Marʾ-al-qays bar ʿAmrū (d. 328 or 332 CE)

An Arab ruler of the fourth century CE known only from a five-line epitaph, in the Arabic language but the Nabataean Aramaic script, in which he is credited with ruling most of Arabia as far as the northern borders of Yemen. It has been speculated that he was the second Nasrid (Lakhmid) king.

The personal name Marʾ-al-qays is found in Syria and Western Arabia almost entirely in the first 700 years CE. Marʾ-al-qays son of ʿAmrū is known only from a five-line epitaph, the so-called “Namāra inscription” (Figs 1 and 2) which was placed over the entrance to his small mausoleum (Figs 3 and 4), in the basalt desert of southern Syria, one kilometre east of al-Namāra (Macdonald 2008). It was discovered there in 1901 by R. Dussaud and F. Macler and taken to Paris where it is now in the Musée du Louvre (reg. AO 4083). Dated to 328 or 332 CE, it is the earliest formal inscription solely in the Arabic language and is written in the Nabataean Aramaic script.

The name is spelled mrʾlqys br ʿmrw in the Namāra inscription which strongly suggests that there was no ʾi- at the beginning as there is in the later “Classical Arabic” form Imruʾ l-qays, as in the name of the pre-Islamic poet two centuries later. Had there been such a vowel at the beginning it would have been represented by ʾ- in Nabataean orthography. It is interesting that the only Aramaic word in the text is bar instead of Arabic bin “son of”, a feature which was retained, as a “fossil” in Arabic inscriptions using the script developed from Nabataean Aramaic into the very early Islamic period.

Al-Namāra is an “island” in the middle of the Wādī al-Shām in the basalt desert of southern Syria (Fig. 5). On this island are the remains of a small Roman fort the stones of which were later reused to build a mausoleum, now ruined, which earlier travellers mistook for the fort (see Macdonald 2008: 321, n. 20, fig. 2). The fort, which was planned for the first time in 1996 (Macdonald 2008: 318, n. 5 and fig. 12); would have been large enough to accommodate about 50 men and was almost certainly placed there to control the nomads who needed this place of semi-permanent water in the dry season. An unfinished Greek inscription reused as the lintel over one doorway of the mausoleum mentions either the emperor Caracalla (r. 197–217 CE) or Elagabulus (r. 218–222 CE) and presumably came from the fort (Macdonald 2008: fig. 13a). At present this is the only indication of the date of the fort and we have no way of knowing how much longer before or after these dates it was in use. Thus it is impossible tell whether the fort was still in use at the time of Marʾ-al-qays’s death more than a century later (Macdonald 2008: 322).

In the epitaph, Marʾ-al-Qays son of ʿAmrū is named “king of all the Arabs” (Macdonald 2015: 406, n. 165), a title which the text suggests he assumed (“he bound on the crown”) rather than was bestowed upon him by an outside power. The text lists a selection of his achievements which include the boast that he ruled [the Arabs of (?)] both Mesopotamia and the Levant (“the two Syrias”, Calvet & Robin 1997: 267) and the Arab tribes of the north of the Peninsula (Nizār) and its north and centre (Maʿadd). He even fought the large Maḏḥij tribe, which was based in the south of what is now Saudi Arabia, and he attacked the Himyarite town of Najrān on the borders of what is now Yemen. He set up his sons to rule over “the settled peoples” (ʾl-šuʿūb), and they apparently became “proxies” for Persia and Rome (Macdonald 2015: 408). This is extremely interesting since, if true, it demonstrates the use of Arab tribes as proxies by the two super-powers (Rome and Persia) some considerable time before we hear of the Nasrids and Jafnids serving this purpose. The text ends “And no king could match his achievements”, with the date of his death as 3rd Kislūl (November/December) in the year 223 or 227 presumably of the era of Arabia Provincia, and so 328 or 332 CE (Macdonald 2015: 409).

It is often assumed that this Maraʾ-al-qays bar ʿAmrū is to be identified with Imruʾ al-qays al-badʾ ibn ʿAmr who, according to al-Ṭabārī (839–923 CE, Al-Ṭabarī/Bosworth 1999: 44, n. 133) — writing almost six centuries later — was the second Nasrid ruler in al-Ḥīra, southern Iraq. However, both names are common in the early centuries CE and there is no evidence to connect the two men (Fisher, Lewin & Whately 2015: 75–76).

A survey of the area around al-Namāra revealed the existence of campsites with regular rows of almost identical tent clearances and protecting walls, with surface pottery among them that “would not exclude a date in the early fourth century”. These, together with the “regular rows of hundreds of apparent grave stelae, might suggest that there had been a battle” close to the site, “though only further exploration will reveal whether or not this is correct, and here, as yet, we have no dating evidence” (Macdonald 2008: 322, fig. 14). If Maraʾ-al-qays had been killed in a battle near al-Namāra, it would explain why his tomb was built there. However, it has been argued that the placing of the tomb so near a Roman fort would suggest that he must have been on the side of the Romans — or at least on good terms with them if it was a battle in which they were not involved. If, on the other hand, the fort had already been abandoned, one might have expected the tomb to have been built in a prominent position on the top of the “island”. The case remains open (Macdonald 2008: 322).

Michael C.A. Macdonald

References and suggested reading

• Al-Ṭabarī, Abū Ǧaʿfar Muḥammad / Bosworth. C.E. (transl.) 1999. The History of Al-Ṭabarī. 5*. The Sāsānids, The Byzantines, The Lakhmids and Yemen*. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
• Calvet, Y. & C.J. Robin 1997. Arabie heureuse Arabie deserte. Les antiquités arabiques du Musée du Louvre. Avec la collaboration de F. Briquel-Chatonnet et de M. Pic. (Notes et documents des musées de France, 31). Paris: Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux.
• Fisher, G., A. Lewin & C. Whately 2015. The fourth and fifth centuries: allies and enemies, in G. Fisher (ed.) Arabs and Empires before Islam: 74–88. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Macdonald, M.C.A. 2008. Transformation and continuity at al-Namarā: Camps, settlements, forts, and tombs, in K. Bartl & ʿA. Moaz (eds) Residences, Castles, Settlements. Transformation Processes from Late Antiquity to Early Islam in Bilad al-Sham (Orient-Archäologie, 24): 317–332. Rahden/Westf.: Marie Leidorf.
• Macdonald, M.C.A. 2015. The emergence of Arabic as a written language, in G. Fisher (ed.) Arabs and Empires before Islam: 395–417. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

_{Alternate spellings: Marʾ-l-Qays Mar’-al-Qays, Mar al-Qays, Imru’ al-Qays, Imraʾalqays, Mara' al Qays, Imra' al-Qays, Mara'lqays, Maraʾlqays}