CIH 6, also known as RES 2637C, is a
pre-Islamic Arabian inscription from
South Arabia
South Arabia (), or Greater Yemen, is a historical region that consists of the southern region of the Arabian Peninsula in West Asia, mainly centered in what is now the Republic of Yemen, yet it has also historically included Najran, Jazan, ...
. It dates back to the 5th century CE, and commemorates the completion of the construction of a house or palace by the
Himyarite
Himyar was a polity in the southern highlands of Yemen, as well as the name of the region which it claimed. Until 110 BCE, it was integrated into the Qataban, Qatabanian kingdom, afterwards being recognized as an independent kingdom. According ...
regent
'Abd-Kulal and his family. A scanned picture of the inscriptions were first provided by Johannes H. Mordtmann and Eugen Mittwoch in their work ''Sabäische Inschriften. Rathjens-v. Wissmannsche Südarabischen-Reise''. This inscription is also written in the
Sabaic
Sabaic, sometimes referred to as Sabaean, was a Old South Arabian, Sayhadic language that was spoken between c. 1000 BC and the 6th century AD by the Sabaeans. It was used as a written language by some other peoples of the ancient civilization of ...
language and shows an instance of
monotheism in pre-Islamic Arabia
Monotheism as the belief in a supreme Creator being,
existed in pre-Islamic Arabia. This practice occurred among pre-Islamic Christian, Jewish, and other populations unaffiliated with either one of the two major Abrahamic religions at the time. M ...
.
Content
Albert W.F. Jamme decodes the inscription as:
A transliteration to English, as done by the Corpus of South Arabian Inscriptions, is presented as follows:
Dating
As stated in the inscription itself, it was written in the year 573 of the Himyarite calendar. This inscription may date back to somewhere in the 5th century CE, which is where the Himyarite chief 'Abd-Kulal was most active as a governor and later a regent.
Interpretation and significance
The inscription describes a man named ‘bdkllm and his family, a wife and two sons, celebrating the completion of the construction of a house or palace known as Yrs³. The figure ‘bdkllm in the inscription was first identified by Albert W.F. Jamme as the Himyarite regent ruler
'Abd-Kulal.
The man and his family are seen invoking the god
Rahmanan
Raḥmānān ( Musnad: 𐩧𐩢𐩣𐩬𐩬 rḥmnn, "the Merciful") was an epithet and theonym predominantly used to refer to a singular, monotheistic God from the fourth to sixth centuries in South Arabia (though the term originates much earlier ...
as having helped them with their residence's construction which is an indication that the religion of this family is monotheistic in nature.
The first pictures of this inscription were taken by Johannes H. Mordtmann and Eugen Mittwoch, subsequently published in their work ''Sabäische Inschriften. Rathjens-v. Wissmannsche Südarabischen-Reise''.
See also
*
Monotheism in pre-Islamic Arabia
Monotheism as the belief in a supreme Creator being,
existed in pre-Islamic Arabia. This practice occurred among pre-Islamic Christian, Jewish, and other populations unaffiliated with either one of the two major Abrahamic religions at the time. M ...
*
Jabal Dabub inscription
*
Ri al-Zallalah inscription
References
{{reflist
External links
CIH 6 (Corpus of South Arabian Inscriptions) 5th-century inscriptions
Articles containing Sabaean-language text
Himyarites
Pre-Islamic Arabian inscriptions
Sabaean inscriptions