An Umayyad Era Mosque and Desert Waystation from Wadi Shireh, Southern Jordan

Abstract

In the winter of 1988, while surveying Wadi Shireh in the Hisma (or Wadi Ramm) Desert of southern Jordan, the 'Aqaba-Ma'an Archaeological and Epigraphic Survey, directed by the late William Jobling of the University of Sydney, discovered a rare early Islamic open-air mosque in association with several exceptional early Islamic (Kufic) inscriptions, one of which gives a date of 109 H (727/728 CE). While a number of scholars have since commented on the site’s interesting inscriptions, there has been little discussion of the mosque within its broader archaeological context or immediate landscape setting. This article evaluates the mosque, together with several associated buildings discovered in Shireh, in relation to similar early Islamic open-air mosques and marginal desert settlements known from the southern Levant. Following a review and analysis of the site’s intriguing inscriptions, the authors then offer tentative conclusions regarding the site’s function as a desert waystation during the time of the Umayyads.

Khirbat al‐Mana‘iyya: an early Islamic‐period copper‐smelting site in south‐eastern Wadi ‘Araba, Jordan

“…The plan of Installation 1 is typical of the ‘modular’ architecture of early Islamic sites in ‘peripheral regions’ (Whitcomb, : 27), and similar structures are known in southern ‘Araba, for example at Be'er Ora (Yisrael, : 126, fig. 163) and Eilat (Rapuano, : 130, plan 1), and in the southern Jordanian Hisma in Wadi Shira (al‐Bqā‘īn, Corbett, & Khamis, : 96–106). At these sites, modular rooms are found both individually and as part of linear units, but none of these larger, linear complexes were found at Khirbat al‐Mana‘iyya.…”

Fragments of an early Islamic Arabic papyrus from Khirbet Hamrā Ifdān

“…9). Important incised inscriptions (Lindstedt, : 110–114) include Umayyad funerary stela from the cemetery of Qasṭal al‐Balqāʾ (Bacquey & Imbert, : 397–404; : 141–144; Imbert, : 17–60) and the Umayyad inscriptions from the first half of the eighth century in Wādī Shīreh (Hoyland, : 98–100; al‐Bqāʿīn, Corbett, & Khamis, : 93–126).…”

“…V; Bacquey & Imbert, : pl. XCIX.1–4; Gruendler, : 35; al‐Ghabbân, : 227–228; al‐Bqāʿīn et al., : 107–108). In non‐literary papyri, however, the writing of alif in this way persists in protocols and official documents (Grohmann, : xxx–xxxi, fig.…”

“…1; Imbert, : 404–405, fig. 4); a Nessana papyrus of 674 (although the alif slants to the right); two inscriptions in Wādī Shīreh in southern Jordan (al‐Bqāʿīn et al., : 109–110, fig. 10; 116, fig.…”

“…15); Jebel Seis located south of Damascus, which dates to 737 (Grohmann, : 88, Abb. 61); the Ṭāʾif inscription in Arabia of 677–678, although in that example the alif slants to the left (Gruendler : 15–16, 155; al‐Bqāʿīn et al., : 109–110, fig. 10; 116, fig.…”