʿan yad vary. The word al-jizya refers to tax or tribute, but
ʿan yad is somewhat mysterious. It could mean “willingly,” “readily,” “in kind,” “for each person,” “out of
their own property,” or something else. For an interpretation, see Rubin, “Qurʾān and Poetry.”
41 Firestone, Jihad, p. 77. But in contrast to Firestone, I do not believe that the in-group described in
the Qurʾān can be called “the Muslim community”; rather, “early/proto-Muslim” or the like would be
preferable.
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203
fighting, for the in-group. Their existence is seen in the Qurʾān as a problem for intragroup
cohesion and solidarity.42 Often, the Islamic exegesis and modern scholarship treat the
munāfiqūn as a group wavering in faith,43 but it is perhaps better to interpret them—at least
from a sociological point of view—as purported free riders who waver in deeds.
The Qurʾān says that there are preconditions to fighting: the believers should not fight
at the sacred precinct (al-masjid al-ḥarām) if they are not attacked first. If that happens,
they can kill the enemy, since “such is the recompense of the unbelievers” (Q. 2:191; see
also 2:217). Furthermore, hypocrites and unbelievers should be fought only as long as they
fight against the believers. If the former leave the latter at peace, God has not allowed
fighting (Q. 4:90; cf. 9:7–13).
As stated above, jihād (“striving”) in the Qurʾān did not necessarily always signify
physical fighting to the original audience of its message. But later it became the standard
appellation for holy war, and it seems to be so used in all graffiti of this essay’s epigraphic
corpus. Since both qitāl and jihād are often said to be done fī sabīl allāh, clearly the Qurʾān
is somehow discussing the two activities in the same context, and in some cases it is rather
clear that the Qurʾān is in fact portraying jihād as physical struggle (Q. 8:70–75; 9:14–20).
Qurʾān 2:218 states: “Those who believe and those who emigrate [hājarū]44 and strive
[jāhadū] in God’s path aspire for the mercy of God.” The mercy of God is associated in the
Qurʾān with otherworldly rewards: jihād is connected with the entrance to paradise also in
Q. 3:140–43. Above it was stated that those who fight are contrasted with those who stay
behind, and the same is also the case for those who strive (al-mujāhidūn; Q. 4:95; 9:81, 86).
Striving and having patience are connected in Q. 47:31. In Q. 9:73 and 66:9, the Prophet
himself is addressed: “O Prophet, strive against the unbelievers and hypocrites [jāhid alkuffār wa-l-munāfiqīn] and be tough against them. Their refuge is Hell.” In some verses
(e.g., Q. 49:15), striving with willingness to spend one’s money and even life is mentioned
as one of the conditions for being a believer, alongside believing in God and “His Prophet.”
As for the enemies of the believers, they strive too, but only to try to convince the believers
that they should associate other beings to God (Q. 29:8; 31:15).
Killing (qatala) is in itself seldom a positive thing in the Qurʾān: to give some examples, historical communities such as the people of Moses are described as having killed
prophets (Q. 2:61) as well as other individuals (Q. 2:72). In a recurring Qurʾānic reproach,
humanity is admonished because every time God has sent messengers bringing something
that people do not like, they either disbelieve in them or kill them (e.g., Q. 2:82). Paradoxically, the Qurʾān vehemently denies that people killed Jesus even though they claim
to have done just that (Q. 4:157). One of Adam’s sons killed the other son—a calamity
(Q. 5:27–30). People are instructed not to kill each other (Q. 4:29) or their children (Q. 6:140,
151), and a believer should not kill another believer, lest he face hell (Q. 4:92–93). Pharaoh
is portrayed in a negative vein as killing and ravaging (Q. 7:127, 141; 40:26); what is more,
Joseph’s brothers scheme to kill him (Q. 12:9). Hence most Qurʾānic references to killing
are negative.
42 For more on the “free-rider problem” in religious groups, see Stark, Rise of Christianity, pp. 174–76.
43 For orientation, see the valuable survey by Adang, “Hypocrites and Hypocrisy.”
44 For the words hijra and muhājirūn and their probable connection with fighting (in later evidence at
least), see Crone, “First-Century Concept of Hiğra,” and Hoyland, Seeing Islam, p. 548.
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ILKKA LINDSTEDT
There are some instances, however, where killing (qatala), not just fighting (qātala), is
encouraged. In Q. 2:190–91, believers are commanded to kill those who fight against them,
since “discord is worse than killing” (al-fitna ashadd min al-qatl; this phrase also occurs in
Q. 2:217). Hypocrites (al-munāfiqūn) too should be captured or killed (Q. 4:88–89), as well
as associators (al-mushrikīn) if they do not repent (Q. 9:5). The text of Q. 8:17 describes a
battle between the believers and unbelievers and states, “it was not you [plur.] who killed
them, but rather God killed them.” Elsewhere, too, God is shown as taking an active part in
the fight between believers and unbelievers (Q. 8:36–39; 9:14).
Whereas the Qurʾānic attitude toward killing is ambiguous or contextual, being killed
(qutila) for God is usually portrayed as commendable: “Do not say to those killed in God’s
path [li-man yuqtalu fī sabīl allāh] that they are dead; rather, they are alive” (Q. 2:154;
see also 3:169). It is furthermore stated that falling in God’s path is a better bargain than
amassing fortunes in this world (Q. 3:157–58). Indeed, mercantile terminology is usual in
these passages describing one’s willingness to sacrifice oneself for God’s cause: “Let those
of you who are willing to trade the life of this world for the life to come fight in God’s path.
To anyone who fights in God’s path, whether killed or victorious, We shall give a great
reward” (Q. 4:74). “God has purchased from the believers their lives and their properties
in exchange for [the promise] that they will have Paradise. They fight in God’s path, so
they kill and are killed” (Q. 9:111; see also 61:10–12). Paradise is, then, the explicit Qurʾānic
reward for those who fall while fighting, as it is for other groups who do good (Q. 3:195):
their deeds will not come to naught (Q. 47:4). This promise naturally applies only to the
believers and not to their enemies: the latter will be killed or expelled and then face painful
punishment—except for those who repent (Q. 5:33).
Curiously, in Q. 3:144 it is even hypothesized that Muḥammad might be killed (māta
aw qutila). This occasion is not, however, a happy one in any way, since it is stated that the
audience would then go back to their old ways.
To finish my exposition of the Qurʾānic usage of q-t-l in the early, poetic Qurʾānic
chapters, the word qutila is optatively (and possibly metaphorically) used and can be translated as “may he be dead/cursed” (Q. 51:10; 74:19–20; 80:17; 85:4). Furthermore, in Q. 9:30
Christians who say that Jesus is God’s son and Jews who say that ʿUzayr is God’s son are
cursed with the interjection qātalahum allāh, “may God fight them!” (see also Q. 63:4).
In the Qurʾān, as opposed to the epigraphic evidence that will be reviewed in the next
section, words of the root sh-h-d seem to relate to witnessing rather than martyrdom.
More than 150 occurrences of such words appear in the Qurʾān, but only Q. 3:140 appears
to have anything to do with dying as a martyr if we are skeptical of the exegetical tradition that is more keen also to interpret sh-h-d words elsewhere in the Qurʾān as related
to martyrdom.
To summarize this section, the Qurʾān contains passages in which fighting and willingness to die in God’s path are described positively or, indeed in some cases, as one of
the requirements for being a believer. These passages in all probability derive from the
time of the Prophet (d. 11/632), although it is uncertain in what form and magnitude the
Qurʾān’s diverse textual items circulated during and after his lifetime: how many of the
believers heard them, learned them, recited them, or wrote them down? Moreover, we
cannot know for certain what the text meant as religious teaching to the earliest believers,
many of whom probably came from a Judeo-Christian background. Was the Qurʾān seen
RELIGIOUS WARFARE AND MARTYRDOM IN ARABIC GRAFFITI
205
as supplanting or merely adding to earlier scriptures? Answers to this question in all likelihood varied according to the individual.
