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408 Pages
Introducing Holy Places in Islam
Andreas Görke and Mattia Guidetti
Introduction “Holy Places in Islam” brings together twelve case studies devoted to the establishment, growth, and demise of holy places in Muslim societies. It includes examples from different regions of the Islamic world, providing a global look at Muslim engagement with the emplacement of the holy. This introductory chapter aims to provide the basis for a historical outline, focusing on the central lands of the Islamic world during the early period (1st–5th/7th–11th centuries), familiarize readers with some terms and keywords related to holiness in Muslim culture, and explain some of the debates that flourished in Muslim societies about holy places and their visitation.
Intercession
As is the case with other religious domains, early Muslim society did not develop a radically new approach regarding holy places but instead relied on the deep transformations of the antique world carried out during late antiquity.1 This is not to say that Muslims blindly reiterated Christian or Jewish attitudes, quite the contrary. Early Muslims selectively developed a sensibility and articulated a dialogue between theory and practice regarding their places of veneration. However, the idiosyncratic position of Islam did not offer a new anthropological or theological paradigm but was rather inscribed into the perimeter and vocabulary established during the Christianization of the Mediterranean area.
When compared to religious life in the Roman world, the emergence of the Christian cult of saints during late antiquity completely reconfigured relations between individuals and communities, transformed patterns of public patronage, and came along with a new and radical sensibility toward the boundaries between life on earth and the hereafter.2 One of the main principles inherited by Islam from recent late antique religious innovations was the possibility of intercession (shafāʿa) granted by some human beings on behalf of others. Certain “special” persons were considered to possess the power to act on behalf of others and if wisely invoked, were held capable of providing help in matters of life and the afterlife.
The evidence that such belief was also active in Islam from a very early period emerges with a striking passage included in the epigraphical programme at the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem (71–72/691–692). The inscription invokes Prophet Muhammad as the intercessor on the day of judgement. His intercessory role is stated twice: in the mosaic inscription on the exterior side of the outer octagonal arcade and in a copper plaque placed above the eastern entrance.3 In both cases, God is invoked to accept the intercession of Muhammad on behalf of believers on the day of judgement.4 According to the Quran, Muhammad was a man, but his prophetic qualities and role in transmitting the word of God (the Quran) to humankind granted him an exceptional position among other humans.
This also encompassed an active role on the last day, potentially accessible to all believers. It should be recalled that eschatological expectations across monotheistic communities at the time proclaimed that the last day was imminent and Jerusalem was held to be the place for final judgment. Oleg Grabar has proposed the possibility that the ultimate reason for the construction of the commemorative structure at the Dome of the Rock was not to celebrate the site where Prophet Muhammad set foot to the Heavens (miʿrāj)—an association according to him subsequently developed by Muslim commentators—but, rather, it commemorated “an event yet to come,” namely, judgment on the last day.5 One of the issues at stake within Muslim circles was whether anyone apart from the Prophet was entitled to act on behalf of other believers before God.
Had the intercession been limited only to Muhammad or were other prophets and pious persons likewise legitimated to intercede for believers? As explained in the next paragraphs, it was customary—though the object of fierce debates by Islamic jurists—to pray to God at the grave on behalf of the dead. However, intercession was another matter. It meant changing perspective and praying to another person at their grave on behalf of dead persons as well as living ones. It required acknowledging the possibility of intercession between humans and God and implied ascribing such an intercessory role to other, though special, human beings. The Muslim distinctive path to acknowledging the power of intercession by holy persons and the establishment of holy places included a vast array of positions. Eventually, notwithstanding the harsh criticism by those who wanted to negate such a possibility or limit it to the Prophet Muhammad, the list of figures considered depository of holiness was stretched to the extent that by the 5th–6th/11th–12th centuries, a huge transformation of religious notions and of the sacred landscape had effectively been implemented.6 Sheila Blair notes that by the 8th/14th century, tombs of saints were converted into shrine complexes in various regions of the Islamic world such as Ilkhanid Iran, Merinid Morocco, and Mamluk Egypt.7 Chains of religious authority and legitimacy dramatically expanded the sources of intercession: narratives explained and argued for the plausibility of each intercessor within the Muslim history of salvation, while architecture and sacred geography located possibilities on the ground (see the chapters by Vimercati and Haase in this volume).
