HERITAGE STUDIES IN THE

MUSLIM WORLD
Series Editor: Trinidad Rico

BONES OF
CONTENTION
Muslim Shrines in
Palestine

Andrew Petersen
Heritage Studies in the Muslim World

Series editor
Trinidad Rico
Rutgers University
New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA
The series Heritage Studies in the Muslim World invites a break away from
disciplinary legacies that are involved in the study of ‘Islamic heritage,’
drawing from scholarship that is often located at the margins of disciplines
and domains. Contributors to this series recognize the Muslim world as a
diverse and fluid territory where Muslim and non-Muslim communities
engage with Muslim and non-Muslim heritage constructs. In this aim, the
series welcomes a broad representation of disciplines and voices that inter-
sect to address heritage discourses and practices, considering the natural
and built environment, material culture, traditions, performances, tech-
nologies, discourses, and other political and legal instruments that are
associated with heritage.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/series/15128
 Andrew Petersen

Bones of Contention
Muslim Shrines in Palestine
Andrew Petersen
University of Wales Trinity Saint David
Ceredigion, United Kingdom

Heritage Studies in the Muslim World

ISBN 978-981-10-6964-2    ISBN 978-981-10-6965-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6965-9

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This book is for Rowan.
 Notes on Reading the Text

This book is aimed at a wide readership, including people interested in a

range of subjects, from archaeology, architecture, Islamic studies, and his-
tory to anthropology. Given this range of different disciplinary back-
grounds, the transliteration of Arabic terms avoids the use of diacritical
marks, which, although technically useful for language scholars, can cause
confusion for non-Arabic specialists. The only exceptions to the use of
diacritical marks are where direct quotations are made from other texts.

vii
 Chronology

Early Islamic Period 636–1099

622–632 Expansion of Islam in Arabia under Muhammad

638 Arab Muslim conquest of Jerusalem
661–750 Umayyad rule from Damascus
750–945 Abbasid rule from Baghdad
970–1099 Fatimid rule from Egypt

Medieval Period 1099–1517

1099–1187 Crusader rule of most of Palestine

1187–1260 Ayyubids rule of most of Palestine
1260–1517 Mamluk rule in Palestine

Ottoman Period 1517–1918

1517 Ottoman conquest of Jerusalem

1798–1799 Napoleon leads French invasion of Palestine
1831–1840 Egyptian rule under Muhammad ‘Ali Pasha
1914–1918 First World War ends Ottoman rule in Palestine

Modern Period 1918–Present

1920–1948 British Mandate

1948 Israel declares independence

ix
x CHRONOLOGY

1967 Six-Day War extends Israeli rule to include all of Palestine

1995 Oslo Accords signed, establishing the Palestinian Authority as legal
entity for governing West Bank and Gaza
 Acknowledgements

This publication is based on archaeological and architectural fieldwork

carried out in Palestine over many years, supported by the former British
School of Archaeology in Jerusalem. More recent work has been funded
by the Council for British Research in the Levant and by a British Academy
Small Research Grant. My interest and research on shrines has been
enhanced by participation in a number of workshops and conferences,
including the Colloquia on Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and
Mamluk Eras, originally convened by Urbain Vermeulen and, more
recently, the meetings of the Palestine History and Heritage Project in
Copenhagen and Palestine organized by Thomas Thompson and Ingrid
Hjelm. Over the years, many people have helped with the research, both
in practical and academic terms. Although these are too numerous to
name, I would like to thank, in particular, Adil Abu al-Hajj, Denys Pringle,
Gino Schallenbergh, Hamdan Taha, Jo Van Steenbergen, Mahmud
Hawari, Michael Burgoyne, Päivi Miettunen, Peter Edbury, Reema
Hammawi, Yehoshua Frenkel, Yousef Meri and all the participants in the
Medieval and Ottoman Survey. In addition, I express appreciation for the
students of my module on ‘The Archaeology of Shrines in Muslim
Palestine’ who not only demonstrated an enthusiasm for this subject but
also helped me to identify important new areas of research. I am grateful
to Ifan Edwards who made the drawings and maps to a professional stan-
dard with very short notice. Finally, I thank the editors of this series, José
Carvajal López and Trinidad Rico, who provided both positive support
and constructive feedback for this project.

xi
 Contents

Part I Introduction   1

1 Introduction: Definitions, History and Context   3

2 Arabic and Muslim Historiography  13

3 Muslim Shrines in European Descriptions of Palestine  27

Part II Types of Shrines  45

4 Shrines Sponsored by Sultans  47

5 Major Sufi Shrines  65

6 Shaykh’s Tombs  85

7 Shiʿa, Druze and Bahai Shrines 107

xiii
xiv Contents

Part III Shrines in the Contemporary World 121

8 Destruction, Neglect and Appropriation: The Demise

of Muslim Shrines 123

9 Heritage and Conservation 141

10 Conclusions 153

Glossary 165

References 171

Index 183
 List of Figures

Fig. 4.1 The Nabi Musa complex located in the Jordan Valley near
Jericho. Most of the outer part of the complex is Ottoman
and dates from the nineteenth century 51
Fig. 4.2 The cenotaph marking the grave of Musa (Moses) covered
by a domed chamber dating to the thirteenth century 52
Fig. 4.3 Harram Sidna ‘Ali at Arsuf (near modern Herziliyya) during
restoration work in 1992. The tomb of ‘Ali ibn ‘Alil is in an
unroofed enclosure on the right 54
Fig. 4.4 The riwaq or porch added to the tomb Abu Hurayra by the
Mamluk sultan Baybars in 1274 56
Fig. 4.5 Interior of the tomb chamber of Abu Hurayra rebuilt by the
Mamluk sultan al-Malik al-Ashraf in 1294. The cenotaph
in the centre is covered with a cloth embroidered with
Hebrew characters, reflecting a minority Jewish belief that
this is the tomb of Rabbi Gamliel 57
Fig. 5.1 Exterior of the mosque Jaljuliyya, which may have originally
been built as a mausoleum for Muhammad Abu al-‘Awn 70
Fig. 5.2 The Mosque of Abu al-‘Awn in Ramla which contains the
tomb of Muhammad Abu al-‘Awn and his wife 71
Fig. 5.3 Dayr al-Shaykh—exterior of complex with large dome
covering the prayer area and the smaller dome covering
the tomb of Shaykh (Sultan) Badr 74
Fig. 5.4 Interior of tomb chamber at Dayr al-Shaykh. The cenotaph
marking the grave of Sultan Badr is behind the low wall and
can be accessed through the rectangular opening on the left 75
Fig. 5.5 Plan of shrine complex at Dayr al-Shaykh showing two main
phases of construction. (1) Vault containing tombs,