Graffiti containing expressions echoing Qurʾānic formulations on this theme do not
appear in our earliest stratum of Arabic inscriptions (the 20s–60s/640s–680s) but only
from the 70s/690s onward. What is more, the epigraphic formulae differ from the Qurʾānic
ones.45 Why this is so is uncertain. Be that as it may, let us now turn to these graffiti.
EPIGRAPHIC EVIDENCE
In this section I will put forward the epigraphic evidence used in this study before discussing it in its historical context in the subsequent section. For reasons of copyright, images
of the inscriptions are not included here; the reader may refer to the original publications
for these images as well as the readings in Arabic script. I use the Leiden conventions as
adapted for Arabic epigraphy for the transliteration of the texts.46
Square brackets [ ] indicate a lacuna where the original text has been lost. Square
brackets for lacunae are not repeated in the translations of the inscriptions; rather, in the
translations a lacuna of any size will be marked by an ellpisis (…). The square brackets are
used in the following ways in the transliteration:
[allāh] A proposed reconstruction of the lacuna.
[….] Restoration of the missing part is not attempted; each dot represents roughly one
letter in the original Arabic.
[---] Restoration of the missing part is not attempted, and its length is unknown.
<> Conjectural addition to the inscription: letters or words that seem to belong to the
text but were omitted by mistake by the writer.
⸗ Indicates a line break in the middle of a word.
My editorial signs are not always identical with those of the original editors. It should
be remarked that hamzas and medial ā’s, which are not usually written in early Arabic
script, are added to my transliteration without explicitly marking them. I will indicate my
disagreements with the original editions in footnotes. The line numbers are given in the
transliterated part but not in the English translations, which also do not follow the Leiden
conventions in the rendering of the text. The Arabic for “son” is transliterated bn if written
BN and ibn if written ʾBN.
No. 1, 78 ah: A Graffito from near al-Ṭāʾif, Saudi Arabia
Reference: Al-Ḥārithī, “Naqsh kitābī nādir.”
1. shahida al-rayyān bn ʿabdallāh annahu lā ilāh illā allāh
2. wa-shahida anna muḥammadan rasūl allāh
3. thumma huwa yakfī47 man abā an yashhada ʿalā
45 I thank Tommaso Tesei for pointing out this important observation to me (personal communication):
none of the graffiti contain actual Qurʾānic citations.
46 Blair, Islamic Inscriptions, pp. 222–23.
47 The editor reads y-d-m-y, but on the basis of the published photograph (al-Ḥārithī, “Naqsh kitābī
nādir,” p. 542), context, and syntax, the word yakfī appears correct. Here it means “to be sufficient against
206
ILKKA LINDSTEDT
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
dhālika raḥima allāh al-rayyān wa-48
ghafara lahu wa-astahdīhi ilā ṣirāṭ al-janna
wa-asʾaluhu al-shahāda fī sabīlihi49 ā⸗
mīn kutiba50 hādhā al-kitāb
ʿām buniya al-masjid al-ḥarām
li-sanat thamān wa-sabʿīn
“Al-Rayyān ibn ʿAbdallāh testifies that there is no god but God and he testifies
that Muḥammad is the Messenger of God; and He [scil., God] is sufficient against
those who refuse to testify that; may God have mercy on al-Rayyān and forgive
him; and I51 seek guidance from Him to the road of Paradise; and I ask Him for
martyrdom in His path, amen; and this inscription was written in the year the
Masjid al-Ḥarām was [re]built, year seventy-eight [= 697–698 ce].”52
No. 2, 98 ah: A Graffito from Cnidus, Turkey
Reference: Imbert, “Graffiti arabes de Cnide et de Kos,” pp. 734–36. Numbers 2 and
3 evince raids on the Mediterranean islands and in Anatolia.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
raḍḍā allāh ʿamaluka53 yā khaṭṭā⸗
b ibn ḥajar thumma al-ʿammī
thumma al-ṣakhrī wa-katabtu
kitābatī54 hādhā [ghaz]wa55
[---]fī sanat thamān wa[tis]ʿīn
“May your deeds please God, O Khaṭṭāb ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAmmī al-Ṣakhrī; and I wrote
this inscription of mine on a raid . . . in the year ninety-eight [= 716–717 ce].”
s.o.” (Dozy, Supplément, vol. 2, p. 478).
48 The word wa- is not included in al-Ḥārithī’s edition, “Naqsh kitābī nādir,” p. 535, although it is clear in
the photograph on p. 542 and reproduced in the tracing on p. 543.
49 Remarkably, the similar phrase asʾaluka al-shahāda fī sabīlika occurs in the later ḥadīth collections,
where it is put into the mouth of the caliph ʿUmar; see Wensinck, Concordance, vol. 2, p. 407, for references.
50 Here and elsewhere, KTB could naturally be read in the active voice. However, for simplicity’s sake I
will interpret it in this study as the passive if it is not followed by a personal name.
51 Here the writer, al-Rayyān ibn ʿAbdallāh, seems to switch from the third to the first person (if we do
not suppose that the writer and the person mentioned are different). Changes between the third and the
first person are rather usual in early Arabic graffiti; see Harjumäki and Lindstedt, “Ancient North Arabian
and Early Islamic Arabic Graffiti,” p. 70.
52 In the Arabic historiography, the renovation of al-Masjid al-Ḥarām after the second fitna is usually
placed earlier—for example, in the year 74 ah in ibn Khayyāṭ, History, p. 131.
53 Imbert, “Graffiti arabes de Cnide et de Kos,” p. 734, reads raḍiya allāh [ʿan] ʿamalika, but the addition
of ʿan is unnecessary if the verb is understood in Form II.
54 One would expect kitābī for “my inscription,” especially when the next word seems to be hādhā instead of hādhihī.
55 The reconstruction of the word as ghazwa is Imbert’s, it might be remarked.
RELIGIOUS WARFARE AND MARTYRDOM IN ARABIC GRAFFITI
207
Imbert has also published six other Arabic graffiti from Cnidus.56 While they do not
address holy war as such, three writers associate themselves with ahl filasṭīn, troops
from Palestine.57 This comment probably refers to the place of origin of the raiding
troops, although it is not certain whether Khaṭṭāb ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAmmī al-Ṣakhrī is also
from ahl filasṭīn.
No. 3, 99 ah: A Graffito from Cos, Greece
Reference: Imbert, “Graffiti arabes de Cnide et de Kos,” pp. 746–47. The inscription
is badly damaged, and its syntax is unclear. No verbs can be deciphered.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
WMNWʾ58 ʿaṭāʾ bn saʿd al-[---]
[---] mushrikīn fī ghazwa [---]59
wa- [---] sanat tisʿ wa-tisʿīn
naṣr allāh wa-l-fatḥ
al-ʿaẓīm [MN al-MḤRĀM]60
“. . . ʿAṭāʾ ibn Saʿd al-. . . [fought against?] associators on a raid . . . in the year
ninety-nine [= 717–718 ce]; the help of God and great victory [cf. Q. 110:1] . . .”
Cos has yielded three other Arabic graffiti; one of them is dated to 99 ah and another
to the 90s ah as well (the exact year is missing because of the fragmentary state of the
text).61 Yet another, undated graffito states: “May God have mercy on Mahdī ibn Rabīʿ alRuʿaynī al-Bunānī, and he is from the troops of Ifrīqiya [wa-huwa min ahl ifrīqiya].”62 This
statement reflects the possibility that the naval raid(s) on Cos took place in 98–99 ah and
the raiders came from Ifrīqiya, although it is uncertain whether this place of origin can be
generalized for the whole party.
