reynolds-the-quran-in-its-historical-context-2

96 _Robert G. HoylandText: "This is the stele and tomb, which 'Adyon son ofi;Ianiy son of Samuel, theheadman of Hegra, built for his wife Mawiyah, daughter of the headman ofTayma, 'Amr son of ~ Adyon son of Samuel, who died in the month of Ab in theyear 251, aged 38 years" (dnh [nps' w]-qbr' dy ['bd} 1-h I 'dy[wn]br !:my brsmw 'I ry[s} I bgr' 'lmwyh 'th-h brt I 'amrw br 'dywn br smw '!I rys tym' dy myttb-yrb I 'b snt m 'tyn w-bmsn I w- 'bdy brt snyn tltyn I w-tmny). 16Mada'in SalihThe Jews of the Hijaz in the Qur 'iin 97It would seem plausible to take the Samuel mentioned here to be a )ew, and evenmore so the Isaiah son of Joseph in no. 5. In this case, numbers 5 and 6 are veryimportant texts for north Arabian Jewry, for they imply that some of them atleast were members of the elite of this society. Since the texts are separated bymore than 150 years, we can also assume some stability for this office. In theirdiscussion of number 6, Altheim and Stiehl go further, linking the title ofrys 17 here with that found in a bilingual Aramaic/Greek inscription, dated 252 CE,designating the leader there as rs tdmwr I exa[rchos ton Palmyrejnon. Theyconclude from this that the two inscriptions relate to the same phenomenon, part"of the same movement in Arab city states, which did not yet correspond tofull independence from Rome, but advertised tl1at intention." However, it isperhaps more reasonable to equate the term rys here to ethnarch, meaning the headof a particular ethnic group under Roman authority, or simply to headman(primus), as appears in a recently discovered Latin inscription from Hegra. 18 Thislatter suggestion would mean that the office did not necessarily relate to a specificethnic group, but that Samuel was the headman and just happened to be a Jew.Nevertheless, the role of Jews in the government of these West Arabian communitiesis noteworthy, and they would seem to have continued to play an importantrole in this sphere into the sixth century CE if we are to believe the Islamic reportsof Samuel b. 'A.diya' possessing a fortress (qa~r al-ablaq) and of his relationswith the ruling families of the powerful tribes. of Kinda and Ghassan. 19 Sadly,though, we have insufficient information about the intervening two centuries topostulate a direct link.··Type: Graffito·.Date: c. 1st to 3rd century CE· ·· ··• Script/Lang.: Nabataean AramaicBib!.: JS Nab387; Noja 1979, VIII~·Text: "Abiyu son of Salmu" ( 'byw bn slmw)''··· .. Place: Mada'in Salih. Type: GraffitoDate: c. 1st to 3rd century CEScript/Lang.: Nabataean AramaicBib!.: JS Nab137; Noja 1979, IXText: "May 'Ezer be remembered well" (dkyr 'zr b-tb).16 At a workshop in Paris (Janu~ry 2005, including Michael Macdonald and Laila Nehme) onpre-Islamic Nabataean Animaic/ Arabic texts we reread the names 'Adnon (' Adniin) and Monah as'Ad yon (' Adyiin) and Mawiyah.17 I translate this as "headman," but it has quite a broad semantic range, comprising head, leader,chief, principal etc., though it might have a more specific sense in this particular case. Note that inno. 5 it is written in the normal Nabataean Aramaic form of r 's rather than the variant form of I)'sused here.18 The inscription records (Dh. al-Talhi and M. al-Daire, "Roman presence in the desert: a newinscription from Hegra," Chiron 35, 2005, 205-17) how "the community of the Hegreni" (civitasHegrenorum) restored the Nabataean covered market in the time of the emperor Marcus Aurelius(so !70s CE) under the supervision of' Amr son ofHaian, "the headman of the community (primuscivitatis)".19 In particular see the account of Abu 1-Faraj al-I~fahiinT, Kitiib al-aghiini, Biiliiq: al-Matba'aal-AmTriyya, 1288/1868, 19:98-102.·Place: al-UlaType: Graffito_Date: c. 3rd to 1st century BCEIt is difficult to give any narrow date range to these very short undated graffiti, which constitute themajority of these alleged Jewish texts. If a date is given by modem scholars, it is usually based onthe period when the script in question is known to have flourished; e.g. dated Nabataean Aramaictexts in this region mostly belong to the first to third century CE.·21 Michael Macdonald urges caution here as the name dn 'I occurs once each in Safaitic and ThamudicB and once, in the f()rm dn 'lh, in Hismaic, and in these scripts a [i:], corresponding to the 'y' inAramaic dny 'I, would not be shown (personal communication).