xv
xvi List of Figures

(2) vaulted room, (3) vault containing tomb of Sultan Badr,

(4) domed prayer room, (5) domed anti-chamber to Sultan
Badr’s tomb and (6) cross-vaulted canopy used as kitchen area
(Drawing Ifan Edwards) 76
Fig. 5.6 The interior of the Yashrutiyya complex in Acre showing
the unused fourth mausoleum built for the current head
of the order 78
Fig. 6.1 Exterior of the tomb or maqam of Muhammad al-‘Ajami
at Majdal near Tiberias 86
Fig. 6.2 Interior of the maqam of Muhammad al-‘Ajami at Majdal.
There appear to be two graves inside, each covered with a
green cloth 87
Fig. 6.3 Roman bath house at Emmaus re-used as tomb of Abu
Ubayda99
Fig. 6.4 Section through the shrine of Abu Ubayda at Emmaus showing
different stages of construction (Drawing by Ifan Edwards) 99
Fig. 6.5 The tomb chamber at the centre of a complex dedicated
to Nabi Yamin. The tomb chamber appears to be of
fourteenth or fifteenth century, whilst the rest of the complex
(not in the photograph) dates from the late Ottoman period 102
Fig. 7.1 The shrine of Nabi Yusha (Joshua) located high on a
mountain to the north of the Sea of Galilee. In addition
to the tomb chamber and prayer hall, there are rooms
providing accommodation and facilities to the pilgrims 111
Fig. 8.1 Maqam Shaykh Zaytoun located on a high mountain
near Ramallah. Although technically within the designated
Palestinian territory, the shrine is in a zone controlled by
the Israeli military 131
Fig. 8.2 Cenotaph marking the grave of Husam al-Din Abu al-Hayja
within the maqam of the same name in the village of Kawkab.
Note the hand prints and inscriptions painted in henna on
the white walls of the shrine 137
Fig. 9.1 Map of Palestine showing principal cities and the location
of shrines mentioned in the text. (1) Dayr al-Shaykh, (2) Nabi
Rubin, (3) Nabi Yusha, (4) Nabi Thari, (5) Nabi Shua’ayb,
(6) Haram Sidna ‘Ali, (7) Nabi Yamin, (8) Maqam Abu
Hurayra, (9) Nabi Musa, (10) Abu ‘Ubayda, (11) Rachel’s
Tomb, (12) Shaykh Danun and Shaykh Daud, (13) Shaykh
Tamim in Bayt Jibrin, (14) Isdud shrines of Ibrahim Matabuli
and Shaykh Salman al-Farisi, (15) Shaykh Zaytoun near
Ramallah, (16) Nabi Samwil, (17) Qabr Yusuf (Joseph’s
Tomb), (18) Shaykh Baraz al-Din at Majdal Yaba, (19) Nabi
Yahya at al-Muzayri’a, (20) Shaykh Zayd at Bayt Jiz (Map by
Ifan Edwards) 149
 PART I

Introduction
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Definitions, History

and Context

Abstract This chapter forms an introduction to the book and includes a

discussion of its scope and purpose. The first part of the chapter includes
a definition of the term ‘shrine’ as used in the book, followed by a discus-
sion on the origin of shrines in Islam and their place in the modern world.
The final part of the chapter provides an outline structure of the remainder
of the book.

Keywords Kaaba • Dome of the Rock • Mecca • Medina

The land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River has remained
one of the most bitterly contested areas of the world for nearly two millen-
nia, and at the heart of the conflict are the sacred places of the three main
religions—Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Whilst Christian and Jewish
claims to sacred sites are well known outside the region, with the excep-
tion of Jerusalem and Hebron, the Muslim shrines are not well known and
poorly understood. The principal aim of this book is to understand how
Muslim shrines have become integrated into the fabric of Palestinian his-
tory and landscape. As a starting point, we can consider the following
passage from the book of Joshua:

© The Author(s) 2018 3

A. Petersen, Bones of Contention, Heritage Studies in the Muslim
World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6965-9_1
4 A. PETERSEN

And Joseph’s bones, which the Israelites had brought from Egypt, were
buried at Shechem in the tract of land that Jacob bought for a hundred
pieces of silver from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem. This became
the inheritance of Joseph’s descendants. (Joshua 24:32)

The above verse has been used by both Jews and Muslims as proof of
the authenticity of the shrine of Joseph’s Tomb (Qabr Yusuf) outside the
West Bank city of Nablus (Fig. 9.1, No. 17). Whilst the shrine will be
discussed in more detail in Chap. 8, the biblical quotation encapsulates
three major issues which set Muslim shrines at the heart of many debates
in the contemporary Middle East. The first question relates to competing
claims between Islamic and Jewish traditions, which both claim custodian-
ship of shrines and, by extension, ownership of the land. The second issue
relates to the existence of shrines built over graves—whilst this is a wide-
spread phenomenon in the Muslim world, it is increasingly being called
into question by advocates of fundamentalist Islam. The third issue relates
to authenticity—and the importance of graves and human remains in the
creation of Muslim shrines. To secular observers, the identity of a particu-
lar burial place is in many cases open to question, yet graves remain the
most powerful and significant feature of most Muslim shrines. This book
aims to address these questions and also explore other issues relating to
the origins, development and current condition of Muslim shrines, which
form a unique aspect of the Palestinian heritage.
Although the book will discuss a wide range of different forms of
shrine, it will not include either the Haram in Jerusalem or the Mosque
of Abraham in Hebron. This is because both these shrines are exceptional
and do not easily relate to the typical shrines of Medieval and Ottoman
Palestine. In any case, both Hebron and Jerusalem have been discussed
in considerable depth elsewhere, and their inclusion would tend to over-
shadow the many important issues surrounding the other shrines. In
addition to describing the context for the creation and use of the shrines,
the book will focus on the architecture and history of the shrines rather
than the many and varied ways in which the shrines were used by their
local regional communities. This is partly because some of these issues
have been examined by a number of publications, including Tewfik
Canaan’s detailed study (see Chap. 3 for a discussion of Canaan’s work),
and partly because this requires a more specialised approach grounded in
ethnology and anthropology. As a consequence, the book will also not
discuss the important role of women in relation to the use, maintenance
 INTRODUCTION: DEFINITIONS, HISTORY AND CONTEXT 5

and veneration of shrines, although there is certainly considerable scope

for further research in this area (see also discussion in Chap. 10).
Whilst the rest of this book (Chaps. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10) will
be firmly focussed on shrines in Palestine, this chapter will discuss a num-
ber of general issues of relevance to understanding the historical and cul-
tural contexts of the Muslim shrines. Three main issues will be addressed:
(1) the concept and definition of shrines, (2) the development of shrines
within Islam and (3) the significance of shrines in the modern world. The
final part of the chapter will give an outline of the structure of the book.

Concept and Definition of Shrines

Shrines exist in most world religions and, in particular, within Palestine,
where each of the three main faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam has
both major and minor shrines. Although there are many definitions of the
word shrine, the continuities between religions demonstrate that there are
certain important and recurring characteristics. The term ‘shrine’ derives
from the Latin term scrinium, which refers to the box or receptacle hold-
ing relics or other material regarded as sacred. According to Tim Insoll,
the term is inadequate for describing the range of locations and features
which can be regarded as shrines (Insoll 2004, 105). Probably the most
basic definition of a shrine would be ‘a material focus of religious activi-
ties’. Although this definition describes a necessary attribute of shrines, it
is not a sufficient definition of shrines within a Muslim context. For exam-
ple, it could be used to describe a mosque or specifically the mihrab within
a mosque, which is explicitly not a shrine. Allowing for this exception, a
wide variety of locations and objects within the Muslim world can be con-
sidered within the general classification of shrines. This is a reflection of
the huge geographical range, cultural complexity and religious groupings
which can be regarded as part of Muslim civilization.
Although there are examples of religious objects or relics which could
be regarded as shrines within Islamic culture, it is the location of the relics
which are designated as shrines rather than the objects themselves. Portable
or mobile shrines certainly existed amongst the pre-Islamic Arabs who
would often carry them into battle. These tribal shrines comprised stone
idols carried within wooden boxes which could be carried to different
locations and set up within a campsite. It is probably because of this asso-
ciation with idols that portable shrines are such a rare feature of Muslim
religious practice. Exceptions to this general aversion might include the
6 A. PETERSEN