The Rediscovery of Sacred Sites
When a person held “holy” by contemporaries died, the corpse became the focus of attention. The burial place became the site where contact was maintained with this person. However, there was not always a temporal continuity between the life of a “holy person” and the emplacement of the commemoration of such an individual at a specific site. Moreover, from a spatial point of view, it was common to hold someone holy in a given territory even if their presence at that location had never been attested. What, then, were the strategies to fill such a temporal or spatial hiatus? The transfer of relics, a widespread phenomenon in the Christian realm, was not a solution that could easily be adopted in Muslim societies. As the integrity of corpses pending the day of judgment was central in Muslim belief, the fragmentation of bodies was not encouraged.9 This does not mean that relics were unknown in Islam. The veneration of John the Baptist, revered by Muslims as a prophet, had been a multisite worship, as alleged fragments of his skull were preserved in both Aleppo and Damascus.10 More often, relics in Muslim societies consisted of contactrelics, namely objects considered to have been touched by or in contact with a holy person, including the Prophet Muhammad (see the chapter by Patrizi in this volume).11 Following well-established traditions about relic-less holy figures, including Jesus or Buddha, the footprints of the Prophet Muhammad, for instance, were quite a common phenomenon.12 The general absence of relics made it difficult to fill the chronological and geographical discontinuities between the lives of holy figures and the establishment of their veneration. Consequently, different strategies were developed in order to affirm that a given site was appropriate for commemoration. Early textual narratives were important because they substantiated those specific figures (for instance, Companions of the Prophet) that had a“core of sanctity,” and therefore, were worthy of veneration.13 Nevertheless, textual narratives often lacked details about the exact location of events or burial sites for specific men and women. Texts describing the activity of prophets, for example, were difficult to pin down.14 As a result, it was often alleged that miraculous signs helped to recover and identify a sacred site. These signs varied: they ranged from columns of light or a specific odor emanating from a spot to the discovery of an uncorrupted corpse during tomb exploration or night visions of holy figures occurring to pious benefactors.15 Sites located nearby trees, a flowing stream, a cave, a stony place or an existing cemetery were favorite places for establishing a commemorative building.16 Ruinous places also provided a suitable context for searching and locating holy sites.17 Furthermore, elevated locales were also attractive: foothills nearby a road or a river often appeared as desirable sites for erecting sacred buildings.18 Once a site was identified and connected to a textual narrative about a figure or an event, the next step was validation of choice, a process sealed by common people experiencing the holy while visiting the site. Reports of miracles, such as unexpected healings, together with promoting the site by influential patronage, elevating rank and transforming it into a place of pilgrimage (see the chapters by Edwards, Haase, Hendrich, and Quinn in this volume).19 The flow of traditions praising a given city or territory due to the presence of burials for prophets or its mention by Prophet Muhammad created a literary genre ( faḍāʾil, virtues) shaping the construction of sanctity in a specific space.20 As Jacob Kister noted in the case of rivalry between Kufa and Damascus, the emergence of traditions attaching sanctity to specific locales caused competition between cities and regions.21 A case in point for the importance of miraculous signs validating the holiness of a site was the mashhad (the place of witnessing, the Arabic-Islamic version of the late antique concept of martyrion22) of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (d. 41/661), the cousin of Prophet Muhammad and the fourth caliph after him, located in Ḥomṣ (Syria). According to the medieval pilgrimage guide written by al-Harawī (d. 612/1215), ʿAlī’s fingerprint was visible on a marble column within the shrine. As the body of the same ʿAlī was believed to be buried in Najaf, the fingerprint played the role of an incorporeal relic witnessing that ʿAlī had once been physically present. The evidence was made even more solid by al-Harawī’s additions that some people actually saw ʿAlī sleeping in the shrine of Homs, reinforcing the connection between the site and the holy figure.23 The act of rediscovery is central to establishing holy sites: allegedly abandoned and forgotten for centuries, it was only from the 5th/11th century that assumed holy sites (re-)emerged to the surface, with memorializing architecture and narratives explaining the meaning of these loci.
Early Sacred Sites
While evidence of holy sites from the 5th/11th century and later is rich and variegated, one has to deal with only a few remains from earlier periods. Undoubtedly, the Kaʿba in Mecca, the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina, and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem became holy sites for the entirety of the Muslim community at a very early stage,25 but it’s much more difficult to pinpoint other locales emerging as holy sites during the early period (1st–5th/7th–11th centuries). In Arab societies, the semantic sphere of sacred places is directly related to the notion of inviolability. Ḥima (pasture) is a term inherited from the preIslamic period to indicate an inviolable precinct where indiscriminate hunting and harvesting are prohibited. Ḥaram, a root appearing several times in the Quran, is a term sometimes translated as sanctuary encompassing both the notions of illicitness and prohibition as well as purification and consecration.26 The inviolable nature of a holy place and its precinct was not only related to the aura of holiness radiating from the shrine but also resulted from dynamic relationships between religious institutions and political authorities.27 Regarding the emergence of holy places during the early Islamic period, the sources offer an inconsistent picture: textual sources provide evidence for the claim that the monumentalization of burials had occurred since the very beginning of Islam, while physical remains tend to suggest “commemorative” structures were sparsely erected in the early period and only became more common with the passing of time.28 The tomb of Prophet Muhammad was given a monumental appearance under the caliph al-Walīd (d. 96/715) at the time when he restructured the Great Mosque of Medina. Before then, the grave was within one of the rooms used by Muhammad and his wives, an adobe structure the sources describe as a modest and humble construction. In the year 88/707, this room was fully integrated into the new mosque. Its walls were rebuilt of stones and provided with