Inscription of Sharah’il Yaqbal at Bir Hima (Ja 1028)

Set up by Sharah’il Yaqbal dhu-Yaz’an, an officer of King Yusuf As’ar Yath’arDated dhu-Madhra'an 633 of the Himyarite era: July AD 523, or 518 on another reckoning

A rock inscription cut for a commander of the Himyarite king Yusuf, known to later tradition as Dhu Nuwas. In the king’s own camp’s words it records the burning of the church at Zafar, the killing of the Abyssinians there and the war against Najran.

The inscription is one of the documents from the Himyarite side of the events told in the Martyrs of Najran. Twelve lines in the monumental South Arabian script invoke the God to whom heaven and earth belong and Rahmanan, and close with the words rendered “By the Lord of Jews. By the Highly Praised.” The writer, a chief of the clan of Yaz’an, says that the king burned the church and killed the Abyssinians at Zafar, made war on the Ash’aran, Rakban, Farasan and Mukhawan, moved against Najran and fortified the chain of Mandab, and that he himself was posted against Najran with tribesmen and nomads while the king watched the coast against the Abyssinians. It reckons the dead, the prisoners and the captured animals of the campaign.

It does not describe the executions in Najran that the Syriac writers report; it speaks of war and blockade. It is dated by month and year of the Himyarite era. The commentary in the archive, following Joëlle Beaucamp, Françoise Briquel-Chatonnet and Christian Robin (“La persécution des chrétiens de Nagrān et la chronologie ḥimyarite”, Aram 11–12, 1999–2000), counts that era from 110 BC and so puts the inscription in July 523. The live record sits behind an automated-access check; the archived copy linked above shows the same text, as does a copy of the live address archived in April 2025.

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