portable shrines or tabaqs containing depictions of ‘Ali and other imams

carried by Shiʿas during festivals in the month of Muharram (Denny 2016,
310). The mahmal or empty camel litter which accompanied the Hajj
annually to Mecca should not be regarded as a shrine despite bearing a
superficial resemblance to portable shrines in other cultures and religions
(Robinson 1931). Instead, the mahmal symbolized the authority of the
secular ruler who was unable to accompany the Hajj.
For some Muslims there is only one shrine in Islam, which is the Kaaba
in Mecca, which comprises a square box-like structure surrounded by a
sacred precinct. Other major shrines within Islam which are accepted by
the majority of Muslims are the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina and the
Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. The Dome of the Rock has certain simi-
larities with the Kaaba, including its pre-Islamic origins, the presence of a
stone or rock at the centre of the shrine (the Kaaba has a black stone hajar
aswad embedded in one corner) and the practice of circumambulation or
circling the shrine. Certainly, the importance of Jerusalem and the Temple
Mount was established early on within the Muslim community, and for the
first few years, Jerusalem functioned as the qibla or direction of prayer
before it was changed to Mecca. There were even attempts to re-direct the
qibla towards Jerusalem during the Umayyad period when Mecca was
under the control of Ibn Zubayr. The importance of Jerusalem within
Islam is further demonstrated by the construction of the Dome of the
Rock by the caliph ‘Abd al-Malik’ at the relatively early date of 691 AD.
Whilst Jerusalem and the Dome of the Rock are fairly unproblematic as
Muslim shrines, the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina poses a different prob-
lem. Certainly, Medina has a central place within Islam as the home of the
first Muslim community, the location of Muhammad’s house and the first
mosque. The problematic part is that when he died, Muhammad was bur-
ied within his house—a custom which is not alien to pre-Islamic Arabian
culture and can still occasionally be seen today (see, e.g., Petersen 2001,
128). Although the building was designated as Muhammad’s house, it
also fulfilled the function of a mosque and was the centre of the nascent
Muslim community. Whilst Muslims revered Muhammad as a prophet and
as the person to whom the Quran was revealed, he was explicitly only a
messenger and was not the focus of the religion. The fact that Muhammad’s
grave was located within the house/mosque later caused problems for
some Muslims, such as Ibn Taymiyya, who was worried that people might
inadvertently pray towards Muhammad’s grave rather than towards the
Kaaba in Mecca. However, for most Muslims, the direction of prayer
 INTRODUCTION: DEFINITIONS, HISTORY AND CONTEXT 7

towards Mecca was well enough established that there would not be a
chance of confusing this with Muhammad’s grave. Also, Muhammad’s
pre-eminent position within Islam meant that the location of his grave
within the mosque would only enhance the importance of the mosque and
the prayer towards Mecca. Muslims would still be able to pay their respects
to Muhammad and also follow his teachings in relation to the prayer
towards Mecca.

The Development of Shrines Within Islam

Although shrines do not need to incorporate the tomb of a deceased per-
son, the vast majority of Muslim shrines are associated with graves or pre-
sumed burial places of people considered to be exceptional in terms of
piety, relationship to the Prophet or other religiously important figures.
However, as Thomas Leisten has pointed out, a substantial group of
Muslim religious texts, including the Hadith, regards them (Muslim
tombs) as distinctly unreligious, pagan and anti-Islamic (Leisten 1990,
22). The scholars seemed particularly anxious that the tombs should not
become shrines; thus the early thirteenth-century Hanbali theologian Ibn
Qudama al-Maqdisi (d. 1223) wrote ‘the special treatment of graves by
praying by them is similar to the veneration of idols by prostrating oneself
before them and wishing to draw near them’ (Ibn Qudama, Mughni
2:508, cited in Leisten 1990, 14). With statements like this, it is very sur-
prising that Muslim shrines were not only built but flourished especially
from the twelfth century onwards. There is, in other words, a huge gap
between what is stated in religious and legal texts and the surviving archi-
tecture of Muslim shrines which are found throughout the Islamic world.
It seems, therefore, that the numerous legal rulings and prohibitions were
a reaction to the construction of domed buildings over tombs, which the
scholars and lawyers were powerless to prevent. In this context, it is worth
noticing that although building over graves was explicitly forbidden, it was
not described as haram (i.e. forbidden) but rather as makruh (objection-
able, disapproved of). One of the biggest problems with the legal prohibi-
tions against funerary architecture was that Muhammad himself was
buried within his house, which subsequently developed into one of the
principal shrines of the Islamic world.
It can be argued that Muhammad’s tomb in Medina is a special case,
and certainly it appears that for the first few centuries of Islam there were
no other built tombs which developed into shrines. There is, however,
8 A. PETERSEN

some evidence that shrines developed around the graves of members of

the Prophet Muhammad’s family, although the exact form of these shrines
is not known (Bernheimer 2013). In particular, the locations of the graves
of some of the imams (descendants of Muhammad through Ali and
Fatimah) were known but there is no surviving architectural evidence for
these from before the beginning of the tenth century. For example, the
twin shrine of the imams al-Hadi and al-‘Askari at Samarra was founded in
944, although it is not clear if anything survives from this period and the
earliest inscription within the complex dates from the early thirteenth cen-
tury (Northedge and Kennet 2015, 203–204). There has been an assump-
tion that the development of shrines connected with Muhammad’s family
was primarily connected with Shiʿism; however, Bernheimer has shown
that they were visited and perhaps developed by Sunni Muslims
(Bernheimer 2013, 1).
One of the problems is distinguishing between a mausoleum and a
shrine. Whilst some mausolea developed into shrines, this was not always
the case, and not all shrines were based around tombs.
For example, many of the mausoleums in the larger medieval cemeter-
ies, such as that of Bab al-Saghir in Damascus, could be construed as fam-
ily tombs rather than as shrines. Similarly, large numbers of shrines are
either natural sacred features or feature relics, such as footprints of the
Prophet. Until recently, the octagonal domed building of Qubbat al-­
Sulaybiyya at Samarra in Iraq was thought to be an early example of an
Islamic mausoleum, as it contained three burials, although these are now
interpreted as a later intrusion (e.g. Grabar 1966, No. 2). Instead, Alastair
Northedge has intriguingly suggested that Qubbat al-Sulaybiyya was a
fabricated shrine representing the Kaaba created by the caliph as an alter-
native Hajj destination for his Turkish troops (Northedge 2006).
The earliest dateable Muslim mausoleum which has survived in more or
less its original condition is the tomb of the Samanid Nasr ibn Ahmad ibn
Ismail, who died at Bukhara in 943 AD. The mausoleum comprises a
square room (5.7 × 5.7 m internally) built of fired bricks with a doorway
on each of the sides and a decorative arched frieze at roof height which
hides the transition to the octagonal transition to the dome. It is perhaps
significant that the mausoleum has the same basic proportions and shape
associated with the majority of Muslim shrines throughout the world.
Whilst it is likely that there were other mausolea of similar date which have
not survived, it is apparent that from the tenth century onward, shrines
and mausolea began to appear in diverse parts of the world, perhaps
 INTRODUCTION: DEFINITIONS, HISTORY AND CONTEXT 9