neither an entrance nor windows. This solid structure was then surrounded by a pentagonal screen. Therefore, the grave site was well visible from within the prayer hall of the mosque; however, the grave itself remained inaccessible, neither touchable nor visible to believers.29 Although such an architectural configuration of the funerary monument was apparently not taken as a model (and seems to condense the need to memorialize but simultaneously discourage excesses of veneration), written sources confirm that monumental tombs started to be constructed in Islamic lands in the early period. Excavations have unearthed a few structures that may help to corroborate these sources. A mausoleum dated to the ʿAbbasid period recently uncovered in Istabl ʿAntar (early Islamic Fusṭāṭ) provides possible evidence of an early tendency to monumentalize and build over tombs.30 The monumentalization of burial sites is obviously not the only criterion attesting to the existence of holy sites, as it neither covers all such places nor is every monumental burial site necessarily holy. Holy places can also be disconnected from burial sites: a mountain such as the Sinai, for instance, was held holy because of its connection with the prophet Moses and supposedly had been interlocked with the mountains of the Hejaz.31 As said above, the real turning point regarding burial sites occurs when worshippers visit the tomb and pray to the dead on their behalf rather than only uttering a prayer for the dead. Keeping in mind these caveats, monumentalization is indeed an important step because together with other visual strategies, e.g. inscriptions, it allows a specific tomb to be recognizable. Halevi notices how some Muslim theologians recommended that tombs be anonymous to avoid veneration. On the contrary, a huge building and an inscription carrying the name of the entombed person made the burial site visible and recognizable.32 At the beginning of the 20th century, the archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld studied the ruins of an octagonal structure, today known as Qubbat al-Sulaybiyya, located on the right bank of the Tigris near the ʿAbbasid city of Samarra. The ruins revealed the presence of three tombstones at the centre of the structure, Kufic graffiti, and arches demonstrating an architectural affinity with the early Samarra period.33 Herzfeld connected the structure to written sources mentioning the existence of a burial place for the caliph al-Muntaṣir (d. 248/862) in which the successors al-Muʿtazz (d. 255/869) and al-Muhtadī (d. 256/870) were also entombed. If this identification is correct, the building would be the earliest existent example of a mausoleum erected to commemorate the figure of a caliph. Later analysis revealed the complexity of the site, consisting of an octagonal platform accessible through four ramps measuring 31m across with a domed chamber at its centre surrounded by a double octagonal structure. The exterior octagon had a pointed-arch opening on each side, while the inner octagonal room, one on each side, corresponded to the four outer ramps. More recently, Thomas Leisten suggested that the graves may have been a later addition, thus challenging the identification of the site as the mausoleum of one or more caliphs.34 As a result, scholars are left with a 3rd/9th-century structure clearly echoing the octagonal layout of the Dome of the Rock and perhaps its commemorative function but with no clear indication of purpose.35 Nevertheless, the lack of archeological evidence on early caliphal monumental burials should not be misleading. Yusuf Ragheb notes written sources providing evidence that shrines and monumental burials started to be erected in the Umayyad period.36 One should recall, for example, that ʿAbbasid sources highlight how at the time of the Umayyad demise, tombs of selected Umayyad caliphs were desecrated. The accounts imply not only that such royal tombs were recognizable but also had played a role as places of commemoration to the extent that their violation was deemed apt to be interpreted as a symbolic gesture of dynastic erasure.37 At the same time, Terry Allen stresses that at first mausolea were built only over the graves of prophets and Companions of the Prophet. Only later on, starting with the late 3rd/9th and 4th/10th centuries, responding to the activism of the ʿAlids, the ʿAbbasid caliphs promoted the commemoration of their own leading figures.38 Visual and material culture offers some evidence of the increasing interest in making burials visible and recognizable. A fragment of a Kufic inscription, perhaps datable to the 3rd/9th century (further discussed below in the paragraph “Rituals and benefits of visiting holy places”), recovered at Muʾta (south of Kerak, today in Jordan) and mentioning the tomb of Jaʿfar b. Abī Ṭālib (d. 8/629)39 suggests that the process of burial “rediscovery” for Companions of the Prophet and the following veneration started as early as the 3rd/9th century.40 Visual evidence from book paintings attests to the proliferation of different tomb typologies during the early centuries of Islam. In discussing one of the earliest painted manuscripts, dated to the 3rd–4th/9th– 10th centuries in Fatimid Egypt and today preserved in the National Library of Vienna, David Rice tries to offer a reconstruction of tombs and graves portrayed in the early Islamic painting tradition.41 These depictions were inserted into literary texts that included anecdotes and stories taking place within the context of cemeteries. By drawing visual evidence mainly from material datable to the 7th–8th/13th–14th centuries, Rice summarizes the different typologies of burials widespread in the central regions of Islam: from simple stepped structures sometimes provided with headstones to more monumental domed erections and from mud-brick and baked brick structures to masonry buildings. The Fatimid fragment in Vienna shows two three-stepped graves plastered with an undulated motif and headstones. Commenting on Josef Strzygowski’s publication on the decoration of some gravestones from early Islamic Egypt,42 Malgorzata Redlak draws a comparison between the decorative patterns on the stelae and those appearing in the Fatimid drawing.43 It appears that efforts to decorate and embellish burial places started in the early centuries of Islam. Together with the development of a canonical set of funerary epigraphical formulae, they reveal the important role played by burial sites in fostering the sense of belonging to a new and different monotheistic community.44 With the passing of time, holy places multiplied. Although Mecca and Medina remained the holiest places to visit, numerous further sites created diversified routes for pilgrimage and patrolling and maintenance were the object of significant material and symbolic investment by the rulers (see the chapter by Munt in this volume). Fatimid Egypt (358–566/969–1171) offers evidence for a regional boost in monumental funerary architecture. However, differently from coeval Seljuk Iran, the cluster of pavilion tombs in Cairo and Aswan