from al-Ḥīrah to the Ḥijāz was Ḥarb ibn Umayyah.
Someone asked Abū Sufyān, “From whom did your father learn to write?”
He answered, “From Ibn Sidrah, who told him that he in turn had taken it from its originator, Marāmir ibn Murrah.”
He continued, “The people of Ḥimyar had a script called al-Musnad; its letters were separate, not joined together (1). They kept it from the common folk, and when Islam came there was not a single person in all of Yemen who could read or write.”
I say: This point is open to question, for there were in Yemen many Jewish scholars who wrote in Hebrew … until he said: “The scripts of the nations are twelve: Arabic, Ḥimyaritic, Greek, Persian, Roman, Syriac, Coptic, Berber, Andalusian, Indian, Chinese, and Hebrew. Five of these have disappeared—Ḥimyaritic, Greek, Coptic, Berber, and Andalusian—while three are unknown in the lands of Islam: Roman, Chinese, and Indian (2).”
I add: Pre-eminence in calligraphy is unanimously conceded to Ibn al-Bawwāb, just as the foremost reciter of the ummah is Ubayy ibn Kaʿb, the most judicious of them is ʿAlī, the leading authority on inheritance is Zayd, the most learned in interpretation is Ibn ʿAbbās, the community’s trustee is Abū ʿUbaydah, their dream-interpreter is Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn, the most truthful in speech is Abū Dharr, the jurist of the ummah is Mālik, their hadith scholar is Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, their lexicographer is Abū ʿUbayd, their poet is Abū Tammām, their devotee is al-Fuḍayl, their memoriser is Sufyān al-Thawrī, their historian is al-Wāqidī, their ascetic is Maʿrūf al-Karkhī, and their grammarian—