No. 4, 110 ah: A Graffito from Southern Jordan
Reference: Karīm, “Nuqūsh islāmiyya taʿūdu li-l-ʿaṣrayn al-umawī wa-l-ʿabbāsī,”
pp. 298–99, 319 (tracing).
56 Imbert, “Graffiti arabes de Cnide et de Kos,” pp. 733–45.
57 Ibid., pp. 737–40.
58 The beginning of the inscription, before the name, is damaged. Imbert reads WMNWʾ, understanding
it as a (part of a) verb, and translates “et ils ont.” The word might be a form of the verb āmana, “to believe,”
which is common in early Arabic epigraphy.
59 Imbert does not give a reading for the rest of the line, but the tracing might indicate a word with the
masculine sound plural ending (-īn). He suggests, however, that the word might be a toponym (Imbert,
“Graffiti arabes de Cnide et de Kos,” p. 746).
60 This reading is the one given by Imbert (with a question mark). It is unclear what the last word could
mean in the context; Imbert himself does not give a translation for this part. In the published photograph,
the last two words are damaged and unclear, so I give them in square brackets. Could it be a reference to
the month of al-Muḥarram, in which case one should understand the alif after ḥāʾ (in Imbert’s conjectural
reading) to be a mistake by the writer?
61 Ibid., pp. 746–50.
62 Ibid., p. 748.
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ILKKA LINDSTEDT
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
li-llāh yasjudu
kāhil bn ʿalī
bn aktham wa-bi-llāh tawakkala
wa-yasʾalu allāh ji[h]ād⸗63
an fī sabīlihi
wa-ḥajja sanat
ʿashr wa-miʾa64
“Before God prostrates Kāhil ibn ʿAlī ibn Aktham and upon Him he relies, asking
God for jihād in His path; he made the pilgrimage in the year one hundred and
ten [= 728–729 ce].”
No. 5, 117 ah: A Graffito from the Negev, Israel
References: Sharon, Corpus, vol. 3, pp. 179–80; cf. Nevo and Koren, Crossroads to
Islam, pp. 396–97, whose reading seems to me to be inferior.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
bi-sm allāh al-raḥmān al-raḥīm
allāhumma i[ghfi]r li-ḥasan bn maysara wa-li-wā⸗
lidayhi wa-mā waladā āmīn rabb muḥammad waibrāhīm65 allāhumma ijʿal ʿamalī jihādan
wājiban66 wa-aqnī67 istishhād68 fī sabīlika
wa-kataba ḥasan yawm
al-thalā[th]a
fī thamān baqīna min rabīʿ al-<a>wwal wa-fīhi tuwuffū
63 The editor, Karīm, reads the word as ḥamdan. But since there are no occurrences of the phrase yasʾalu
allāh ḥamdan fī sabīlihi, or the like, in other inscriptions (although see no. 6 for aḥyīhi ḥamīdan), I suggest the reading jihādan instead. (The medial ā would be omitted, as is usual in early Arabic script.) That
reading would result in forming a phrase that finds analogues elsewhere in the epigraphic evidence, as
will be seen. The published photograph is too unclear to ascertain either one of the readings. The reading
ḥamdan or jihādan hinges, of course, only on the second letter: whether it is hāʾ or mīm, which can be
mistaken (either by the premodern writers or by modern editors) on stone if the lower circle of the hāʾ is
left unwritten by mistake or is worn off. The word jihād (which occurs four times in the Qurʾān) is written
j-h-d (with the medial ā omitted) in many instances in early Qurʾānic manuscripts, and, indeed, even the
Cairo edition writes it this way in verse 60:1. See https://corpuscoranicum.de/, verses 9:24, 22:78, 25:52,
and 60:1. For all the occurrences, one can find manuscript evidence for the spelling j-h-d (with the medial
ā omitted) for jihād.
64 Karīm adds one more line and reads ghafara [allāh lahu], which can be found much below line 7. But
taking into account the different direction of writing, it can be suggested that that line belongs to another
graffito.
65 Sharon, Corpus, vol. 3, p. 180, gives erroneously b-r-h-y-m. The alif at the beginning of the word is
clear in the photograph, however.
66 Nevo and Koren read wa-ijʿal.
67 The reading of this word is unclear. One could also read the undotted Arabic wāfinī, “provide.” The
meaning is roughly the same as wa-aqnī, “to cause to acquire.” Nevo and Koren read raʾfatī, “my compassion.” The published photograph in Sharon, Corpus, vol. 3, p. 179, does not support their reading.
68 One expects istishhādan, but the accusative case ending seems to be inconsistently used (cf. the previous line and also no. 12 below).
RELIGIOUS WARFARE AND MARTYRDOM IN ARABIC GRAFFITI
209
9. banī ḥā[ti]m yarḥamuhum allāh jamīʿatan
10. wa-huwa fī sanat sabʿat ʿashara69
11. wa-miʾa
“In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful; O God, forgive Ḥasan ibn
Maysara and his parents and their offspring; amen, Lord of Muḥammad and Abraham; O God, make my deeds obligatory jihād and grant martyrdom in Your path;
and Ḥasan wrote [this] on Tuesday, 22 Rabīʿ I, in which died Banū Ḥātim, may
God have mercy on them all; and it was in the year one hundred and seventeen [=
April 21, 735 ce, actually a Thursday, so the correspondence is rather to April 19].”
No. 6, 118 ah: A Graffito from Tall al-Jathūm, Jordan
Reference: al-Jbour, Études des inscriptions arabes, vol. 1, p. 72.70
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
allāhumma ighfir
li-ʿāṣim bn FʿYM71 ʿazman
wa-dharrihiʿilman72 wa-tawaffahu shahīdan
wa-aḥyīhi ḥamīdan wa-yassir lahu
ḥajj baytika wa-jihādan fī sabīlika
wa-ʿamalan fī marḍātika ghafara allāh
li-man qaraʾa hādhā al-kitāb thumma qāla āmīn
maḥḍan wa-kutiba fī khilāfat hishām amīr al-muʾminīn
sanat thamānī ʿashara wa-miʾa
“O God, forgive ʿĀṣim ibn FʿYM resolutely; and sprinkle him with knowledge;
and take him [unto You] as a martyr; and bring him back to life in glory; 73 and
make easy for him the pilgrimage to Your house and jihād in Your path and deeds
pleasing to You; may God forgive whoever reads this inscription and then sincerely says ‘amen’; it was written during the caliphate of Hishām, commander of the
believers, in the year one hundred and eighteen [= 736–737 ce].”
No. 7, Undated: A Graffito from Mecca, Saudi Arabia
Reference: al-Rāshid, Kitābāt islāmiyya min Makka, pp. 104–5.
1. allāhumma
2. ighfir li-abī
69 Sharon reads ʿ-sh-r, but the tāʾ marbūṭa seems to be visible in the photograph.
70 Unfortunately, I do not have access to this publication, so I accessed al-Jbour’s reading through http://
www.epigraphie-islamique.org/. The inscription was rediscovered in situ during the Badia Epigraphic
Survey 2018, led by Ali Al-Manaser and Michael Macdonald. The survey was undertaken as part of the
Online Corpus of the Inscriptions of Ancient North Arabia (OCIANA) project. I thank Ali Al-Manaser for
sending a photo of this important inscription.
71 I am unable to suggest what the name might actually be.
72 This phrasing is somewhat unusual. One could also read dharuhu ʿilman, with the same meaning, or
dharhu ʿilman and translate as “and let him be, [even] knowing [his sins].”
