The Zabad inscription (or trilingual Zabad inscription, Zebed inscription) is a trilingual Christian inscription containing text in the Greek, Syriac, and Paleo-Arabic scripts. Composed in the village of Zabad in northern Syria in 512, the inscription dedicates the construction of the martyrium, named the Church of St. Sergius, to Saint Sergius. The inscription itself is positioned at the lintel of the entrance portal.[1]
The Zabad inscription records the benefaction carried out by Arabic-speaking Christians in the Roman Empire. Despite the inscription being called a "trilingual", the Greek, Syriac, and Arabic components are not merely translations of one another but instead reflect the varying interests by different linguistic communities involved in the composition of the inscription.[1] Only the Greek portion of the inscription explicitly mentions the martyrium and the saint. The individuals mentioned in the inscription are not otherwise known, but were the ones who played a role in the sponsoring and construction of the structure.[2] While it was once thought that the three inscriptions were created in different times, more recent scholarship considers them to have all been incised together.[3]
The decision to include an Arabic portion of the inscription can be seen as a reflection of the desire to express the cultural identity of the author as, otherwise, Greek was the imperial language and Syriac was the ecclesiastical of the Miaphysite Church supported by the Ghassanids who, in turn, were closely linked to the cult of St. Sergius.[4]
Today, the inscription can be found at the Art & History Museum in Brussels.
^ abFisher, Greg (2020). Rome, Persia, and Arabia: shaping the Middle East from Pompey to Muhammad. London New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. pp. 186–188. ISBN 978-0-415-72880-5.
^Fisher, Greg (2022). The Roman world from Romulus to Muhammad: a new history. London New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. p. 634. ISBN 978-0-415-84286-0.
^Robin, Christian Julien (2006). "La réforme de l'écriture arabe à l'époque du califat médinois". Mélanges de l’Université Saint-Joseph. pp. 336–388.
^Fiema, Zbigniew T.; al-Jallad, Ahmad; MacDonald, Michael C.A.; Nehmé, Laila (2015). "Provincia Arabia: Nabataea, the Emergence of Arabic as a Written Language, and Graeco-Arabica". In Fisher, Greg (ed.). Arabs and empires before Islam. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. pp. 410–411. ISBN 978-0-19-965452-9.
the Zabadinscription and the Jabal Says inscription, which also date to the sixth century. Similar to the Harran inscription, the Zabadinscription also...
which appears in the inscription, dkr ʾl-ʾlh ("May God be mindful of" or "May God remember"), is also found in the Zabadinscription and DaJ144PAr. The...
known as the Zabadinscription, composed in 512. It is a trilingual dedication in Greek, Syriac and Arabic found at the village of Zabad in northwestern...
earliest 6th century Arabic inscription is from Zabad (512 CE), a town near Aleppo, Syria. The Arabic inscription consists of a list of names carved on the...
of the shaddah to indicate the pronunciation. In the pre-Islamic Zabadinscription, God is referred to by the term الاله, that is, alif-lam-alif-lam-ha...
era was used as late as the sixth century CE, for instance in the Zabadinscription in Syria, dated the 24th of Gorpiaios, 823 (24 September, 512 AD)...
era. There are inscriptions in an undotted, 17-letter Arabic script dating to the 6th century CE, found at four locations in Syria (Zabad, Jebel Usays,...
screen of the church of *Sergios (soldier and martyr of Rusafa, S00023) in Zabad (near Anasartha, to the southeast of Chalkis and Beroia/Aleppo, north Syria)...
Druze heritage in North America (MA thesis). University of South Florida. Zabad, Ibrahim (2017). Middle Eastern Minorities: The Impact of the Arab Spring...
Shalmaneser III (858–824 BC) to whom he paid tribute. This is based on an inscription on The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III showing "Yaua" son of Omri paying...
devoted to her at Rakleh and also at Kfar Zabad, Inkhil, Tel Jezreel, Tyre and Segeria as evidenced by an inscription found at Ayn al-Burj. The Gods of Kiboreia...
Document Collection [4 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. p. 364. ISBN 9781440853531. Zabad, Ibrahim (2017). Middle Eastern Minorities: The Impact of the Arab Spring...
11–13, 16, 22. Reilly 2016, p. 22. Harris 2012, p. 42. Harris 2012, p. 5. Zabad, Ibrahim (2017). Middle Eastern Minorities: The Impact of the Arab Spring...
ISBN 0-8028-4960-1. Jeremiah 52:11 Thiele, Mysterious Numbers, 58. Hayim Tadmor, The Inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III, King of Assyria (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of...
2141 12)." Benz, Frank L. Personal Names in the Phoenician and Punic Inscriptions. p 233. "Any one of the three major types of elements, divine name or...
north-northwest of Damascus. The ancient city of Kaprazabadion (modern Qafr Zabad) was located 25 km (16 mi) southwest of this Chalcis. The second Chalcis...
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