indicating a major social or political change within Islamic society. The

most obvious change which occurred in the tenth century was the final
­break-­up of the caliphate into disparate political units. Prior to the tenth
century, there was at least a theoretical idea that the Islamic world com-
prised a unified political and cultural entity—by the eleventh century, the
political fragmentation of Islam meant that there were numerous rulers
competing for secular authority. By the middle of the twelfth, all provinces
of the Muslim world had acquired large numbers of mausoleums which
functioned as shrines (Grabar 1966, 72). There were regional variations in
the architecture of these structures; thus Iraq had a series of buildings
roofed with muqarnas (conical or honeycomb) shaped domes, whilst in
Iran double-­shelled domes were developed during the eleventh century
along with a series of round tower-shaped tombs. There was also consider-
able variation in the size of these structures, from the relatively modest
Tomb of the Samanids in Bukhara to the immense structure (27 m per
side and 38 m high) built over the tomb of the Seljuk ruler Sultan Sanjar
(r. 1118–1153 AD) in Merv (for a full description of Sanjar’s tomb, see
Hillenbrand 1999, 278, 283, 294).
Within Palestine, the earliest shrine for which we have evidence after
the Dome of the Rock (built 691 AD) is the Haram at Hebron. According
to the writer al-Muqaddasi writing in 985, Muslims built a stone dome
over the tomb of Abraham in the latter part of the tenth century. The
tombs of the other patriarchs were not included within the domed struc-
ture but were included within the sacred enclosure (Haram), which also
had a hostel with a bakery and other facilities for pilgrims (Le Strange
1890, 309). As will be demonstrated in the remainder of this book, the
real growth in the number of shrines in Palestine occurred directly after
the Crusaders had been expelled, starting in the late twelfth century.

The Significance of Shrines in the Modern World

Unlike many aspects of the medieval and pre-modern world, Muslim
shrines continue to have considerable direct relevance in the contempo-
rary world. Although not every shrine is well known, or fully investi-
gated, as a building type shrines continue to attract attention both from
scholars and, in recent years, from the news media. Two issues of particu-
lar interest are the roles of shrines within the religious political conflict
between Palestine and Israel and the increasing fundamentalist rhetoric
and, more recently, action against Muslim shrines. Whilst these issues
10 A. PETERSEN

will be discussed in more detail later in the book, it is worth noting that
in both cases, shrines are being used to support particular views of his-
tory. In the case of the Israel-Palestine conflict, shrines are often used as
territorial markers, with ownership of a shrine used to support ancient
claims to land. For example, Israeli extremists regard both the Tomb of
Rachel near Bethlehem and the Tomb of Joseph as concrete proof of
divinely sanctioned Jewish ownership of the land. Amongst Muslim fun-
damentalist extremists, shrines are regarded as an innovation within the
Islamic tradition and the destruction of structures built over graves is
regarded as a return to the purity of early Islam. In both cases the appeal
is to an idealised past which ignores other religious traditions and the
complexities of historical development embedded in the fabric of the
shrines themselves. In order to reject these hard-line views, which are an
affront to modern civilised society, it is important that these locations
and structures are documented and investigated in a scientific manner
which reflects the true nature of the past.

Structure of This Book

This book is arranged into three parts: Part I: Introduction, Part II: Types
of Shrines, and Part III: Shrines in the Contemporary World. The aim of
this approach is both to set the shrines within an historical context and
also to show how they remain relevant today.
Part I is divided into three chapters—the present chapter (Chap. 1),
Chap. 2, which discusses the Arabic and Islamic historiography, and Chap.
3, which reviews the European and secular literature relating to Palestinian
shrines.
Part II is arranged into four chapters, each describing a different form
of shrine. The categorization is based on the types of people or groups
who developed the shrines in the first place rather than either the architec-
ture or the identity of the personality buried within the shrine. There may
be considerable overlap in the categorizations but the idea is to emphasize
the different aspects of how shrines were developed and used. The first
category (Chap. 4) is shrines built and developed by rulers which, for
obvious reasons, tend to be architecturally significant and commemorate
major figures. The second category (Chap. 5) considers the role of Sufism
in the creation and maintenance of shrines. One of the principal argu-
ments of this book is that the rise of Sufism coincided with an increase in
the number of shrines and was the context within which the cult of saints
 INTRODUCTION: DEFINITIONS, HISTORY AND CONTEXT 11

flourished. The decline of Sufism within Muslim society may also be

equated with a decrease in the practice of visiting tombs. The third
­category (Chap. 6) discusses local tombs which may have been built either
by Sufis or by local people and which form the majority of shrines within
Palestine. The final category (Chap. 7) discusses those Muslim shrines
which are not from the dominant Sunni tradition, demonstrating consid-
erable continuities between different religious traditions.
Part III is divided into three chapters, the first of which (Chap. 8)
examines the factors which have led to the destruction and disappearance
of many shrines throughout the country. Chapter 9 investigates how
shrines can be managed and conserved to provide a future for these impor-
tant but endangered buildings. The final chapter (Chap. 10) provides an
argument for why the shrines are important in the twenty-first century.

References
Bernheimer, T. 2013. Shared Sanctity: Some Notes on Ahl al-Bayt shrines in Early
Ṭ ālibid Genealogies. Studia Islamica 108: 1–15.
Denny, F.M. 2016. An Introduction to Islam. 4th ed. London and New York:
Routledge.
Grabar, O. 1966. The Earliest Islamic Commemorative Structures, Notes and
Documents. Ars Orientalis 6: 7–46.
Hillenbrand, R. 1999. Islamic Architecture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press.
Insoll, T. 2004. Archaeology, Ritual, Religion. London: Routledge.
Le Strange, G. 1890. Palestine under the Moslems: A Description of Syria and the
Holy Land from A.D. 650–1500. London: Palestine Exploration Fund.
Leisten, T. 1990. Between Orthodoxy and Exegesis: Some Aspects of Attitudes in
the Shari‘a towards Funerary Architecture. Muqarnas 7: 12–22.
Northedge, A. 2006. The Qubbat al-Sulaybiyya and Its Interpretation. In Sifting
Sands, Reading Signs: Studies in Honour of Professor Géza Fehérvari, ed.
P.L. Baker and B. Brend, 71–82. London: Furnace Press.
Northedge, A., and D. Kennet. 2015. Archaeological Atlas of Samarra. Samarra
Studies II. Vol. 1. London: British Institute for the Study of Iraq.
Petersen, A.D. 2001. Gazetteer of Medieval and Ottoman Buildings in Muslim
Palestine (Part 1). British Academy Monographs in Archaeology No. 12.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Robinson, A.E. 1931. The Mahmal of the Moslem Pilgrimage. Journal of the
Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1: 117–127.
 CHAPTER 2

Arabic and Muslim Historiography

Abstract This chapter is concerned with the origins and development of

Muslim traditions relating to shrines and saints. The role of Palestine as
the Holy Land is also discussed, as well as the significance of Jerusalem
within the Islamic tradition. The final part of the chapter reviews the work
and contribution of seven Muslim writers who provide descriptions of
Muslim shrines in the region. The authors are discussed in chronological
order from Nasir i-Khusraw in the eleventh century to Abd al-Ghani al-­
Nabulusi in the seventeenth century.