73 The appeal tawaffahu shahīdan wa-aḥyīhi ḥamīdan might be interpreted in the light of the idea that
the martyrs are resurrected and go to paradise immediately after their death.
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ILKKA LINDSTEDT
3. muslim bn MKhBT74
4. wa-tawaffahu fī
5. sabīlika
“O God, forgive Abū Muslim ibn MKhBT and take him [unto You] in Your path.”
No. 8, Undated: A Graffito from Mecca, Saudi Arabia
Reference: al-Rāshid, Kitābāt islāmiyya min Makka, pp. 99–100.
1.
2.
3.
4.
anā abū yazīd
faḍāla ibn samur⸗
a asʾalu allāh
al-mawt fī sabīlihi
“I, Abū Yazīd Faḍāla ibn Samura, ask God for death in His path.”
This interesting graffito will affect how we read others that come after it in this survey.
In the examples numbered 1, 5, and 6 above, we have seen that the writers ask for martyrdom (shahāda or istishhād). In this and some of the following inscriptions, an interesting
formula appears: asking for death fī sabīl allāh.
No. 9, Undated: A Graffito from near al-Ṭāʾif, Saudi Arabia
Reference: al-Ḥārithī, al-Nuqūsh al-ʿarabiyya, p. 102.75
1. ʿabdallāh bn ʿalī bn abī miḥjan yasʾalu
2. allāh al-qatl76 fī sabīlihi ʿalā marḍātihi
“ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAlī bn abī Miḥjan asks God for being killed in His path for His
contentment.”
No. 10, Undated: A Graffito from near al-Ṭāʾif, Saudi Arabia
Reference: al-Ḥārithī, al-Nuqūsh al-ʿarabiyya, p. 151.77
74 This name is undotted in the original inscription and hence open to various interpretations. The reading MKhBT is that of the editor.
75 The editor conjecturally dates the inscription to the second or third century ah, but, as has been
argued above, the graffiti that spell out willingness to participate in religious fighting and die while so
engaged seem to belong to the first and second centuries ah.
76 The word (al-QTL) could naturally be read as al-qitāl, “fighting,” as well. But since the wish of the
writers of other graffiti seems to be to die while fighting (shahāda, istishhād, mawt), I assume that the
reading al-qatl is more likely. There is some other evidence to suggest that al-qatl is the correct interpretation. In the Qurʾān (2:154) it is said wa-lā taqūlū li-man yuqtalu fī sabīl allāh amwāt bal aḥyāʾ wa-lākin
lā tashʿurūna, “do not say that those who are killed in God’s path are dead; rather, they are alive, though
you do not realize it.” This verse might be reflected in the inscriptions quoted here. Furthermore, in the
prophetic traditions we have the phrase al-qatl fī sabīl allāh yukaffiru kull khaṭīʾa, “being killed in God’s
path erases all offenses” (Wensinck, Concordance, vol. 5, p. 290).
77 For this inscription, the editor gives an estimated date of the fourth century ah. The inscription (based
on the tracing given by al-Ḥārithī) is indeed carefully and beautifully engraved and contains decorated
RELIGIOUS WARFARE AND MARTYRDOM IN ARABIC GRAFFITI
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
211
aḥmad ibn ʿamr
ibn jābir ibn ʿiyāḍ
yuʾminu bi-llāh wa-malāʾikatihi wa-rusulihi
wa-bi-kutubihi wa-yasʾalu al-qatl
fī sabīlihi
“Aḥmad ibn ʿAmr ibn Jābir ibn ʿIyāḍ believes in God and His angels and His messengers and His scriptures; and he asks for being killed in His path.”
No. 11, Undated: A Graffito from near al-Ṭāʾif, Saudi Arabia
Reference: al-Ḥārithī, al-Nuqūsh al-ʿarabiyya, p. 82.78
1.
2.
3.
4.
la-qad79 kataba allāh li-ʿurwa a⸗
l-shahāda yawm yalqāhu wa-waqā[hu]
ʿadhāb al-nār wa-jaʿalaka80
maʿa muḥammad yawm al-dīn
“Indeed, God has decreed martyrdom for ʿUrwa on the day he will meet Him;
may He protect him from the torments of hell and may He place you [sic] with
Muḥammad on the judgment day.”
No. 12, Undated: A Graffito from Qāʿ al-Muʿtadil, Saudi Arabia
Reference: al-Kilābī, al-Nuqūsh al-islāmiyya, p. 189.81
1. allāhumma iqdir li-yaʿqūb
2. bn ʿubayd istishhād fī
3. sabīlika mujāhidan
“O God, ordain for Yaʿqūb ibn ʿUbayd martyrdom in Your path as a mujāhid.”
No. 13, Undated: A Graffito from Qāʿ al-Muʿtadil, Saudi Arabia
Reference: al-Kilābī, al-Nuqūsh al-islāmiyya, pp. 170–71.82
1. allāhumma istashhid ʿubaydallāh fī
2. sabīlika mawlā
3. salama bn ʿuthmān
and flowery paleographical features that become common in the third century ah. In my opinion, there
is nothing to exclude a second-century ah date, however.
78 Dated conjecturally by the editor to the second century ah.
79 Read thus by the editor, although the tracing suggests lammā or li-mā. If either of these readings is
the correct one, the translation would become: “Since God has decreed martyrdom for ʿUrwa on the day
he will meet Him, may He protect him.”
80 One would expect wa-jaʿalahu, as al-Ḥārithī, al-Nuqūsh al-ʿarabiyya, p. 82, n. 1, remarks.
81 Dated paleographically to the first century ah by the editor.
82 Dated paleographically to the first century ah by the editor.
212
ILKKA LINDSTEDT
“O God, make ʿUbaydallāh, the mawlā of Salama ibn ʿUthmān, a martyr in Your
path.”
The words mawlā salama bn ʿuthmān are misplaced: perhaps the writer, ʿUbaydallāh,
added them as an afterthought. We can speculate that he might have been engraving his
graffito in haste and first wrote what he thought to be most important—allāhumma istashhid ʿubaydallāh fī sabīlika—and then, when he noticed that he still had time to finish the
inscription, wrote his patron’s name.
No. 14, Undated: A Graffito from Al-Aqraʿ, Saudi Arabia
Reference: al-Kilābī, al-Nuqūsh al-islāmiyya, pp. 245–46.83
1.
2.
3.
4.
allāhumma ighfir li-ʿubāda
bn ḥarām al-shā[m]ī
wa-urzuqhu al-shahāda
fī sabīlika
“O God, forgive ʿUbāda ibn Ḥarām al-Shāmī and provide 84 him martyrdom in
Your path.”
No. 15, Undated: A Graffito from Qāʿ al-Muʿtadil, Saudi Arabia
Reference: al-Kilābī, al-Nuqūsh al-islāmiyya, pp. 353–54.85
1.
2.
3.
4.
allāhumma i⸗
stashhid [---]
bn al-[---]86 fī
sabīlika
“O God, make . . . ibn al-. . . a martyr in Your path.”
No. 16, Undated: A Graffito from near Jerusalem
References: van Berchem, “Note on the Graffiti,” p. 86; 87 Macalister, “A Cistern
with Cufic Graffiti” (which includes the rather poor tracings of the graffiti but not
the facsimiles, which were not published).
83 Dated paleographically to the second century ah by the editor.
84 The choice of the word (urzuqhu) might be influenced by Q. 3:169, which states, “do not consider those
killed in God’s path dead; rather, they are alive with their Lord, provided for [yurzaqūna],” or Q. 22:58,
according to which “those who emigrate in God’s path and are then killed or die, God will provide them
with a good provision” (la-yarzuqannahum allāh rizqan ḥasanan).
