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114 Robert G. HoylandThe only problem with a pre-Islamic dating for these Judaeo-Arabic inscriptionsis that it does· give them a unique status: the earliest Judaeo-Arabic texts by far(leaving us with a gap of two or three centuries to account.for before the first dateableevidence for Judaeo-Arabic) and the only Judaeo-Arabic texts from the Hijaz. ·Before endorsing this, it seems to me that we should first explore better the lessstartling option of an Islamic date. The continuing _presence of Jews in northArabia in Islamic times is quite well attested. For example, Ibn ijazm (d. 456/1 064)refers to Jews still living in Medina in his time and Ibn Kathir notes that in thetenth century (shortly after the year 300 AH), the Jews ofKhaybar claimed thatthey had ·in their possession a document allegedly given them by the Prophetwhich exempted them from the poll tax. 56 Moreover, JS Heb1-3 and 5-8 are not'necessarily by Jews; they do not contain overtly Jewish names or formulae. It issaid that quite a number of Jews of Arabia converted to Islam in the early Islamicperiod and it could be that our texts are the work of some of. these converts, whowould plausibly have still known how to write Hebrew. It is difficult to analyse ·the texts, because they are so brief, but it is worth saying that the expression in JSHeb1, "He trusts in God" (bi-lllah yathiq or yathiq bi-lllah), is a very popularMuslim expression, used in innumerable seals and graffiti, in the Abbasid period,but is not attested before this. In the end, though, no matter which option we gofor, these Judaeo-Arabic fragments will remain something of an oddity.The significance of the small corpus of texts listed above depends on how oneinterprets them. It is very much in vogue in current studies of the origins oflslamto take absence of evidence as evidence of absence, and so one could take thediminutive size, spread and quality of the corpus above to write a revisionisthistory of Islam, arguing, for example, that we must relocate the rise of Islam to ..Iraq or Palestine, where Jews are more numerous, more widespread and moreeducated. 57 However, one could also use it to tell a different story, of smallcommunities of Jews who were very well integrated into the life ofthe Arab tribesofthe Hijaz, who knew the principal Biblical tales and rabbinic legends and essentialsof Jewish ritual (as featured in the Qur'iin) but were minimally inducted inhigh Jewish culture and in limited contact with the wider Jewish world.There is also perhaps another story being told by these texts, though veryobliquely. As noted in point 5 above, it is the old oasis settlements of Hegra(Mada'in Salih) and Dedan (al-Uia) that yield the most Jewish texts. After themcome the similarly ancient settlements of Tayma (nos. 5 and 31; and see no. 6),56 Both cited by W.N. Arafat, "New Light on the Story of Banii Quray+a and the Jews of Medina"JRAS 1976, 105. See also Newby, Hist01y, ch. 7, and C.A. Nallino, Raccolta di scritti editi einediti, Rome: Istituto per !'Oriente, 1939-48, 3:121. At the First Oxford Arabic Epigraphy Workshop(I 2/06) Dr Ali Ghabban showed a graffito from near al-Ula, dated 83 AH, by one 'AbdAllah .b. Abi Gharic;l, member of a once distinguished Jewish family which included the poet Samuel b. · ·'A.diyii', but himself now apparently a convert to Islam.57 This has been suggested by G. Hawting, The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, andY. Nevo and J. Koren, Crossroads to Islam:the Origins of the Arab religion and the Arab state, New York: Prometheus, 2003.The Jews of the Hijaz in the Qur'an 115··• Qurl;t (al-Mabiyyat, no. 18) and Tabule (nearby Umm Jadhayidh, nos. 14-15).places have a very ancient history. Tayma hosted the Babylonian kingNa!borudllS in the sixth century BCE. Dedan is noted in the Bible for its "caravans"and merchandise of"saddlecloths" (Isaiah 21.13; Ezekiel27.20) and its Minaean·trading colony expedited cargos of incense rrom south Arabia to the markets of·':the Mediterranean. Hegra served as the southern capital ofthe Nabataean kingdom,at Petra, and enjoyed the status of a civitas in the Roman province of Arabia(seen. 16 above). The last inscriptions from this region are dated 356 CE (no. 6above) and 455 CE (the Umm Jadhayidh text above). Thereafter the epigraphicrecord falls silent (unless nos 24-28 are from the fifth and sixth centuries).· Possibly this is connected .with "the disruption of settlement over much of Arabia· ., .. by the fifth century AD" that has been identified by some archaeologists. 58may itself be a result of economic decline due to the contortions suffered byRoman Empire in the wake of the loss of its western provinces and/or sundrydisasters. 59 Or else it may be a consequence of the demise of paganism andascendancy of monotheism, which would have led to a collapse in the status and·power of the pagans who were responsible for inscribing most of the inscriptionsof Arabia up until this time, and perhaps also of the Jewish communities who· ;_Jived in symbiosis with them. Did this then somehow advantage sites further·'south, such as Mecca, Medina and Ta'if, as the Islamic sources would have us• believe? No epi~aphic finds confirm this, but unfortunately the archaeological. exploration that might tell us is not currently possible at these places.I should perhaps. conclude by remarking that it would also be possible to argue·that this small group of texts does not constitute a meaningful group, but is ratherthe writings of a few quirky Jewish characters who went against the norm: and chose a Biblical rather than an Arabian name and/or who wrote in Hebrewrather than in Nabataean Aramaic, Lihyanite or Arabic script. In thiscase, they would not be at all representative of the Jews of the Hijaz or give us anysort of realistic picture of the size or nature of their community. A solution tothese questions will only come, however, once these texts have become better. and studied by scholars well versed in this wider Jewish world of lateantiquity.F. and Stiehl, R. Die Araber in der a/ten Welt V.l, Berlin: De Gruyter, 1968.••Cantiilealu, J. Le Nabateen !III, Paris: E. Leroux, 1930/1932.= C01pus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, Paris: e Reipublicae Typographeo, 1881-.J. Nabatiiische Inschriften aus Arabien, Berlin: Reimer, 1885.D. Kennett, "On the eve of Islam: archaeological evidence from eastern Arabia," Antiquity 79,2005, 115.59 As postulated by A. Korotayev, V. Klimenko & D. Proussakov, "Origins of Islam: Political­. Anthropological and Environmental Context," Acta Orienta/ia Hungarica 52, 1999, 243-76.