Keywords Historiography • Sufism • Sacred geography • Jerusalem

There are two historiographies related to Muslim shrines in Palestine: one

European and the other Muslim. The earliest traditions naturally relate to
the Muslim perspective, which dates back to the origins of Islam in the
region. The European perspective is predominantly Christian (although
see below for important exceptions to this) and dates primarily from the
early modern period and later. In the following discussion the medieval
Muslim perspective (circa 1000–1500 AD) will be discussed first. The
Ottoman period will be dealt with in less detail partly because there are
fewer published accounts from this period (for a discussion of this prob-
lem see Mattar 2000). From the 1500’s onwards there are large numbers

© The Author(s) 2018 13

A. Petersen, Bones of Contention, Heritage Studies in the Muslim
World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6965-9_2
14 A. PETERSEN

of European accounts which provide both physical descriptions and his-

torical ­discussions of shrines. By contrast, the medieval European visitors
to the region have little to say about Muslim places of veneration, and
what is written is often both hostile and incorrect. However, from the
sixteenth century onwards European descriptions improve both in quality
and in number. This is partly as a result of the Ottoman conquest, which
opened up the region to European traders and pilgrims. Other factors
which encouraged the production of travellers’ accounts include the
invention of the printing press, which allowed for a wide dissemination of
literature, and the growth of Protestantism, which had a need for more
accurate and independent information about the ‘Holy Land’. Taken
together, the two historiographical traditions give an extensive coverage of
the development of Muslim shrines, although because of their differing
perspectives, there are also some lacunae in particular in relation to the
role of women and the economic role of shrines.

The Muslim Tradition

Before looking specifically at Palestine, it is worth considering how holy
men or saints fit within the Muslim theological tradition. Whilst some
writers (e.g. Ibn Taymiyya) have asserted that there was no tradition of
saints in early Islam, others have argued that a number of men noted for
their piety in the early Islamic period were instrumental in the develop-
ment of Islamic society—in particular, the transmitters of hadith (tradi-
tions) and others associated with the development of the law or other
aspects of establishing the early Arab Islamic caliphate. The memory of
these people was firmly established through their presence in literature,
law and theology and was later adopted by Sufi writers as abdal or (substi-
tutes) without whom the world would not function.
The Muslim historiographical tradition in relation to Palestine is
immense and has been discussed in depth by a number of scholars (see,
e.g. Amikam Elad 2002). In this section the aim is not to discuss these
traditions in great detail but to select some significant observers whose
writings give some idea of the origins and development of shrines. As
might be expected, Muslim interest in Palestinian shrines focussed on the
city of Jerusalem, and to an extent, as in the European tradition, this over-
shadowed any interest in shrines outside the Holy City (Bayt al-Maqdis).
Although historically there has been some debate about the sanctity of
Jerusalem (see, e.g. Ibn Taymiyya’s discussion in Matthews 1936) and also
(for other reasons) amongst contemporary scholars, it is clear that most
 ARABIC AND MUSLIM HISTORIOGRAPHY 15

Muslims regarded the city as sacred. Most modern research on the subject
(e.g. Goitein 1966; Kister 1969) has supported the early sanctity of the
city and shown the religious foundation of Palestine as a Muslim Holy
Land. In any case, the religious status of Jerusalem within the Islamic
world was undoubtedly great and by the ninth century (800s AD) ‘most
of the great mystics of the eastern and western caliphate such as Sufyan
al-Thawri, Ibrahim b. Adham, Abu Yazid al-Bistami, Sari al-Saqaṭi and
Dhul-Nun al-Misri—are reported to have visited Jerusalem’ (Ephrat
2008). Even the prominent early mystic Bishr al-Hafi (b. Merv, d. Baghdad
841), who never visited Palestine, is reported to have said ‘Nothing is left
to me of the pleasures of this world but lying down on my side under the
heavens in the Dome of the Rock’. The place of Palestine in general and
Jerusalem in particular was embedded within Muslim tradition by its
inclusion in Hajj itineraries. For example, one early tradition recom-
mended that Muslims performing the Hajj should pray in the three
mosques of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem (Kister 1969). Certainly for
pilgrims from the Eastern Caliphate—Iran, Khurassan and Transoxiania—
travel via Syria and Jerusalem was more practical than other routes.
However, travel to Jerusalem was more than a matter of convenience—it
directly related to the tradition that Jerusalem was al-Aqsa (the furthest
place) where Muhammad travelled on his night journey (miraj) and from
where he ultimately ascended to heaven/paradise. Of course this tradition
originates in the close relationship between the Quran and the Bible,
which later formed the basis for a Muslim sacred geography of Palestine.
Whilst Palestine certainly had a sacred connotation for Muslims before
the Crusades, the arrival of the Frankish armies in 1099 and the ensuing
war over two and a half centuries gave it added significance. On the one
hand, the fight for the Holy Land (Ard al-Muqaddasa) meant that its
value was increased in the eyes of the combatants who were involved in a
multi-generational struggle to recover territory. Also, it is probable that
the Christian veneration for the Holy Land and associations through
Biblical figures and religious shrines must have influenced the Muslims in
their development of their own shrines. In any case, it is generally agreed
that there were many more Muslim shrines after the Crusades, commemo-
rating not just figures from ancient times but also recent martyrs fighting
against the Crusaders. For example, the grave of al-Fandalawi, a Maliki
scholar who died in 1148 defending Damascus from the Crusaders,
became a place of pilgrimage (Talmon-Heller 2007, 192). Also following
the re-conquest, Christian shrines which had been established by the
16 A. PETERSEN

Crusaders were often taken over and re-designated as places of Muslim

pilgrimage. Daniella Talmon-Heller has argued that the difference between
the period before the Crusades and after was the development of a Muslim
sacred geography. Prior to the Crusades there were only a few sacred sites
outside Jerusalem, and authors generally gave little detail about their
names and locations, whereas after the Crusades there were many more
sites with more discussion of their origins and authenticity (Talmon-Heller
2006–2007, 618–620).
Although the increase in the number of Muslim shrines by the four-
teenth century may be attributed to the addition of tombs associated with
the wars against the Franks, the other factor is the growth of Sufism as part
of mainstream religious life in the region. Although Sufism evidently
existed before the period of the Crusades and, according to Sufi texts, can
be traced back to the time of Muhammad, in practical terms, it was not
developed as a recognized religious tradition until the tenth century.
During this period, Sufism was mostly confined to Iraq, Iran or Central
Asia and the most prominent proponents either came from or lived in the
Eastern Islamic world. Famous early Sufi writers include Sarraj from north-­
eastern Iran, who died in 998; Kalabadhi from Central Asia, who died c.
995; Abu Talib (d. 996), who was born in Mecca but lived most of his life
in Iraq; Daylami from northern Iran; and Sulaimi also from north-eastern
Iran, who died in 1021. The advent of Sunni Turkish rulers in the eleventh
century spread the Sufi tradition much wider into the Bilad al-Sham and
North Africa. The Turks added elements of shamanism as well as ecstatic
and subversive tendencies to the Persian Sufi intellectual tradition. It was
during this period that methods of institutionalizing Sufi practices were
developed, including manuals and the creation of lodges (for a history of
the development of Sufism, see Baldick 2012).
Turkic warriors were largely responsible for the Muslim re-conquest of
Palestine under the Ayyubids and Mamluks. The new rulers re-arranged
the social and religious structures of the region, establishing Sunni emir-
ates nominally loyal to the caliphs in Baghdad. Sufism was particularly
favoured partly because it was prevalent in those areas of the Muslim world
bordering on the Turkic homelands of Central Asia and also because it
seemed compatible with their pre-Islamic Shamanistic belief system. There
are two interlinked elements of Sufi thought which favoured the develop-
ment of shrines; one is the notion of friends of God and the other is the
concept of spiritual leaders who founded groups or brotherhoods. The
concept of friends of God was developed from the Quranic verse 10:62
 ARABIC AND MUSLIM HISTORIOGRAPHY 17