85 Dated paleographically to the third century ah by the editor.
86 This reading is the one given by al-Kilābī: bn for son, followed by the definite article al- and a lacuna
[---]. But it is unclear whether there is really space for anything after the putative article al-. Looking at
the tracing, it could be suggested that the name is actually extant, even if the last letter is damaged. One
could then suggest, for example, Nazzāl as the reading of the name.
87 Concerning the date of numbers 16–18 and other graffiti from the same place, van Berchem, “Note
on the Graffiti,” p. 90, states: “I should not like to say of any of these graffiti whether it was inscribed
yesterday or in the first century of the Hegira.” In my opinion, the latter option is definitely more likely.
RELIGIOUS WARFARE AND MARTYRDOM IN ARABIC GRAFFITI
1.
2.
3.
4.
[---] wa-ḥamza [---]
bn ḥumayd wa-huwa yasʾalu a⸗
llāhal-shahād[a]
fī sabīlihi
“. . . and [?] Ḥamza . . . ibn Ḥumayd, and he asks God for martyrdom in His path.”
No. 17, Undated: A Graffito from near Jerusalem
References: van Berchem, “Note on the Graffiti,” p. 86; Macalister, “A Cistern with
Cufic Graffiti.”
1.
2.
3.
4.
[allāh walī] saʿīd
wa-huwa yasʾalu
[al]lāhal-shahād[a]
fī sabīlihi
“God is the guardian of Saʿīd. And he asks God for martyrdom in His path.”
No. 18, Undated: A Graffito from near Jerusalem
References: van Berchem, “Note on the Graffiti,” p. 86; Macalister, “A Cistern with
Cufic Graffiti.”
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
allāh walī
bishr bn ʿabd
[a]llāh wa-ka[taba]wa-huwa
yasʾalu allāhal-[shahāda]
fī sabīlihi
“God is the guardian of Bishr ibn ʿAbdallāh—and he wrote [this], asking God for
martyrdom in His path.”
No. 19, Undated: A Graffito from Ḥismā, Saudi Arabia
References: The rock on which inscriptions 19 and 20 are found was initially discovered and discussed by the Saudi explorer group Farīq al-Ṣaḥrāʾ (http://alsahra.
org/?p=11163). The inscriptions were then mentioned by Imbert (“Califes, princes
et poètes,” pp. 68, 76) and included in the Islamic Awareness website (http://www
.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Inscriptions/muwinsc4.html). They have
now been published by Ghabbān (Kitābāt, pp. 103–4, 137–38) and al-Saʿīd and alBayṭār (Nuqūsh, pp. 126–27).
1.
2.
3.
4.
allāhumma ṣallī ʿalā muḥammadʿabdika wa-rasūlika wa-aʿẓim ajrahu
wa-akrim nazlahu wa-kataba saʿīd ibn dhakwān mawlā muʿāwiya
ibn abī sufyān wa-huwa yasʾalu allāh bi-afḍal mā saʾalahu ʿabd min al-awwalīn
wa-al-ākhirīn an yarzuqahu sharaf al-qatl fī sabīlihi
“O God, bless Muḥammad, Your servant and Your messenger. Make his reward
great and make his residence noble. Saʿīd ibn Dhakwān, the mawlā of Muʿāwiya
213
214
ILKKA LINDSTEDT
ibn abī Sufyān, wrote [this] asking God for the loftiest thing that a servant has
ever asked: that He provide him the honor of being killed in His path.”
It is probable that the inscription postdates the reign of Muʿāwiya (41–60/661–680), for
mentions of the Prophet do not appear in the Arabic epigraphic record before the 70s ah.88
After this time, the mention of the Prophet becomes somewhat common. It is hence probable that Dhakwān, not Saʿīd, was the freedman of the caliph Muʿāwiya ibn abī Sufyān.
Muʿāwiya does not bear the title of amīr al-muʾminīn in the inscription. But since we have
here the rather full name Muʿāwiya ibn abī Sufyān, the identification with the Umayyād
caliph of that name seems all but certain. The fact that the title amīr al-muʾminīn is missing might be explained by the possibility that Muʿāwiya was already deceased when the
inscription was written. Assuming that Dhakwān was the mawlā of the caliph Muʿāwiya
and his son Saʿīd wrote the inscription, we can place the inscription toward the end of the
first century of Islam or later.
No. 20, Undated: A Graffito from Ḥismā, Saudi Arabia
References: The same as those for number 19, which appears on the same rock.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
anā bakkār bn
ṭālūt
asʾaluallāh shara⸗
f al-qatl
fī sabīlihi
“I, Bakkār ibn Ṭālūt, ask God for the honor of being killed in His path.”
The writer, Bakkār ibn Ṭālūt, is clearly reacting to inscription number 19 and asking
for the same honor of martyrdom for himself. This graffito finishes the exposition of the
epigraphic evidence, which will be analyzed and placed in its social and historical context
in the next section.
Additional, Unique, Undated Graffito from al-Ṣuwaydira, Saudi Arabia
Reference: al-Rāshid, Al-Ṣuwaydira, pp. 101–2. This graffito displays an unusual
formula, and it is unclear whether it bears a connection with holy war. Hence it
is not counted among the twenty inscriptions that definitely deal with that topic
but is presented here as an additional text, the interpretation of which is unclear.89
1.
2.
3.
4.
āmana maʿn ibn al-wa⸗
līd bi-llāh wa-kafara
bi-l-ṭāghūt wa-huwa yasʾalu
allāh zakāt90 fī sabīlihi
88 See Lindstedt, “Who Is In, Who Is Out?”
89 The editor, al-Rāshid (Al-Ṣuwaydira, p. 101), dates this inscription to the first two centuries of Islam.
Early dating is corroborated by the medial open ʿayns appearing in the text.
90 Mohsen Goudarzi (to whom I am grateful) has suggested to me in a private communication that this
word (zakāt) can be interpreted in another way as well. Goudarzi notes that there could be a tooth between the kāf and alif. Hence a reading r-k-b-ā-h might be possible. In this reading, the word would be
RELIGIOUS WARFARE AND MARTYRDOM IN ARABIC GRAFFITI
215
5. muqbil ghayr mudbir nā⸗
6. ṣir ghayr khādhil
“Maʿn ibn al-Walīd believes in God and disbelieves in false gods, asking God for
zakāt in His path, going forward, not retreating, assisting, not forsaking.”
I have touched on this inscription in a coauthored publication. There it was suggested
that the writer asked “to receive alms tax while in God’s way (i.e., participating in Holy
War?).”91 This request might have been a reference to Q. 9:60, which mentions that the
alms (al-ṣadaqāt) are meant for different categories of people, including, for example, the
wayfarers and those who are fī sabīl allāh.92 But there is as well another interpretation that
was not adduced in our earlier study. Since one of the meanings of the root z-k-w/y is “to
be or become pure,” it is possible that here zakāt denotes “purification,” perhaps through
martyrdom in battle. The last two lines of the text (“going forward, not retreating, assisting, not forsaking”) could certainly refer to fighting, perhaps with a reference to Q. 8:15,93
although the formulae differ.
