Letter W

417. Wādī Ḥudruj | وادي حدرج

Mā’an governorate

Masjid, open air desert mosque

JADIS no. none

MEGA no. none

Coordinates: unknown

 

Plan: Wādī Ḥudruj, 80 km east of Jafr, has cairns associated with a Bedouin encampment of at most five tents. Also found was a small open-air mosque of broad rectangular plan, with a semicircular miḥrāb 80 cm deep in the 10 m long S wall. The N-S extension was only 1.5m; the entrance in the N wall was 80 cm wide. One assumes that the encampment, mosque and cairns are all contemporary.

Measurements: ca. 15 m2; capacity for 10 to 12 worshippers at prayer time.

Exterior: 10 x 1.5 m.

Interior: unknown.

Building Materials: basalt.

Construction details: unknown.

Preservation: unknown.

Inscription(s): Karim and al-Ma‘ani (2000) published six Arabic inscriptions from the 2nd and 3rd centuries H., one dating to 150 H/ 767-768 AD. Two cairns with inscriptions were found near the mosque and eight graves – five adults and three children – but there is no definite connection between the people mentioned in the inscriptions and the people buried in the graves. A third cairn was five kilometers to the E.

 

Inscription 1 is incised on a basalt stone and runs on five lines (facsimile and transcript by Karim - Ma‘ani [2000], translation by RS):

 

Translation:

1) “Testifies Malik

2) ibn Musnad that there is

3) no god but Allāh and that

4) Muḥammad is the messenger of

5) Allāh.”

 

Inscription 2 is incised on a basalt stone and runs on eight lines (facsimile and transcript by Karim - Ma‘ani [2000], translation by RS):

 

Translation:

1) “And wrote

2) Muḥammad

3) Oh Allāh, forgive Khā-

4) lid ibn Jābir and

5) enter him desiring

6) heaven

7) Allāh, Lord

8) Amen.”

 

Inscription 3 is incised on a basalt stone and runs on four lines (facsimile and transcript by Karim - Ma‘ani [2000], translation by RS):

 

Translation: 

1) “Forgive ‘Abd Allāh

2) ibn

3) ‘Alī ibn Rawwād

4) his sins. M(ā)rrar wrote it.”

 

Inscription no. 4 is incised on a basalt stone and runs on four lines (facsimile and transcript by Karim - Ma‘ani [2000], translation by RS):

 

Translation:

 1) “Wrote this

2) Muḥammad ibn Marrār

3) May Allāh forgive

4) his sins.”

 

Inscription no. 5 is incised on a basalt stone and runs on six lines (facsimile and transcript by Karim - Ma‘ani [2000], translation by RS):

 

Translation:

1) “To ‘Aqil ibn Mansūr

2) ibn ‘Uthman

3) Hudhayfah

4) May Allāh have mercy on him

5) and forgive him

6) Amen.

 

Inscription no. 6 is incised on a basalt stone and runs on seven lines (facsimile and transcript by Karim - Ma‘ani [2000], translation by RS):

 

Translation : 1) “Oh Allāh, forgive 2) ‘Alī ibn Adhā ibn 3) Mashūq ibn 4) ‘Abdān 5) wrote the year 6) one hundred and 7) fifty.”

 

Date(s): Inscription no. 6 gives the date H 150 /767- 768 AD; this open air desert mosque belongs already to the early years of the Abbasid Caliphate; it is 45 years younger than the open air desert mosque at Wādī Selma (no. 424) and 40 years younger than the Wādī Shīreh (no. 428) one.

Traveler Reports: none known.

Bibl.: Karim - Ma‘ani 2000,167-219.; Schick 2020, no. 31.