Scientists came to the conclusion that the oldest Arabic
inscription found in Saudi Arabia is dated 470 AD. e., refers to the
Christian context and precedes the coming of Islam.
It is reported that in December 2015 researchers from the
French-Saudi expedition, having studied the rock inscriptions in the
southern part of Saudi Arabia, eventually published a 100-page report.
It said that the oldest Arabic text found in Saudi Arabia is
decorated with a Christian cross. The same cross systematically appears
on other similar stelae, dating from about the same period.
The discovery is sensational, since it shows that the origin of the
Arabic alphabet used to write the Qur’an refers to the Christian
context.
This pre-Islamic alphabet is also called the Nabatean Arabic because
it evolved from the Nabataeans, the once powerful nation that built
Peter and dominated the trade routes in the Southern Levant and Northern
Arabia before being annexed by the Romans at the beginning of the 2nd
century.
The ancient text is the legacy of a once-thriving Christian community
in this area, also associated with the emergence of an ancient Jewish
kingdom that controlled much of what is today Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
In Islamic texts, there is no mention of the numerous Christian and
Jewish communities throughout the Saudi peninsula, which flourished
during the time of Muhammad.
Recent studies of the works of ancient Christians and Muslim records
changed the perception of the societies that existed in the region and
shed new light on a complex history before the advent of Islam.
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