EPIGRAPHIC FORMULAE
Next I will discuss the epigraphic formulae of the inscriptions. Six of the writers of the
graffiti ask God for forgiveness (nos. 1, 4–7, 14). This theme is, of course, a very common
one in early Arabic inscriptions. One might ask, however, whether the writers thought
that fighting and falling in God’s path automatically granted forgiveness. This thinking
might well be the case: as stated above, there are Qurʾānic passages associating jihād,
martyrdom, and heavenly reward (e.g., Q. 2:218; 3:140–43; 4:74; 9:111), and a ḥadīth states
al-qatl fī sabīl allāh yukaffiru kull khaṭīʾa, “being killed in God’s path erases all offenses.”94 David Cook discusses a passage from ʿAbdallāh ibn al-Mubārak’s (d. 181/797) Kitāb
al-Jihād where a sinning but penitent believer is described as fighting until falling.95 According to ʿAbdallāh ibn al-Mubārak’s text, this “cleansing [i.e., being killed in God’s path]
wipes away his offenses and his sins . . . and he will be let into heaven from whatever gate
he wishes.”96 In the corpus of this article, numbers 6 and 9 state that fighting and falling
are pleasing to God.
derived from the root r-k-b and have to do with riding or raiding, although it is unclear what exact noun
would be meant. Perhaps rakba, with a superfluous alif? Or its plural, rakabāt, with a tāʾ marbūṭa erroneously instead of tāʾ mabsūṭa? In any case, it is uncertain whether the tooth is really there, so al-Rāshid’s
original interpretation, zakāt, is perhaps preferable.
91 Harjumäki and Lindstedt, “Ancient North Arabian and Early Islamic Arabic Graffiti,” p. 81.
92 The link with the inscription and the verse Q. 9:60 was suggested to me by Edmund Hayes, to whom
I am grateful.
93 “Believers, when you meet the disbelievers in battle, do not turn your backs on them [fa-lā tuwalluhum
al-adbār].”
94 Wensinck, Concordance, vol. 5, p. 290.
95 Cook, Understanding Jihad, pp. 14–15.
96 Ibn al-Mubārak, Kitāb al-Jihād, pp. 30–31, translated in Cook, Understanding Jihad, p. 14.
216
ILKKA LINDSTEDT
Of the twenty graffiti, eleven mention martyrdom (sh-h-d)97 and four being killed
(al-qatl);98 two ask God to take them unto Him (tawaffahu),99 and one mentions dying
(al-mawt).100 All in all, then, seventeen deal with falling in God’s path. One ʿUrwa, who
wrote number 11, declares that God has prescribed or preordained martyrdom for him
(kataba allāh li-ʿurwa al-shahāda). The writers of numbers 19 and 20 say that falling is an
“honor” (sharaf). It might be interesting to note that the writers of numbers 2 and 3, which
are apparently the only graffiti that were written on actual raids, do not mention the wish
to die while fighting, thus perhaps showing a difference between ideology and practice.
Indeed, the writer of number 3 does not express a hope for being killed but rather “the help
of God and great victory.”
Three of the graffiti mention jihād (nos. 4–6), with one (no. 5) describing it as “obligatory” (wājib). Numbers 5 and 6 connect jihād with martyrdom (istishhād, tawaffahu
shahīdan), and the engraver of number 12 asks for “martyrdom in Your path as a mujāhid.”
Interestingly, numbers 4 and 6 mention that the writer had made the pilgrimage or intended to do so. Some ḥadīths also link or equate jihād and pilgrimage.101 But it might
be imprudent to suggest that these engravers understood jihād not as physical fighting
but as religious exertion of some other kind, since number 6 also includes a request for
dying as a martyr (tawaffahu shahīdan wa-aḥyīhi ḥamīdan).102 Maybe the writers wanted
to proclaim their keenness to participate in the two rites, fighting and pilgrimage. The
great majority (seventeen out of twenty) of the graffiti contain the phrase fī sabīl allāh, fī
sabīlihi, or fī sabīlika.
Graffiti numbers 2 and 3 mention raiding (ghazwa)—indeed, they were actually inscribed on a raid—but only one graffito (no. 3) in the whole set mentions the enemy the
writer is fighting against: mushrikīn. The invisibility of the enemy (the out-group) is an
interesting feature in other graffiti.103 As was noted above, seventeen of the twenty graffiti
deal with dying in God’s path. The pivotal theme in them appears, hence, to be willingness
to sacrifice oneself, not fighting and defeating some identified enemy. It is perhaps natural
that a graffito written on an actual raid (no. 3) mentions the enemy, while those engraved
away from the border region do not.
The geography of the finds must be briefly commented on. Most of them come from
Jordan and Saudi Arabia, that is to say, somewhat removed from the frontier regions where
fighting was actually taking place. It might be surprising that the Marwānid push for
expansion was felt so strongly in the south. But the geographical focus of our epigraphic
corpus is probably simply due to (1) where good writing material was available (especially
97 Nos. 1, 5, 6, 11–18.
98 Nos. 9, 10, 19, 20.
99 Nos. 6 and 7.
100 No. 8.
101 Wensinck, Concordance, vol. 2, p. 405.
102 Of course, it could be claimed that the writer of number 6 was hoping to die en route or when in
Mecca and considered this martyrdom. For example, Cook, Martyrdom in Islam, p. 35 mentions a tradition
saying that whoever dies while shaving the head during the pilgrimage is a martyr.
103 Since “otherness is distinguished by giving it names,” as stated by Rauhala, “Danger and Delusion,”
p. 287, the Arabic graffiti investigated in this article have more to do with in-group formation than outgroup marking and othering.
RELIGIOUS WARFARE AND MARTYRDOM IN ARABIC GRAFFITI
217
basalt stone, which is abundant in Saudi Arabia and Jordan and on which inscriptions
survive for millennia); (2) where the later medieval building activities were limited; and (3)
where fieldwork for early Arabic inscriptions has actually been carried out. (It has been
rather extensive in Jordan and Saudi Arabia but limited in, say, Iran, Central Asia, Turkey,
and the Maghreb.) Moreover, although here I am speculating, I believe it is probable that
were there more recorded early Arabic inscriptions from, for instance, North Africa, Iraq,
Iran, Turkey, and other places, we would probably see in them expressions of the same
kind. And, in any case, we do have some graffiti from the frontier regions as well (nos.
2 and 3). Furthermore, a cistern near Jerusalem has furnished three martyrdom graffiti
(nos. 16–18). The narratives of the conquest and all-around sacredness of Jerusalem were
important parts of Muslim communal memory,104 so it is perhaps not surprising to find
statements of falling for the sake of God there. In any case, the fact that the Marwānid
conquest ideology received a positive reaction as far south as the region around Mecca
(nos. 7–11) shows us the extent of (at least stated) eagerness to fight in God’s path during
those decades.
DISCUSSION OF THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT
My intention in this study is to discuss religious warfare and martyrdom as a social phenomenon rather than as dogma, although dated epigraphic evidence can of course proffer
clues about how the theological and legal principles of jihād and martyrdom evolved over
time. The evidence above shows that there are six early dated inscriptions expressing personal views of jihād and willingness to die as a martyr. The dated inscriptions fall into
the decades of the 70s–110s ah. Since there are altogether about eighty dated Islamic-era
Arabic inscriptions up to the end of the 110s ah,105 religious warfare and martyrdom can
be described as fairly infrequent themes, with fewer than 10 percent of the surviving dated
inscriptions containing formulae and expressions related to those themes. An interesting
question is why these themes do not appear in the epigraphic evidence earlier, before the
70s/690s, especially when the Qurʾān discusses them rather amply. This phenomenon could
be just a matter of what has survived: there are only about a dozen extant dated inscriptions
up to the end of the 60s ah106—a meager figure. Another possibility is that these notions
were not embraced by the (proto-)Muslims taking part in the earliest conquests,107 but this
idea seems somewhat questionable to me given the Qurʾānic passages discussed above.