served a variety of people not all related to ruling activities, indicating a possible discrete Shiʿi Fatimid function of the mausoleum typology.45 Together with Fatimid Egypt, the earliest extant sites revealing a clear and distinctive effort to monumentalise burial places are to be found in the Persianate area, dating from the 4th/10th century onwards (see the chapter by Haase in this volume).46 A pair of early examples reflect the two main building typologies of early Islamic mausolea. The so-called mausoleum of the Samanids in Bukhara, dated to the first half of the 4th/10th century, represents an early example of a domed chamber mausoleum. Abū Ibrāhīm Ismāʿīl ibn Aḥmad (d. 294/907), the leader who made the Samanid dynasty prominent, was probably buried there, perhaps together with two of his successors within what can be called a family crypt. The building erected over the tombs is a squared room topped by a hemispherical dome. The building has an arched opening on each side, an upper cornice decorated with a miniature arcade running the perimeter of the building and four small domes on the corners. Rather than stucco, among the notable aspects of the decoration is the brilliant exploitation of the baked bricks as an artistic medium, noticeable in the brickwork on the exterior emulating basket weaving, as well as in the effect of depth created by recessing layers of decoration in correspondence with thresholds of the four openings.47 A second typology is the tomb tower, and the 53-meter-high Gonbad-e Qābus (the tower of Qābus) is an iconic example.48 The slightly tapering tower, located in the Iranian province of Golestan, not far from the Caspian Sea, is topped by a conical roof. The exterior is modulated by ten triangular flanges added to the circular building that runs vertically from the basement to the roof of the tower. The only decoration of the edifice, two rows of fired brick inscriptions, run above the pointed-arched narrow entrance and just below the roof. The inscription commemorates the Ziyarid ruler Qābus Ibn Voshmgir (d. 402/1012) as the founder of the tower in the Hijri year 397 (1006). The ruler was a literate person, a calligrapher and an astrologer to whom later the Qābusnāmeh (Book of Qābus) was dedicated, a literary work devoted to princely education. Inside the tower, no evidence of the usual inhumation cavity was found leaving some scholars to speculate that the coffin of Qābus might have been suspended from the roof.49 The few examples mentioned in this paragraph show that the monumentalization of burial places encompassed a variety of plan options, all developing from an architectural scheme based on a central-plan concept (an edifice where no single axe is dominant). One matrix for such typology can be found in octagonal late antique martyria (in turn derived from ancient mausolea), places of commemoration focused on the visiting of believers rather than on collective prayers. It may be that Muslims adopted such a typology in relation to burial practices as both in Christianity and Islam the corpse was preserved and not to be consumed by atmosphere agents and animals, in opposition, for instance, to Zoroastrian burial customs (the latter considered the corpse impure and did not entomb it).50 A second matrix found in Central Asia served for the development of cylindrical tower tombs that mushroomed in northeast Iran starting in the 5th/11th century.51 Muslim societies adopted and developed the late antique idea of a monumental burial separated from the place of worship, while this practice vanished among the elites of Christian societies during the Middle Ages when a burial chapel or a small shrine within churches was instead preferred. A different architectural phenomenon, mostly involving tombs of Old Testament prophets, is the construction of long, parallelepiped tombs.
These elongated tombs, located in the Arabian Peninsula, the Syrian region, and Central Asia, were totally unproportioned in relation to the human body and probably reflected the supernatural properties attributed to ancient biblical prophets (see the chapters by Kuehn and Quinn in this volume).52 The spread of monumental tombs slowly implied that a larger array of people had their burials visible and recognizable in the funerary landscape. The expansion of holy places was also related to the conquest and conversion to Islam of new regions (see the chapters by Edwards and Quinn in this volume), as the sacralization of a landscape often implies the desacralization of a competing pre-existing one.53While rulers might have opted for monumental tombs for prestige and reasons of religious and political legitimization,54 the dedication of mausolea to other “special” figures entailed further functions for burial sites.
Holy Persons and Discussions on Visiting Shrines In a seminal article devoted to “commemorative structures” of early Islam, Grabar sketches a division between Sunni and Shiʿa shrines as follows: while Sunni shrines memorialised scholars, Sufi masters, Companions of the Prophet, early conquerors and Old Testament prophets, Shiʿa holy sites concentrated more on the descendants of the Prophet.55 Though such a division should not be taken literally to illustrate devotional practices that were instead often transversal to religious communities,56this list well summarizes the broad range of individuals deserving a shrine.57 It was no longer only rulers that aimed to be visible and commemorated after death, but a diversified class of people related to the foundation of Islam and the religious learning system that increasingly became the object of devotional practices (see the chapters by Mochtari de Pierrepont, Mondini, and Vimercati Sanseverino in this volume). Such a burgeoning landscape and the multiplication of rituals associated with the visitation to these shrines sparked reactions among scholars on the religious legitimacy of worshipping figures and visiting their shrines. A corpus of norms disciplining burial policies is contained in hadith traditions collected mainly in the 3rd–4th/9th–10th centuries under the title Kitāb al-janāʾiz (Book of the funerals).
Issues related to the disposal of corpses including burialrelated matters such as building materials, volume, and size of the grave were integrated into the sharīʿa (religious law) and scrutinized by experts of fiqh (jurisprudence).58 One important concept related to the eschatological discourse of Islam deals with the fate of those who have died and wait for the last day and final judgement. The burial site is assumed to be the place where the dead are physically waiting for the resurrection while already experiencing some punishments of hell or awards of paradise (al-barzakh).59 This belief has implications for the physical appearance of the grave. The built casing protecting the corpse should not weigh on it in order not to oppress the dead, while plaster and fired bricks are to be avoided as they might suffocate and speed up the process of drying and pulverization of the body (which should be preserved as much intact as possible until the last day).