(‘the friends (awliya’ Allah) of God will have nothing to fear nor shall they
grieve’) into an elaborate hierarchy of saints. Biblical and Quranic figures
were generally counted amongst the friends of God as well as prominent
Muslim spiritual leaders some of whom were Sufis. The graves of friends
of God (sing. wali) were often converted into shrines and the term wali is
one of a number of terms used to describe a Muslim shrine. This process
was noted by Ibn al-‘Adim (d. 1262) who described the recent construc-
tion of a mausoleum on ancient tombs of righteous men (Talmon-Heller
2006–2007, 603).
The other factor linking Sufism with the development of Muslim shrines
is the position of Sufi teachers or elders. From the eleventh century
onwards the guidance of an elder or a shaykh became an essential compo-
nent of Sufism, and from the twelfth century, institutionalized brother-
hoods or orders developed (Green 2012, 58). With the patronage of
powerful rulers, dedicated Sufi lodges were built, which, in addition to
teaching rooms and a prayer room, usually had a mausoleum which would
contain the body of the founder of the order. These tombs subsequently
became shrines, which could be visited by both members of Sufi brother-
hoods and others seeking spiritual guidance or blessings. This stage in the
development of Sufi practice coincided with the re-conquest of Palestine
and so led to the proliferation of shaykhs’ tombs within the region.
One further factor which needs to be considered is the development of
a cemetery culture based around the graves of relatives or important per-
sonages. During the medieval period, large cemeteries developed around
the major cities and became places of excursion and visitation. Although it
is possible that there was a funerary culture in the early Islamic period, the
available evidence indicates that this developed from the eleventh century
onwards (for a discussion of medieval Islamic funerary culture, see Talmon-­
Heller 2007, 151ff). For example, in Egypt a range of medieval and early
Ottoman funeral manuals testify to the growing social and cultural impor-
tance attached to the burial of the dead. Funerals are also portrayed more
generally in medieval Islamic texts, and there is evidence that the process
became ritualized during this period. For example, the Maqamat of
al-Harı̄rı̄ produced in the early twelfth century features a scene (the 11th
maqama) at a cemetery. The narrator is in the town of Saweh in Iran
(between Rayy and Hamadan) and decides to visit the cemetery as a cure
for his hardness of heart as recommended by a hadith. The visit is described
as follows: ‘and when I had reached the mansion of the dead, the store-
house of mouldering remains, I saw an assemblage over a grave that was
18 A. PETERSEN

being dug, and a corpse that was being buried … an old man stood forth
on high, from a hillock, leaning on a staff. And he had veiled his face with
a cloak, and disguised his craftiness. The old man proceeded to give a ser-
mon castigating the mourners for their lack of remorse and at the end
collected money from them’ (Cherney 1876, Vol. 1, 164). The scenes at
Saweh are illustrated in a number of extant manuscripts of the Maqamat
and give some idea of the appearance of cemeteries in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries (Rice 1959). Two of the miniature paintings depict
square domed tombs (Bibliotheque Nationale Paris, MS Arabe 5847 and
John Rylands Library Manchester Arab 680) of the form that became
typical of Muslim shrines throughout the Islamic world. Whilst the domed
tombs are not unusual, their depiction shows that they were considered a
normal part of medieval Arabic culture.
The final part of this section will look at some representative examples
of Muslim travellers and scholars who wrote about Muslim shrines in the
region. The aim of this section is not to provide an exhaustive list of
Muslim writings on shrines nor a comprehensive geographical coverage of
shrines but rather to give an idea of how shrines were viewed and experi-
enced by Muslims at different periods in history. The authors considered
are (1) Nasir i-Khusraw, (2) Ibn Jubayr, (3) Al-Harawi, (4) Ibn Battuta,
(5) Mujir al-Din, (6) Ibn Taymiyya and (7) Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi.
Each of the authors had a different perspective and together they demon-
strate the cultural and religious importance attached to Muslim shrines.

Nasir i-Khusraw
By the eleventh century, the religious status of Palestine as a whole was
confirmed by the accounts of the Persian pilgrim Nasir i-Khusraw. Whilst
most of his account is concerned with Jerusalem, on his way there, he
describes frequent stops at shrines which were either the tombs of promi-
nent Muslims (e.g. Abu Shu‘ayb) or figures from the Bible. For example,
he describes a visit to the village of Irbid as follows:

On the mountain there is an enclosure which contains some graves—those

of the sons of Ya‘qub [Jacob]—peace be upon him!—who were the brothers
of Yusf [Joseph]—upon him too be peace! And going forward I came to a
hill, and below the hill a cavern, in which was the tomb of Moses—peace be
upon him!—and I made my visitation there also. (PPTS, Vol. 9 Diary of a
Journey through Syria and Palestine by Nasir i-Khusraw in 1047 AD, trans.
G. Le Strange 1893, London)
 ARABIC AND MUSLIM HISTORIOGRAPHY 19

Ibn Jubayr
With the arrival of the Crusaders (Franks) in 1099, the development of
Muslim shrines was interrupted. On a practical level, many major Muslim
shrines, such as the Dome of the Rock, were converted into Christian
buildings. Also, Muslim descriptions of Palestine during the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries are rare. For example, the famous Anadalusian travel-
ler Ibn Jubayr was unable to visit Jerusalem on his way to perform the
Hajj; however, he did manage to travel through Crusader-controlled Acre,
where he describes how the Franks had converted the mosques into
churches. However, he notes, ‘God kept undefiled one part of the princi-
pal mosque … near its mihrab is the tomb of the prophet Salih … God
bless and preserve all the prophets. God protected this part [of the
mosque] from desecration by the unbelievers for the benign influence of
this holy tomb’ (Ibn Jubayr, September 1185, pp. 303–304). Ibn Jubayr
also mentions a sacred spring to the east of Acre ‘Ayn al-Baqqar, which
was revered by both Muslims and Christians. Ten years earlier, ‘Ali of
Herat had described this shrine as a mashhad dedicated to ‘Ali b. Abi Ṭ alib
(Ali al-Harawi 23; Le Strange 331).

Al-Harawi
The first comprehensive guide to places of pilgrimage in the Islamic
world was written by Abu Bakr al-Harawi (d. 1215) originally from
Baghdad. Al-Harawi moved to Syria, where he served Saladin (the
Ayyubid Sultan Salah al-Din, r. 1169–1193) as advisor and ambassador.
He travelled extensively, visiting the major shrines of the Islamic world,
including the Dome of the Rock, the tomb of ‘Ali in Najaf and the
mosque of the Prophet Muhammad in Medina. In addition to the major
shrines, he also visited numerous less well-known sites, and his book lists
more than 200 shrines. Al-Harawi’s narrative includes sites sacred to
Jews and Christians, including the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the
tomb of Ezekiel (Dhul Kifl) near Baghdad (an annotated translation of
al-Harawi has been published by Josef Meri 2005). Although al-Harawi
is clearly enthusiastic about shrines, he is not uncritical of claims of
authenticity at different sites. Many of al-Harawi’s doubts concern the
tombs of bibilical or Quranic figures located in northern Syria, which he
suggests are more likely to be located in Palestine or the Hijaz. For
example, the guardians of a shrine near al-Ma‘arra in northern Syria
20 A. PETERSEN

claimed that it was the tomb of Joshua b. Nun, whereas al-Harawi

pointed out that the authentic tomb was located in Nablus (Talmon-
Heller 2006–2007, 617–618, note 99). He is also doubtful about a tra-
dition that locates the tomb of the Muslim prophet Nabi Salih at
Qinnasrin, whereas he believes the true location is at Shabwa in Yemen
(Meri 2005, 44–45). However, in other cases, al-Harawi designates pre-
viously unrecognized graves as sacred; thus he gives a list of shaykhs and
holy men buried in a former cemetery in Damascus. He also lists the
tomb of Nur al-Din as one of the sacred sites in Damascus and is the first
to name him as one of the awliya (friend of God).