In any case, the appearance and proliferation in the graffiti of the themes of fighting
and falling seem to belong to a specific historical context: that of a renewed interest, after
the second fitna, in active conquests and expanding the area controlled by the caliphate
in which the Umayyad caliphs from ʿAbd al-Malik to Hishām were instrumental (that is,
the period of the 70s–120s/690s–740s).108 Furthermore, in the introduction to this chapter
104 See, e.g., Shoshan, Arabic Historical Tradition, pp. 110–33.
105 Lindstedt, “Who Is In, Who Is Out?” appendix.
106 Ibid.
107 Shoshan, Arabic Historical Tradition, pp. 56–57.
108 See, e.g., Blankinship, End of the Jihâd State; Hoyland, In God’s Path, pp. 138–206; Kennedy, Great
Arab Conquests, pp. 169–343; Robinson, ʿAbd al-Malik, pp. 66–71. For a translation of an Arabic chronicle
218
ILKKA LINDSTEDT
I stated that, on the basis of epigraphic and other contemporary material, the processes of
formulating a distinctively Muslim identity should be dated to about the 70s–100s/690s–
720s.109 This process went hand in hand with constructing the non-Muslim out-group (“the
others”), who begin to be mentioned in inscriptions from that time onward. And what
could be a better way of expressing and accentuating belonging to an in-group (Muslims)
than affirming willingness to fight and die for it (or its God)?
Above, in the section presenting the epigraphic evidence, all instances of the noun alq-t-l were read as al-qatl and understood as falling in battle. This reading/understanding
was done in view of what I see as an analogous phrase, asʾalu allāh al-mawt fī sabīlihi (no.
8), and others that mention martyrdom. Naturally, we could also read al-qitāl, “fighting,”
with medial ā omitted as is usual in early Arabic script, and understand it as synonymous
with al-jihād, which also occurs in the epigraphy. It is possible that some engravers intended al-q-t-l to be read as such, although it is peculiar that none of them uses the scriptio plena to indicate al-qitāl instead of al-qatl. Still another way of interpreting the word
would be to read al-qatl but understand it as “killing” (< qatala) instead of “being killed”
(< qutila). But this interpretation seems unlikely to me in the context of other graffiti and
the Qurʾānic evidence that usually highlight the significance of sacrificing one’s life in
God’s path rather than killing the enemy per se. The readiness to fall in battle is present
in, for example, Arabic apocalyptic traditions that could be rather early. Some of them
mention squads called shuraṭ li-l-mawt, vanguards that promise not to return from the
battle if they are not victorious. They are especially connected with the conquest of Constantinople.110 Arabic conquest narratives also contain expressions of love of death and
actively seeking martyrdom.111 In the later traditionist and legal literature, active seeking
of martyrdom became a vexed issue: many religious scholars frowned on it.112
COSTLY SIGNALING
In a different context, Nina Nikki has treated the suffering of the New Testament’s apostle
Paul as costly signaling.113 According to Nikki, the inclination of an individual to suffer
and undergo hardships for a group shows that she or he is not a free rider but a faithful
member of the group. Costly signals are patterns of behavior or practices that induce pain,
consume energy, and thus cannot be feigned. By performing and expecting costly deeds,
the members of the group can display their own communal commitment and monitor that
of the other members.114 These abilities add to intragroup cohesion and cooperation, especially if there are many individuals who are keen to offer such high-cost sacrifices. From
detailing the era, see ibn Khayyāṭ, History, pp. 129–253.
109 See also Donner, “From Believers to Muslims” and Muhammad and the Believers.
110 Cook, Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic, p. 63.
111 Shoshan, Arabic Historical Tradition, pp. 54–56.
112 Cook, Martyrdom in Islam, pp. 27–28, 40–41. Often, the scholars criticizing the active seeking of
martyrdom referred to Q. 2:195, “Spend money in God’s path but do not be cast to destruction by your
own hands.”
113 Nikki, Opponents and Identity, pp. 62–63, 186, with references to theoretical literature.
114 On costly signaling in religious groups in general, see Sosis, “Why Aren’t We All Hutterites?”
RELIGIOUS WARFARE AND MARTYRDOM IN ARABIC GRAFFITI
219
a group boundary-drawing and boundary-maintaining perspective, defining suffering and
death as something positive and encouraged can be interpreted as an example of social creativity in which the group gives value to deeds that are disapproved of outside the group
and that hence serve as criteria to distinguish the in-group from the out-group.115
Rodney Stark has underlined that sacrifices for a religious community represent completely rational and often conscious choices, not irrational or masochistic ones.116 Indeed,
these sacrifices and stigmas alleviate the free rider problem that a religious or other social
group might confront: belonging to a community that requires or expects costly deeds is
actually advantageous, since such a group is often characterized by high levels of commitment, cooperation, and collective action and activity, as well as altruism.117 Stark gives
the following two rules: “First: By demanding higher levels of stigma and sacrifice, religious
groups induce higher average levels of member commitment and participation. Second: By
demanding higher levels of stigma and sacrifice, religious groups are able to generate greater
material, social, and religious benefits for their members.”118 Expressions of eagerness to fight
and die for the in-group are seen as usual and expected in the Islamic-era Arabic evidence
surveyed in this essay. They are evidence of identity formation and accentuation processes as well as intragroup cohesion. How much they reflect actual practice at the time is of
course somewhat difficult to gauge, but it would in my opinion be rash to suggest that
there was no link whatsoever.119 At the very least, the epigraphic formulae illustrate rejection of the manners of those who stay behind and do not fight (as discussed above; e.g.,
Q. 3:167–68; 4:75; 9:81).
THE MARWĀNID PUSH
The graffiti from Cos and Cnidus (nos. 2 and 3, dated 98 and 99 ah) are probably somehow connected with the attempts to try to squeeze the Byzantine Empire and to capture
its capital, Constantinople, during the reign of the caliph Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd al-Malik
(r. 96–99/715–717).120 This effort was a rather big one, probably including both land and naval
forces,121 which furthermore might have been seen as an apocalyptic battle before the year 100
ah, when some expected the end of times to begin.122 The campaign was led by Sulaymān’s
brother Maslama; Constantinople was besieged for a year, but it was not reduced.123
115 Nikki, Opponents and Identity, pp. 183–84.
116 Stark, Rise of Christianity, p. 167.
117 Ibid., pp. 174–79.
118 Ibid., p. 177, emphasis original.
119 As noted by Sosis (“Why Aren’t We All Hutterites,” p. 108), “a signal can achieve stability in a population even if some individuals can send the signal falsely, as long as the signal is honest ‘on average.’”
120 Imbert, “Graffiti arabes de Cnide et de Kos,” pp. 756–57. There had been earlier efforts to do so as well.
121 Hawting, First Dynasty of Islam, pp. 72–73.
122 For the importance of conquering Constantinople in Arabic apocalyptic speculations, see Cook, Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic, pp. 52–66. For the importance of the year 100 ah, see Borrut, Entre mémoire et
pouvoir, pp. 291–97.
123 Al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh, vol. 2, pp. 1314–17; for a full analysis of the sources and events, see Borrut, Entre
mémoire et pouvoir, pp. 229–82; more briefly, see Hoyland, In God’s Path, pp. 170–78. Ibn Aʿtham, Futūḥ,
vol. 7, pp. 167–205, 298–306, is problematic for the chronology since, according to him, Maslama had
220
ILKKA LINDSTEDT
The first decades of the eighth century ce were characterized by an increased effort
for conquests in the east, west, and north. After a stop to these campaigns under ʿUmar II
(r. 99–101/717–720), they were continued under Hishām (r. 105–125/724–743) in all directions, especially in the east and north, but not always successfully. Arabic historiography
offers detailed but sometimes contradictory narratives about them.124 The third civil war and
the ʿAbbāsid revolution (126–132/744–750) brought the invasions to a halt.