In contrast, jurists deemed a tent or a domed chamber as permissible because the shadow can offer relief to the believer’s figurative heat and thirst, especially when open, allowing air to circulate.60It is following these lines that Abbas Daneshvari suggests tomb towers elevated during the Middle Ages had, among other things, the function of refreshing the deceased entombed within as well as the visitors by providing shadow, thereby alleviating the status of the deceased.61 Regarding the monumentalization of burial sites, two more points should be highlighted. The opposition to visible and majestic buildings in cemeteries was related to the idea of modesty because wasting economic capital on memorializing one single person was repugnant. This belief went along with the ideal of an egalitarian society in front of God, according to which “leveling the graves” (taswiyat al-qubūr) was recommendable.62 A second point has to do with the crowding of burials in cemeteries. As argued by Leisten, a legal problem regarding monumental burials in cemeteries related to the limited availability of public land for further graves. Circumventing this problem, jurists advised on the acquisition of plots before the erection of mausolea.63
A corollary discussion emerged after the “outburst” of shrine constructions during the 6th–7th/12th–13th centuries, related to the issue of visiting and offering prayer at the tombs. Therefore, it dealt directly with the holy function attributed to several burial sites. One of the charges raised by jurists such as Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328) and his student Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 751/1350) against the visitation of tombs and shrines was the abhorrence of praying in graveyards near the dead. Such a practice, according to these scholars, was to be banned because it appeared to be too similar to polytheism given that only mosques and sites related to the hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) were considered appropriate for praying.64
The Muslim prayer, the argument against visitation continues, should directly address God and not seek any intermediary—a practice discouraged because it was contrary to the absolute transcendence of the divine and reflected polytheist and Christian behavior. Nonetheless, the same Ibn Taymiyya acknowledges the sanctity of certain sites and the elevated status of specific figures, although he disapproves of unmoderated conduct while visiting shrines and cemeteries.65 For example, he concedes that visiting tombs was acceptable if the visit was restricted to greeting the deceased, experiencing a “memento mori,” and uttering supplications only on behalf of the dead. It appears clear that the most problematic aspect of tomb visitation was the belief in the intercessory function of a holy person as this threatened the unity and unicity of God.66At the same time, one should not forget—also concerning the resurgence of Ibn Taymiyya’s thought during the following centuries—that in his time Ibn Taymiyya was a dissenting voice (see the chapters by Patrizi and Wolper in this volume).
The prevailing stance among religious experts permitted the visit to cemeteries, and the practice of veneration was accepted as the norm by the 7th/13th century.67 Nevertheless, religious authorities constantly patrolled the trespassing of accepted norms by believers. The veneration practice developed around the concept of baraka (blessing), an “innate force, … (that) sanctified a location through the presence or the apparent presence of a saint and his personal effects, which became devotional or ritual objects.”68 As outlined by Christopher Taylor, the concept of baraka can be compared to the Christian idea of presentia, defined by Peter Brown as the “presence of the invisible.”69 Similarities can be further explored by looking at the magnet-like aspect of important burials, where the area around them was sought as a favourite place for burial by different strata of the population.
Burial ad sanctos (next to saints), the Christian custom of seeking burial close to the tombs of saints and other holy sites owing to spiritual benefits believed to be derived from the placement of the physical remains, was a strategy also implemented in medieval Islam when burial jiwār al-akhyār (in the vicinity of the righteous) was a common practice in Egypt and Syria.70 In Muslim societies, it was often the house of a saint that became the place of his burial, and thus it happened that by accretion urban quarters became cemetery areas (whereas the norm was to have corpses buried in extra-urban cemeteries).71 Furthermore, as discussed by Brown in his works on early Christianity, apart from the problematic aspect of the intermediary role of saints’ graves as the dispenser of God’s grace and blessing, the practice of burying close to saints also reflected a powerful relationship and the social stratification of religious communities.72 Cemeteries became one of the loci where the relationship between religious and civic authorities and the other classes of society was articulated.
The system of patronage linking elites to commoners was deployed by administering policies allowing access to shrines, implementing the sources of the holy through the edification of new mausolea and controlling the allocation of the burial ground, including the management of the area located around prestigious graves. In some cases, the bourgeoning of holy places within one urban site transformed it into a sort of city-shrine (see the chapters by Mochtari de Pierrepont, Mondini, Ross, and Vimercati Sanseverino in this volume).73
6 Rituals and Benefits of Visiting Holy Places When describing the territory of the Syrian region (Bilād al-shām), the 4th/ 10th-century Palestinian geographer al-Muqaddasī lists a series of Christian festivities (aʿyād) also observed by Muslims. Each feast was connected to a period of the calendar, according to the solar cycle of the year. This is why, for example, al-Muqaddasī explains that the Feast of the Cross (September) corresponded to the grape harvest, while the Feast of Saint George (April) to the activity of sowing.74
These celebrations, helping to scan the reiteration of time, developed around well-established Christian sanctuaries; regarding the Feast of Saint George, the church was the late antique Christian sanctuary of Ludd, a site subsequently attended by Muslims.75 Suchfeasts lasted several days and were also an occasion for trading and market activities. The importance and reach of these festivals ranged from international to local according to the prestige of the saint.76 Similar gatherings also existed in the pre-Islamic Arabian Peninsula, where market festivals (aswāq) were held annually in different localities with cultural activities such as poetry contests running in tandem with trade and religious affairs. The research on early medieval Syria carried out by André Binggeli shows how several late antique feasts maintained their importance, corroborating al-Muqaddasī’s description.77 Concurrently, due to altered religious and political circumstances, some late antique Christian fairs fell into oblivion while others gained visibility.
