Tombstone of marble, carved in Khambhat, Gujarat, circa 1300-10 and shipped to Dhofar, now in Oman, where the epitaph was re-carved circa 1311. In its altered form it was used with another, similar tombstone (V&A: A.12-1933) to mark the grave of the Rasulid governor of Dhofar, al-Malik al-Wathiq Nur al-Din Ibrahim. The marble may have been architectural salvage, as suggested by the hole on the right edge of one side and other holes in the roughly cut base, which was meant to be concealed underground. Unusually for a tombstone from this source, but like its pair, this stele is carved on both sides and around the edge, which is decorated with a formal vine-scroll motif. Both of the main faces have a tall, rectangular main section beneath an upper section in the form of a pointed arch. On one side this upper section projects slightly. Both upper sections are carved in high relief with an arch containing a hanging lamp, with half a plantain or banana plant filling the space on either side. The rest of the decoration on both sides consists of inscriptions in Arabic carved in low relief, mostly quotations from the Qur’an. The motif of a lamp hanging in an arch is more or less conventional for Khambhat tombstones of this period, and the same can be said of the layout of the inscriptions, the styles of script employed, and the calligraphic compositions (see Lambourn, Carving and Communities, and compare V&A: A.5-1932 and A.12-1933).
The inscriptions
On the side with the projecting upper section, a stack of six horizontal bands of different heights fills the centre of the main section. It contains the basmalah (“In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate”; line 1), the shahādah (“There is no god but God. Muhammad is the messenger of God”; line 2), and the epitaph (lines 3 to 6). A quotation from the surah Fuṣṣilat (XLI, 30-35, to وجعلناها رجوماً للشياطين) fills the outer framing band, which runs up the right side of the tombstone, along the band at the base of the upper section and down the left side. A second framing band runs up the narrower vertical band on the left side of the stone, along the horizontal band across the base of the upper section, and down the narrower band on the right side of the stone. It contains a quotation from surah al-Mulk (LXVII), from the beginning of verse 30 toالّا الذين صبروا in verse 35.
The arrangement of inscription bands on the reverse is different. A separate inscription -- a quotation from the surah al-Ḥashr (LIX, 22-3) -- frames the upper section, while a longer Arabic text runs up the right side of the stone, across the base of the upper section, beneath the hanging lamp, and down the left side of the stone; it consists of the Throne Verse from the surah al-Baqarah (II, 255), continuing to verse 27 at من الظلمات الى نوره. The two narrower vertical bands within this outer frame contain two quotations from the surah Āl 'Imrān (III), from the beginning of verse 18 to the beginning of verse 9 (ان الدين عند الله الاسلام) on the right, and verse 26 on the left. Between these is a stack of nine horizontal bands of different heights. The first two again contain the basmalah and the shahādah, while lines 3 to 9 are filled with quotations from the surahs al-Tawbah (IX, 21-22), al-Zumar (XXXIX, 74) and al-Mu'minūn (XXIII, 29), which run on from each other.
Styles of script
The main style of script employed is closely related to the expert chancery hands used in royal decrees and other official documents (compare Sheila S. Blair, Islamic Calligraphy, Edinburgh, 2006, fig. 9.7). This is evident from the letter forms, e.g. the base of the letter alif (independent form) has an extension to the left, and the letter hā’ (final form) is written as a flourish rather than as a closed shape, but even more so from the use of the “hanging” (ta‘līq) arrangement of the text, in which groups of letters run diagonally, from top right to bottom left, within the space allocated to the line of text.
A second style of script was used for the basmalah and the shahādah inscriptions on both sides. The letter forms in this style are very similar to those in the other inscriptions, with the addition of serifs to vertical strokes in many cases, but there is no ta‘līq stacking, as the scribe followed the horizontal base line in composing the text. The scale is larger, too: the band containing the shahādah is twice as tall as line 1, which is already taller than the rest. The vertical elements in the shahādah are therefore much taller, which is especially striking in the composition of the first phrase, “There is no god but God” (to the right in line 2). Emphasizing part of the text by creating a forest of parallel vertical strokes is a common practice in inscriptions from Khambhat and is itself reminiscent of the ṭughrā element in royal decrees, which contains the name and title of the sultan (again compare Blair, fig. 9.7).
The epitaph
The epitaph was executed in South Arabia by the same scribe and carver as the surah al-Fātiḥah on V&A: A.12-1933, with which this tombstone subsequently formed a pair. The ornamental frame that surrounds each line of text marks these carvings apart, and both inscriptions are recessed slightly compared to the rest. The likely explanation is that the original surface was chiselled away so that earlier inscriptions, probably the epitaphs of the people who originally commissioned the tombstones, could be replaced (Lambourn, Carving and Recarving).