Again it must be underlined that the epigraphic corpus of this article consists of graffiti, which allow us to see how people outside the political elite and religious scholars
viewed things at the time. According to the dated graffiti, the epigraphic themes of personal statements of jihād and martyrdom seem to have flourished especially under the Marwānid caliphs ʿAbd al-Malik, Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, and Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik125
until they were abandoned sometime after 118/736–737 (the year of the last dated graffito,
no. 6, above). This phenomenon goes well with what we know from Arabic chronicles and
other literary sources about the cessation of widespread military activity and expansion
in the 740s ce: thus there does seem to be a connection between the epigraphic formulae
and actual practice. The expressions appearing in the epigraphy are not mere rhetoric or
copying of older formulae.126 Under the ʿAbbāsids (from 132/749 onward), jihād was mostly
a regulated and ritualized activity that did not aim for extensive new conquests but occurred with the intention of keeping and settling the conquered areas.127
CONCLUSION
This study has endeavored to show that Islamic-era Arabic inscriptions, especially of the
graffito type, are important material for social history. The graffiti treated in this study
contain personal statements about the impulse to fight and fall in God’s path. Their historical context is the Marwānid thrust to expand the caliphate in the 70s–120s/690s–740s.
They show that at least some individual Muslims of the time had internalized the politicoreligious jihād ideology. Warfare was seen in religious terms or as sanctioned by religion,
even if individual motivations to participate in fighting in all probability varied and also
involved more mundane factors, such as desire for riches or adventure.128
begun besieging Constantinople before Sulaymān’s caliphate and, in fact, Sulaymān writes to Maslama to
withdraw the siege (p. 298). For an overview of and references to non-Arabic sources discussing Maslama’s attack on Constantinople, see Hoyland, Seeing Islam, pp. 107, 294–302, 434, 624–25, 653.
124 Hawting, First Dynasty of Islam, pp. 83–88; Hoyland, In God’s Path, pp. 170–206.
125 Notice, by the way, that graffito number 6 says that it was written fī khilāfat hishām amīral-muʾminīn:
the link between jihād and the ruling caliph is explicitly present.
126 As claimed by Elad, “Community of Believers,” p. 247: “One should remember that the wording of
inscriptions became clichés, common formulae. Can they truly teach us about their authors, about early
Muslim society and its character?” On the same page (n. 5), he refers to Moshe Sharon for support for
this opinion. If Sharon is indeed of this opinion, it is rather striking, given that he is one of the leading
scholars of Arabic epigraphy. As suggested here and in Lindstedt, “Who Is In, Who Is Out?,” I disagree
with this idea.
127 Bonner, Aristocratic Violence.
128 The more banal motives are also discussed in the Arabic traditions dealing with the subject; see Cook,
Understanding Jihad, p. 25; Firestone, Jihad, p. 103.
RELIGIOUS WARFARE AND MARTYRDOM IN ARABIC GRAFFITI
221
The graffiti analyzed here belong to the same decades as those when Muslim identity
began to be articulated in epigraphy and other texts.129 The Arabic texts up to the 60s/680s,
including the Qurʾān, evince a still-evolving religious identity,130 which can perhaps be
called “proto-Islamic affiliation.” At this early stage, the Muslim group was yet to coalesce,
and the borders between the in-group (“we”) and the out-group (“them”) were being negotiated. The rise of a more distinctly Muslim identity from about the 70s/690s onward,
with an emphasis on the Prophet Muḥammad and Islamic rites, coincides with Arabic
graffiti putting forward costly signals of striving and dying for the in-group (although, it
must be conceded, they never mention the community as such but only God as a reason to
struggle). As remarked by Firestone on a general level about the concepts of holy war: “The
importance of distinguishing between the in-group and the ‘other’ cannot be overstressed
as the particular vehemence and tragedy of ‘civil war’ suggests, for organized and sanctioned mass violence and killing can be conducted only against those who are identified,
even if only temporarily, as outside the group.”131 This costly signaling, both in the fields
of epigraphic messages and actual battle, produced cohesion, cooperation, and altruism
among (at least the male) Muslims and, as well, more accentuated expressions of allegiance
to the in-group. I interpret the Arabic graffiti surveyed here as twofold expressions: first,
the engravers hoped for the reward of the hereafter for (eventually) dying as a martyr, and
second, they wanted to leave their signatures on stone to be read by later Muslims who
would memorize their names and heroic deeds in this world.132
As an intercommunal aside, it is natural that earlier, late antique Christian concepts
and narratives of martyrdom naturally affected early Muslim views.133 Daniel Boyarin, for
example, speaks of “the idea of martyrdom as a positive and eroticized religious fulfillment” among “late antique rabbinic and Christian Jews.”134 In the process of borrowing,
however, early Muslims changed the idea of martyr from steadfast sufferer for the faith to
activist warrior defending and fighting for it.135
In the seventh to eighth centuries ce, the direction of borrowing could also have been
different—from Muslims to Christians. Some years after Arabic graffiti evince emphasis
on martyrdom in God’s path on the Muslim side, Christian martyrdom narratives become
increasingly frequent in the Middle East. In these narratives, individual Christians are
portrayed as suffering and dying at the hands of Muslims. Many of the Christian martyrs
resolutely irk the Muslims in order to gain martyrdom.136 This practice can be compared to
Arabic graffiti in which the engravers purposefully ask God for death. In the early Islamic
Middle East, members of both religious communities (Muslims and Christians) expounded
129 Lindstedt, “Who Is In, Who Is Out?”
130 Donner, “From Believers to Muslims” and Muhammad and the Believers.
131 Firestone, Jihad, p. 14.
132 See especially number 6, above. For this twofold reward in the context of Christian martyrs, see
Weiner and Weiner, Martyr’s Conviction, pp. 80–81.
133 For early Christian views of martyrdom, see, e.g., the commentary and texts in Ehrman, After the
New Testament, pp. 26–55.
134 Boyarin, Dying for God, p. 114.
135 Cook, Martyrdom in Islam, p. 23.
136 Hoyland, Seeing Islam, pp. 345–47; see also now Sahner, Christian Martyrs.
222
ILKKA LINDSTEDT
their keenness to perform costly deeds by asserting that they were ready to die for their
faith, one of the results of which was the maintaining of communal boundaries.137
FINAL NOTE
Above, I remarked in passing that some ḥadīth compilations have similar formulae to
those contained in the inscriptions, but there they are said to have been expressed by the
Prophet or, say, the caliph ʿUmar.138 Western scholarship has for a long time suspected and
endeavored to show that the ḥadīths seem to have originated as pious phrases and narratives circulated by the early Muslims toward the end of the first century ah and later,
which were then put into the mouths of important early prototypical figures (the Prophet,
caliphs, pious men, and, less often, women), and finally were projected, more or less in toto,
onto the time of the Prophet.139 The corpus of graffiti concurs with this overall picture: the
pious formulae contained in the early graffiti are always personal statements, not ascribed
to the Prophet or some other figure. Thus, and taking into account the rather extensive
modern scholarly studies about the ḥadīth corpus, it seems indeed possible to suggest that
in some cases the Prophet’s dicta reflect pious maxims that were current on the lips of the
people. But the processes of composing and compiling the many and sometimes incredibly
vast corpora of ḥadīths were multifaceted and complex: naturally, not all Prophet’s dicta
have their exemplars in the (hypothetical or proven) earlier maxims.
137 See Boyarin, Dying for God, for background and analogues from the earlier centuries when Jews
and Christians were formatting and upholding their distinct religious identities with the discourse of
martyrdom.
138 See inscriptions 1 and 9. For jihād, qitāl, qatl, and shahāda fī sabīl allāh, as well as related formulae in
ḥadīths, see the references in Wensinck, Concordance, vol. 2, pp. 405–7. For connections between inscriptions and ḥadīths, see also Hoyland, “The Content and Context of the Early Arabic Inscriptions,” p. 100.
139 E.g., Goldziher, Muslim Studies, vol. 2; Schacht, Origins; Juynboll, Muslim Tradition.
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