Among the latter, it is worth noting the appearance of feasts related to early Muslim “saints” that came alongside Christian saints’ festivals and eventually replaced them. In a text on different calendars, the Nestorian Ibn Māsawayh (d. 243/857), for example, lists fairs related to Christian saints together with a festival taking place at Muʾta (on the northern fringe of the Arabian Peninsula), a place renowned as the battlefield hosting the Byzantines and a group of early Muslims sent by the Prophet. Al-Yaʿqūbī (d. 284–285/897–898) mentions that Muʾta was the burial place of three important Muslim generals, among them Jaʿfar ibn Abī Ṭālib, brother of ʿAlī and cousin of Prophet Muhammad. Furthermore, at the beginning of the 20th century, a fragment of a Kufic inscription recovered under the modern shrine of Jaʿfar ibn Abī Ṭālib in nearby Kerak was dated by Clermont-Ganneau to the 3rd/9th century.
The fragment commemorates the tomb of Jaʿfar, also including his sobriquet of “flyer to paradise” (tayyār fī al-janna), attributed to him because of the alleged replacement of his arms with wings once they were severed following his death in battle.78 Scheduled in November, the feast was apparently calendared according to the local Syrian solar calendar. The appearance of such festivity at least since the 3rd/9th century testifies, on the one hand, to the existence of an interest in promoting Islam’s holy days, persons, and places, while on the other, the continuity of late antique practice for saints’ festivals. With the passing of time, annual festivities assumed the name of mawāsim (seasonal gatherings). These were either related to seasonal activities or the genethliac of the holy person intended for commemoration (in this latter case, feasts were also called mawālīd).79The importance of calendars and time-keeping devices was essential as very often holy sites were places where the sacred time was joined with sacred space.80
Unlike in medieval Christianity, Muslim societies did not have a universal liturgical calendar that was applied to every domain of life. While the lunar Hijri calendar was used to determine important sacred events and months, notably the Hajj and Ramaḍān, other calendars, especially sun-based, helping to relate the passing of time for agricultural activities, were also used. These calendars were very often arranged on a regional basis and consequently, imported into daily life festivities and commemorations related to local (also nonMuslim) circumstances. This is why, apart from a few transregional and universal Muslim figures, saintly figures proliferated often on a local basis in Muslim territories. This system is radically different from medieval Latin Christendom where the existence of a liturgy of saints related to a sacred calendar implied a rigid control over the process of sanctification. The dispersion of saints’ relics, allowing for the multiplication of holy sites related to single Christian saints, helped universalize specific saintly figures.81
The term used to describe rituals occurring at shrines in Muslim societies is ziyāra, visitation. Ziyāra may be performed individually or collectively and implies paying a visit to a holy place. The ritual often includes a supplication (duʿāʾ) to the deceased, a form of individual prayer not canonized as the official prayer (salāt). Individual and collective acts of devotion also include the performance of the dhikr (remembrance).82 As highlighted by Josef Meri, it is the physical interaction of the visitor with the place through offerings, supplications, and petitions, making it holy.83In other words, it is the performance of a ritual that transforms space into a specific holy place.
As a result, holy places are the product of social processes produced by both institutions developing them on material and symbolic levels and visitors with their physical involvement.84 Recent scholarship on classical and Christian ideas of holiness emphasizes the significance of behavior as a crucial marker for recognizing the sacred. Studies deal with how communities interact with sacred space and constantly construct or deconstruct its sacrality according to local circumstances.85 The importance of “baraka” as an attribute of holy places has been mentioned above. The power emanating from the remains of holy persons or from contact relics was the “response” of the holy site to acts of devotion by visitors, the driving force for the success of a site. Similarly to the late antique and Byzantine process of reification of “eulogia” (blessing), baraka was also collectible and transportable.
The soil collected at a holy site or the drops of the water used for the ritual cleansing before burial were considered to possess a portion of the baraka produced in the holy sites. Talismans were produced and distributed at holy sites as bearers of sanctity.86 Adam Bursi has recently shown how certain fragrances were an integral part of the sensorial experience of a holy place and could be brought home as well as relics after a visitation.87 It is because of the presence of baraka that a site is believed to be mubārak (benedict/blessed). Such meaning is different from muqaddas(sacred/sanctified), which is instead a quality directly endowed by God to a region or a city (“It is me, your Lord”— says God to Moses—“remove your sandals. You are in the sacred [muqaddas] valley, Tuwa,” Q 20:12). A tangible aspect of baraka was also the performance of miracles (karāma, pl. karāmāt) by saints (see the chapter by Kuehn in this volume). Such divinely inspired interventions were often listed in the hagiographic collection of texts devoted to the life of single saints.88 Al-Sayyida Nafīsa, a female saint venerated in Cairo, is a case in point.
