Mr. G. C. Haughton's Account of an ancimt Arabic Grave-stone. .577 



brother, as dictated to him by Mirza Jafer, one of the young Persian gen- 

 tlemen sent to this country about fifteen years since by Prince Abbas Mirza, 

 the heir apparent to the throne of Persia. This was evidently only made 

 from a knowledge of the Koran, and of the common formulary on grave- 

 stones, and not from his being able to decypher the character. Had this 

 been the case, he would have given some explanation of the rest of the 

 inscription. 



The stone-cutter has given a letter too much in the word -j lain of the 

 sixth line ; and I was at first incHned to think, that he had introduced an 

 \ alif where it ought not to be in the phrase ^si\ aidihim ; but I now think 

 the letter \ alif of the line beneath has perhaps been lengthened to give a 

 little variety and symmetry to the line above, and to prevent the monotonous 

 recurrence of three letters which have nearly similar forms in the inscription. 

 The word ^li shd-a occurs with three dots, as in naskh characters. 



In the benedictory sentence, beginning at the thirteenth line, we have 

 aU \.sao- though the form is commonly, as is well known, aU l^sJl Alhamdu 

 lilldh ; and from the fanciful turn given to the letter j dal of the 

 word Ji*i>- hamd,* it might at first be supposed that it had an ; alif too 

 much. But it is obvious that where illiterate workmen are employed 

 mistakes do frequently occur; and in this and similar cases, when once cut 

 into the stone, they cannot be obliterated without repolishing the surface 

 and running the chance of fresh errors. 



* My friend Mirza Ibrahim of Shiraz, now assistant professor at Haileybury College, whom 1 

 consulted on this expression, suggests that id! \,^m>- hamdan lillah, may have been intended ; a 

 form which he says is used i_jL:1'1 ^ bain al arab (among the wandering Arabs). 



