The name Abdallah, which means “worshipper of Allah”, existed in the pre-Islamic period. In an interesting thread on Twitter, epigraphist and philologist Ahmad Al-Jallad said epigraphic records show that the name was in use many centuries before Islam in north-western Arabia and southern Levant – a large area in the eastern Mediterranean. Jallad said the name is written as ?bdlhy and ?bdlh in the Nabataean language and is found in northwest Arabia, the Sinai (Egyptian peninsula), and the Edom-Moab plateau (modern day Jordan). Nabataeans were an ancient Arabian people who, from 312BC, formed an independent kingdom with its capital at Petra, which now lies in Jordan. The kingdom was allied with the Roman Empire from 63BC and incorporated as a province of Arabia in 106AD. “These texts can date between the 2nd Century and 3rd Century,” the philologist wrote.