Nafīsa was a member of the Prophet’s family (ahl al-bayt), and one of her ancestors was Ḥasan, son of Fāṭima (daughter of Prophet Muhammad) and ʿAlī. Born in Mecca around 145–146/762–763, she subsequently moved to Egypt and died in Fusṭāṭ in 210/825. Renowned for her pious lifestyle and visited by pilgrims already during her lifetime, she was then entombed in her house. The earliest material evidence dates back to the 5th/11th century when under the Fatimids, a supposed pre-existing shrine (most likely the ʿAbbasid shrine erected in place of Nafīsa’s house) was restored and embellished, while a Naskhi inscription was added under the Ayyubids.89 The emergence of hagiographical texts devoted to al-Sayyida Nafīsa starts in the 6th/12th century and reached a pan-Islamic, international status around the 8th/14th century.90 In his 7th/13th-century work on illustrious biographies,Ibn Khallikān praises Nafīsa’s tomb on the basis that prayers uttered at her shrine are answered.91
Hagiographical texts mention that she succeeded in treating severe diseases, giving freedom to prisoners, and raising the water of the Nile River. Her miracles also resulted in conversions to Islam. Al-Sayyida Nafīsa became a source of relief for people experiencing difficulties, as well as the recipient of invocations to help communal groups facing uncertainties.92 Shrines of other saints were visited on these very same bases: prayers offered in front of saints’ burials had a higher chance to be answered than elsewhere.93 The institution of the abovementioned shafāʿa (intercession) was exploited by visitors to gain advantages during their lives. Requests varied from the cure of diseases (including diseases of animals) to collective requests for rain and support in the undertaking or fulfilling of vows. Daniella TalmonHeller highlights the difference in the function of holy sites between medieval Islam and Christianity, as for the latter the atonement of sins was a priority as part of the penitential path leading to salvation.94
Nevertheless, several shrines became places of interreligious veneration on a larger scale, either because they commemorated prophets shared by three monotheistic religions or because of the hope for assistance from the saint in practical aspects of life.95 While holy places became loci of political and economic patronage, scholars have also stressed the importance of burial areas as places for social interaction. Collective visitations to important shrines allowed for reconfiguring social roles within the context of an extra-urban space because class, gender, and religious boundaries sometimes collapsed (see the chapters by Hendrich, Kuehn, and Wolper in this volume).96
7 Conclusion Since the early period, Muslim societies established holy places and coalesced around them. This practice displayed a continuity with the late antique legacy through the institution of intercession adopted and adapted from the late antique Christian veneration of saints and the architectural typologies of early monumental shrines derived from late antique mausolea and martyria typologies. Islamic burial architecture was also nourished by Central Asian models becoming a source for the great variety of architectural forms deployed in Muslim societies. Medieval and early modern Muslim societies were innovative interpreters of the architectural legacy of late antique monumental burials, erected as buildings independent from places of prayer.97 At the same time, even opposition to the veneration of saints retraced to some extent the footsteps of late antique theology because an excess of veneration and a superfluous waste of money were harshly criticized in all monotheistic realms. However, differences are also noteworthy. Relics, in most cases contact-relics, had a different function in Islam. On a theological level, emphasis was laid on the full preservation of the corpse in the waiting of judgement day. Relics were generally not used to multiply a holy site related to one single figure or sacred event. Furthermore, the universal Muslim calendar was articulated around a few selected occurrences and unlike the Christian calendar, did not include any special days devoted to specific saints. Instead, hundreds of holy places developed on a regional base without subverting the official sacred geography but nevertheless providing Muslim societies and individuals with a local manifestation of the sacred. On the one hand, there were powerful universal centers such as Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem,98 and to a certain extent Najaf and Karbala, and on the other, a myriad of regional varieties dislocated throughout the Islamic world related to local history and lore.
8 This Volume Much of what has been written on holy places in Islam or the concept of holiness in Islam relates to the central lands (the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East) as well as North Africa and South Asia. This volume comprises twelve chapters that aim to explore the specifics of the emergence, transformation, or demise of holy places throughout the Islamic world. Most of the chapters focus on specific sites or geographic regions chosen to display a wide variety of contexts where holy places existed and exist, reflecting the diversity of the Muslim world. Case studies cover places from Morocco in the west toIndonesia in the east, from Central Asia and India to Sudan and Senegal, and from Yemen to the Balkans. As Islam became a relevant factor in different parts of the world at different times, the case studies likewise cover different periods ranging from the beginning of Islam to contemporary times. Although each holy place is of course unique and has individual characteristics and contexts, there are overarching aspects relating to many of these places. These include the question of how these places were established, how they were part of a sacred landscape in a specific region, and how rituals and architectural features contributed to their establishment as holy places. A great deal has been written about the Sacred Mosque with the Kaʿba in Mecca, the holiest place inIslam, which serves as the focal point of ritual prayer and constitutes an important element in the hajj.99 It served as a model for some of the various ways to make a place holy, such as the connection with the biblical figures Adam, Abraham, Hagar, and Ishmael, the destruction of the connected pre-Islamic idols, and references made in the Quran. The second chapter, by Harry Munt, focuses on the ritual aspects surrounding this mosque and other holy places in the Hejaz as the center of the pilgrimage and studies the importance of the hajj and the patronage and custodianship of Holy Places in the Hejaz establishing caliphal authority. In Umayyad and early ʿAbbasid times, caliphal authority and succession appear to have been closely connected to the leadership of the hajj and most