FUNERARY STELE OF VIZIER ABŪ 'ĀMIR MUHAMMAD IBN 'ĀMIR IBN DHARWA AL-JABIRĪ

Marble
Louvre Museum. Department of Islamic Arts

This is a bas-relief that occupies the entire epigraphic field with no additional elements other than a very large script that does not leave much space between characters. The name of the deceased is found on line 11. Religious funerary text in Arabic and kufic script, in seventeen lines. Translated by Lévi-Provençal. Basmala: O men! Fear your lord and be on your guard for the day when the father will not have to give an account/of his son and where the son will not have to give an account of his father/in anything. God's promise is true. Be not deceived / By the lower world (worldly life) and let not that which deceives / Mislead you about God. / God knows the hour and makes the rain fall. / He knows what the wombs of the mother contain. No one knows / what he will get tomorrow. No one knows in what / land he will die. Truly, God is omniscient, very knowledgeable. This is the tomb / of the illustrious vizier, the excellent secretary, the superintendent / Abū ʿĀmir Muḥammad ibn ʿĀmir ibn Ḏarwa al-Ğabir/ī. May God have mercy on him, illuminate his face, illuminate his asylum/ and provide him with paradise as a refuge. So be it, Lord of the worlds / Pray God for Muḥammad and may God's peace and prayers be upon him / He died on Thursday, eight days after ğumādā / first of the year four hundred and seventy-nine [21 August 1086] / This epitaph ended with God's help and power. Amen.

Chronology. 1086. Hegira 479. Dimensions. Length: 62.00 cm. Width: 51.00 cm. Thickness: 5.50 cm. Lévi-Provençal 1931; Combe 1936; Bittar 2003. MSR