Abstract:

This research is based on a very rare document preserved and transmitted to us by the book: al-’Azminah wa-’l-’Amkinah, by its author; al-Shaykh Abū ‘Alī Aḥmad bin Muhammad bin Al-Hasan al-Marzuqī al-’Iṣfahānī, who died in the year 421 AH/1030 AD. Its subject is: a land grant in a place in the lands of Banī Sulaym in the pre-Islamic era called: Al-Waḥīdah. The grantor was ‘Amr bin al-Ḥārith bin al-Sharīd, the father of the poetess Tumaḍur, known as al-Khansā’, and her two brothers, Mu‘āwiyah and Ṣakhr. The recipient was his friend, Maʿmar bin al-Hārith bin Al-Khaybarī al-‘Udhrī, the grandfather of the well-known poet: Jamīl Buthaynah. The date of this grant is the year 35 of the Year of the Elephant.

The study of this document has revealed that this grant is the first land grant to reach us from the pre-Islamic era, and the first written text in the style of that period, penned by a scribe who may have been dedicated to this type of Written purposes. The grant was written on a sheet of parchment, which was commonly used for writing in the pre-Islamic era. This document is the oldest evidence of a text written on a sheet of organic material, using the writing style of its time, and the first text to reach us dated to the Year of the Elephant. It is undoubtedly of great scholarly value, adding to the many Arabic texts inscribed on stones throughout the Arabian Peninsula.

Keywords: ʿAmr ibn al-Sharīd / Mʿamar al-ʿUdhrī / Al-Waḥīdah / Banū Sulaym / documented land grant.