caliphs lead the hajj at least once during their reign. They also spent large sums renovating holy places and improving infrastructure for pilgrims and tried to ensure that holy sites were honored and rituals could be properly performed. Munt then explores how and why this link between the leadership of the pilgrimage and patronage of holy places weakened following the reign of Harūn al-Rashīd. In contrast to the SacredMosque in Mecca and many of the holy places in the central lands of Islam, established at sites previously linked to biblical prophets or companions and relatives of Prophet Muhammad, the third chapter examines Fez, a newly founded city. Ruggero Vimercati Sanseverino in his chapter examines the different ways that Fez became perceived and represented as a sacred place. He shows how several different narratives came to be interconnected and contributed to the special veneration Fez gained over the course of time. Among others are its founding through a descendant of the Prophet, apocryphal hadiths that have the Prophet foretell the founding of the city, and stories of its saintly protection. Its role as a political and spiritual center contributed to a growing number of saintly figures, which in turn increased the number of hagiographical accounts and helped to firmly establish the town as a city of saints. The city of Zabid in Yemen holds some parallels with Fez, including its being a new foundation; it was constructed during the late-2nd/8th to the early3rd/9th centuries; and while a connection to the Prophet’s time was established earlier—through a descendant of the Prophet in the case of Fez and a companion of the Prophet for Zabid—the process of sanctifying the place only really begins centuries later. Zacharie Mochtari de Pierremont in his chapter retraces the development of perceived sacredness for Zabid and argues that the main impetus for its establishment as a holy city was in fact declining economic and political importance following the Rasūlid downfall in the 9th/15th century. The narratives contributing to its status include references to a pre-Islamic perception of holiness in the region, its blessing through the Prophet, the role of the Companion Muʿādh ibn Jabal, the concentration nobility and scholars in the city, and particularly, the roles of seven local saintly figures. Claus-Peter Haase’s chapter takes us to the Persianate world and Central Asia. In the first part of his chapter, he reflects on the models and normative framework informing the building of mausolea and contrasts this process with the architectural remains of mausolea. Taking into account archaeological findings, local narratives in various sources, and traveller reports, Haase then examines the case of Shāh-i Zinda near Samarqand, a sitewhere over the course of time, two very different traditions came to be conflated: on the one hand, the alleged tomb of Qutham ibn ʿAbbās, cousin of Prophet Muhammad, and the narratives of his death as a martyr, and on the other, the old Iranian myth of the living king. Sara Mondini sheds light on the complex sacred landscapes of India, where the most important Islamic holy places were not built on pre-Islamic Hindu sites but emerged from Sufi monasteries and the burial places of Sufi masters. Studying the mausoleum complex of Aḥmad Khattū at Sarkhej in Gujarat, she is able to discern how this complex developed from seclusion to a major place of visitation and veneration, becoming the burial place of several rulers. She also draws attention to the widespread sharing of sacred spaces in India, which in the case of Sarkhej includes sharing rituals. Even though origin stories for different holy places often display remarkable similarities, there are certainly notable differences. George Quinn in his chapter examines the origin stories for three pilgrimage sites on Java, Indonesia, linked to saintly figures of the 9th–10th/15th–16th centuries. The geography Senegal’s holy sites emerged following well-known processes, such as establishing Sufi zāwiyas or venerating tombs of Sufi masters, at least two sites, Touba and Tiénaba, were founded after visions by their namesake figures. Béatrice Hendrich in her chapter focuses on the Hala Sultan Tekke in Larnaca on Cyprus and its role as a sacred and contested place. The Hala Sultan complex houses a mosque and a tomb, believed to contain an aunt of the prophet Muhammad, built on the remnants of a Phoenician sanctuary. The chapter explores the location of the site—a place sacred for Muslims in the Greek part of Cyprus and thus detached from a local Muslim community— its religious and political role as an object of local pilgrimage, and attempts by different sides to control the site’s narrative. Ethel Sara Wolper studies the eventful history of three shrines in Mosul that underwent multiple changes over the centuries. All of them, including the tomb of Jonah, the mausoleum of Mar Behnam, and the tomb of Nahum, are examples of shared sites visited by different groups: Christians of various denominations, Jews, and Muslims. While their origins cannot be established, documented changes over site control indicate that each seems to have been less vulnerable than the populations inhabiting them. Moreover, the intricate history of the sites alludes to a dynamic relationship between various minority groups and the Muslim community challenging the prevalent study of these groups through a static model. Her work also touches on the destruction of holy places since these shrines have been destroyed by isis, targeted not only as artifacts but for their role and importance in daily practice. Conversely, their importance to the local community ensured they were priorities for reconstruction. The destruction of holy places is also the topic of the final chapter by Luca Patrizi. Examining the history of aniconism and iconoclasm in Islam as well as the ideology of Muslim reformism, Salafism, and Wahhabism, he argues that the recent destructions of holy places cannot be linked to iconoclastic ideas or classical Sunni doctrine but rather are expressions of Wahhabi thought. Considered together, the twelve chapters provide insights into the complex phenomenon of holy places in Islam; shedding light on the different forms in which holy places and sacred landscapes emerged and were shaped and invented; looking into the narratives used to establish the holiness of specific sites; exploring the relationship between popular and local practices and established doctrines for practices deemed acceptable; reflecting on the sharing of sites and rituals between different religious groups, and how these can change over the course of time; and contemplating the motivations behind the destruction of holy sites. Most importantly, these topics offer new perspectives and present avenues for future research on holy places in Islam.
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