KRS 294

OCIANA 1: l ḥnn bn s¹lm ʿbd ʾl ʾs¹mʿl, trans. By Ḥnn son of S¹lm ʿbd ʾl ʾs¹mʿl.

This inscription, which appears to be written by an enslaved person, is unusual in that it includes a genealogy, unlike most other inscriptions by enslaved people. What is more, the man says he is a slave of a social group rather than an individual. Finally, the usual term employed to express being enslaved is fty (cf. Classical Arabic fatan), while here we encounter ʿbd (Classical Arabic ʿabd). While this is attested in Dadanitic, it is not so the case in Safaitic. Only one text attests ʿbd as a substantive, LP 1135, where the author longs for 'his slave', ʿbd-h. The discrepancy arises perhaps because fty denotes ownership of a specific individual, whereas ʿbd in this particular context, may be used to express the author's social standing among the nomads, signifying his enslaved status within their community rather than being one of the freemen. Nevertheless, LP 1135 uses ʿbd as a synonym of fty, so its usage here may simply come down to a stylistic choice. 

Another peculiarity that warrants remark is that the 'line of ʾs¹mʿl' is not previously attested as a local tribal group. While the name ʾs¹mʿl is attested four times as a personal name in Safaitic, it is dwarfed in comparison to the attestation of the name ys¹mʿl, which is recorded 119 times. The name ys¹mʿʾl is also attested 5 times. These three forms are etymologically connected: ys¹mʿʾl is the unaltered etymological form /yesmaʿ-ʾel/, while the most common form attests the assimilation of the glottal stop to the ʿayn /yesmaʿʿel/, perhaps. The form attested in this text is not the result of regular sound changes within Arabic. Instead, it appears to be borrowed from Syriac, where Biblical names beginning with yi- are rendered with an initial ʾi-, as in ܐܝܣܪܐܝܠ for יִשְׂרָאֵל.

The appearance of ʾs¹mʿl in Safaitic, corresponding to the Quranic ismāʿīl (itself an Aramaicism), suggests a Syriac borrowing. Therefore, this enslaved person may have been captured from a western, Aramaic-speaking settled area and referred to his masters by the common appellation for Arabs at the time (e.g. Josephus II, III, 3): the Ishmaelites, or in Safaitic, ʾāl ʾismāʿīl. This interpretation suggests that the man's father was also captured, a not uncommon occurrence during raids. The nearby inscription KRS 303, authored by another enslaved person, fty, named ʾs¹lm, might support this hypothesis. If ʾs¹lm was Ḥnn's father, the omission of the initial ʾ in his genealogy would be a common writing error.

• KRS 303