Ibn Battuta
Following the Muslim re-conquest, the number of shrines in Palestine
seems to have increased significantly (for a discussion of this phenomenon,
see Talmon-Heller 2006–2007, 601ff). For example, in the early four-
teenth century, the famous Morroccan traveller Ibn Battuta described
Ramla as a city containing more than 300 Muslim saints. Ibn Battuta’s
description of Palestine (with the exception of Ramla) is mostly copied
from the work of al-‘Abdari, who made a pilgrimage to Palestine starting
in December 1289. Ibn Battuta’s travelogue appears to be structured
around visits to Muslim shrines and can be summarised as follows: al-­
Khalil (Hebron), Nabi Yaqin, the tomb of Jonah (Halhul)—Bayt Lahm
(Behtlehem)—Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem)—Asqalan—Ramla—Nablus—
‘Ajlun—al-Ghur (the Jordan Valley) the tomb of Abu ‘Ubayda b al-Jarah
(‘Amta)—al-Qusayr—the tomb of Mu ‘adh b. Jabal—‘Akka (Acre)—Sur
(Tyre)—Sayda (Sidon)—Tabariyya—Beirut (Elad 1987, 259). Whilst in
geographical terms Ibn Battuta’s journey makes little sense crossing from
one end of Palestine to the other (this is probably because of his incorpo-
ration of different texts), the journey does provide a complete coverage of
the country from north to south and from east to west. This suggests that
Ibn Battuta (or more correctly the scholar Ibn Juzay, who recorded Ibn
Battuta’s narrative) wanted to include the whole of Palestine within the
account. Whilst the encyclopaedic nature of Ibn Battuta’s travels may have
influenced the inclusion of other accounts, it is also probable that a com-
plete description of Palestine was required because of its significance to
Muslim culture, both from the early Islamic times and from the period of
the Crusades and Muslim re-conquest. The cultural and religious signifi-
cance was made manifest by the numerous shrines throughout the country
 ARABIC AND MUSLIM HISTORIOGRAPHY 21

recalling both Biblical figures and Muslim heroes and martyrs (cf. Talmon-­
Heller 2006–2007, 604).

Mujir al-Din
Mujir al-Din al ‘Ulaymi al-Hanbali was the chief judge of Jerusalem
although his family was originally from Ramla. He wrote a number of
books on various subjects, including the Quran (two vols.), a history of
the world and a book on the visits (ziyarat) to sacred sites. However, the
only book to survive is the historical work al-Uns al-Jalı̄l bi tarikh al-Qūds
(the merits of the history of Jerusalem and Hebron) written in 1495–1496.
Mujir-al-Din’s account is very accurate and was valued both by later Arabic
historians and also western (European) authors as a source for the history
of Jerusalem and Hebron (Schick 2010). His detailed description of the
Haram in Hebron containing the tombs of Abraham, Rebecca, Isaac,
Jacob and Leah is still one of the best descriptions of this highly contested
holy site. The internal measurements given by Mujir al-­Din correspond
exactly to those of a modern survey (Le Strange 1890, 324). Although as
its title suggests the book is primarily concerned with Jerusalem and
Hebron, there are descriptions of other historic and sacred locations
throughout Palestine, with a particular emphasis on Ramla where he had
served as a qadi. For example, he gives detailed descriptions of a number
of sacred tombs in Ramla, including the tomb of al-Fadal ibn al-Abbas, a
cousin of the prophet Muhammad who died in 639 (this tomb still exists;
see Petersen 1995, 80). Mujir al-Din also describes the tomb of the
Muslim prophet Nabi Salih which was located within a cave in the White
Mosque.

Ibn Taymiyya
From these accounts it should be clear that the number of sacred sites
increased significantly during the medieval period. It is also evident that
for some particularly important figures there were multiple locations; thus
the tomb of Nabi Salih was variously located at Qinnasrin in northern
Syria according to a local tradition (see above), at Ramla in Palestine
according to Mujir al-Din, the Hijaz according to al-Tha‘labi (Brinner
2002, 114–123) and Shabwa in Yemen according to al-Harawi (Meri
2005, 44–45). However, there were some Muslims such as Ibn Taymiyya
who regarded the proliferation of shrines with scepticism. Ibn Taymiyya
22 A. PETERSEN

(1263–1328) was born in Harran and later moved to Damascus, where he

was educated in religious law. He quickly became established as a reformer
with the aim of purging Islam ‘of the heresies and corruptions which
threatened to destroy it … saint worship, pilgrimage to holy shrines, vows
offerings and invocations’ (Matthews 1936, 2). He wrote many works
(estimates vary from 300 to 500 treatises) on different aspects of Islamic
law and practice although many of these have not survived (Bori 2009).
The best-known works which relate to the visitation of graves and venera-
tion of saints’ tombs are al-Qa‘ida fi ziyarat bayt al-Maqdis (The founda-
tion for the visitation to Jerusalem) and Ziyarat al-Qubur (The Visitation
of Graves). Although Ibn Taymiyya is often characterized as being totally
opposed to the cult of saints, it has been argued that he only wanted to
curb the excesses of this tradition by restricting the number of sacred
places and by making sure that visits to shrines were conducted in confor-
mity with Islamic law (Grehan 2014, 102). For example, he was against
extravagant displays of devotion at the tombs of the saints but also believed
that the bodies of the prophets did not decay and were preserved in a
‘death-sleep’ till the day of judgement (Matthews 1936, 5). One of the
problems in understanding Ibn Taymiyya’s views is the sheer number of
writings attributed to him and the fact that in some places his ideas seem
to contradict each other or perhaps develop over time and are therefore
not always consistent. The fact that 200,000 people attended his funeral
and that his own tomb became a place of visitation shows both the strength
of the belief in shrines and possibly that his own opposition to such tombs
was either less well known to ordinary people or were less important than
his views on other matters (e.g. divorce). In any case, although Ibn
Taymiyya’s views continued to be developed and propagated by his disci-
ples, they remained a minority view until their adoption by the Wahhabis
in central Arabia in the mid-eighteenth century. Even then the defeat of
the Wahhabis by Muhammad ‘Ali Pasha of Egypt in the early nineteenth
century meant that the widespread application of Wahhabi ideals had to
wait until the early twentieth century.

Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi

The Ottoman conquest of Syria and Egypt at the beginning of the six-
teenth century (1515–1516) gave an economic stimulus to the region
and, in particular, Palestine. The walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt, the roads
were provided with fortified guard posts and caravanserais were built. In
 ARABIC AND MUSLIM HISTORIOGRAPHY 23

religious terms the Ottoman rulers were similar to the Mamluks with an
attachment to Sufism and Sunni Islam. However, the first years of Ottoman
rule saw an inclination to support the major orthodox elements of Islam
with the revival of the Hajj route from Damascus to Mecca and an imperial
edict to ensure that every village within the empire was provided with a
mosque and a religious leader. Although Sufism continued to be practised
and saints’ tombs were established, this took second place to the religious
life of mosques and the official pilgrimage to Mecca.
As imperial authority began to diminish in the seventeenth century,
Sufism and the cult of saints developed as major components of the
religious life of the region. The most famous advocate of Sufism during
this period was Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi (1641–1731) whose visits
(ziyarat) to holy tombs and shrines are recorded in a series of written
accounts (rihalat). The rihalas describe spiritual journeys through Bilad
al-Sham, including Lebanon (Rihala al-Sughra and Rihala al-Tarabu-
lusiyya), Palestine (Rihala al-Qudsiyya) and northern Syria, culminating
in the Hajj to Mecca (Rihala al-Kubra). Although there are no com-
plete translations of his travelogues visiting Muslim shrines, parts of his
work have been discussed and translated by a number of scholars,
including Elizabeth Sirriyeh (2005) and Samer Akkach (2007). Much
of the accounts of these journeys is taken up with descriptions of visits
to tombs, including those of his own family. For example, in the Rihala
al-Kubra, he describes visiting the family turba built for his great-
grandfather Shaykh Isma’il al-Nabulusi by the sixteenth-century gover-
nor of Damascus Darwish Pasha (Sirriya 1979, 111). Although Nabulusi
appears very keen to visit as many spiritual sites as possible, he is not
uncritical; for example, at the village of al-Tall, 11 miles from Damascus,
he visits a shrine known as Shaykh Qusaym, which he corrects to Shaykh
Qutham. He also states that the locals believe this to be the grave of the
Prophet’s cousin Qutham b. al-‘Abbas b. ‘Abd al-Muttalib; however, he
says this must be incorrect because Qutham died at Samarkand (Sirriya
1979, 113). On other occasions al-Nabulusi seems more credulous;
thus he visited the shrine of Abu Yazid al-Bistami at Rastan. He describes
the shrine in detail, noting that it was located on a hill and comprised a
mosque with a colonnade and service rooms as well as the tomb itself
contained within a domed qubba. Nabulusi was obviously impressed
with the shrine which he described as authentic because it was sur-
rounded by ‘splendour and awe’. He entered the qubba and stayed by
the tomb where he performed the midday prayer. Although he was
24 A. PETERSEN

aware of al-Harawi’s opinion that the true grave of Abu Yazid was in
Bistam in Iran, he appears to ignore this in favour of this site in north-
ern Syria (Sirriya 1979, 116–117).

Observations
A number of remarks on the Muslim writers are possible. First, it is clear
that all of the writers give rational and accurate first-hand information
about the shrines. In many cases, this is followed up with references to
earlier writers and information provided by local inhabitants and guard-
ians. As all of the authors were educated in Islamic history and religion,
they were able to give judgements or opinions on the authenticity of par-
ticular sites. In some cases as with Ibn Taymiyya, this judgement could be
quite scathing, but with other authors such as al-Harawi, the judgement
was left open; thus he always finishes with the statement ‘and God knows
best’.

References
Akkach, S. 2007. Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi: Islam and the Enlightenment. Oxford:
Oneworld.
Baldick, J. 2012. Mystical Islam: An Introduction to Sufism (first published 1989).
London and New York: I.B. Tauris.
Bori, C. 2009. The Collection and Edition of Ibn Taymiyah’s Works: Concerns of
a Disciple. Mamluk Studies Review 13 (2): 47–67.
Brinner, W.M. 2002. The Lives of the Prophets. Leiden: Brill.
Cherney, T. 1876. The Assemblies of al-Hariri. 2 vols. London: Williams and
Norgate.
Elad, A. 1987. The Description of the Travels of Ibn Battuta in Palestine: Is It
Original? Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 2: 256–272.
———. 2002. Community of Believers of ‘Holy Men’ and ‘Saints’ or Community
of Muslims? The Rise and Development of Early Muslim Historiography.
Journal of Semitic Studies 47(1) (Autumn): 241–308.
Ephrat, D. 2008. Spiritual Wayfarers, Leaders in Piety. Harvard Middle Eastern
Monographs. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Goitein, S.D. 1966. The Sanctity of Jerusalem and Palestine in Early Islam. In
Studies in Islamic History and Institutions, ed. S.D. Goitein, 135–148. Leiden:
Brill.
Green, N. 2012. Sufism: A Global History. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.
Grehan, J. 2014. Twilight of the Saints. Everyday Religion in Syria and Palestine.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 ARABIC AND MUSLIM HISTORIOGRAPHY 25

Kister, M.J. 1969. ‘You Shall Only Set Out for Three Mosques’ a Study of an Early
Tradition. Le Muséon 82: 173–196.
Le Strange, G. 1890. Palestine under the Moslems: A Description of Syria and the
Holy Land from A.D. 650–1500. London: Palestine Exploration Fund.
———. 1893. Diary of a Journey through Syria and Palestine by Nasir i-Khusrau
in 1047 AD. London: Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Society.
Mattar, N. 2000. Two Seventeenth Journeys to Seventeenth Century Palestine.
Journal of Palestine Studies 29 (4): 37–50.
Matthews, C.D. 1936. A Muslim Iconoclast (Ibn Taymiyyeh) on the “Merits” of
Jerusalem and Palestine. Journal of the American Oriental Society 56: 1–21.
Meri, J. 2005. Lonely Wayfarers Guide to Pilgrimage: Ali ibn Abi bakr al-Harawi’s
Kitab al-Isharat ila ma rifat al-Ziyarat. Studies in Late Antiquity and Islam.
Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press.
Petersen, A.D. 1995. Preliminary Report on an Architectural Survey of Historic
Buildings in Ramla. Levant 28: 75–101.
Rice, D.S. 1959. The Oldest Illustrated Arabic Manuscript. Bulletin of the School of
Oriental and African Studies 22 (1): 207–220.
Schick, R. 2010. Palestinian Life, Customs and Practices: German Articles from the
Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries. Amman: Bilad al-Sham History, Committee
University of Jordan.
Sirriya, E. 1979. Ziyarat of Syria in a ‘Rihala of ‘Abd al Ghani al-Nabulusi
(1050/1641–1143/1731). Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 2: 109–122.
Sirriyeh, E. 2005. Sufi Visionary of Ottoman Damascus: ‘Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi
1641–1731. London and New York: Routledge.
Talmon-Heller, D. 2006–2007. Graves, Relics and Sanctuaries: The Evolution of
Syrian Sacred Topography (Eleventh–Thirteenth Centuries). ARAM 18–19:
601–620.
Talmon-Heller, D. 2007. Islamic Piety in Medieval Syria: Mosques, Cemeteries and
Sermons under the Zangids Ayyubids 1146–1260. Leiden and Boston: Brill.
 CHAPTER 3

Muslim Shrines in European Descriptions

of Palestine

Abstract This chapter is concerned with European descriptions and stud-

ies of Muslim shrines in Palestine, starting from Henry Maundrell’s obser-
vations in the seventeenth century. The chapter shows the gradual
development of European interests, from curiosity to a deep fascination
with Muslim shrines as a potential insight into religion in early biblical
times. The early twentieth century saw a plethora of European studies of
shrines as well as the most important documentation by Tewfiq Canaan,
who, although Palestinian, wrote within the European tradition. The final
part of the chapter considers recent studies of shrines written from the
1990s to the present day.

Keywords Biblical • Maqam • Rituals • Folklore • Tewfiq Canaan •

Henry Maundrell

The Medieval Period

Since the widespread adoption of Christianity in the early Middle Ages,
Europeans have travelled to the Middle East primarily as pilgrims. Amongst
the first Christian Europeans to leave a description of Palestine after the
Muslim conquest is the Frankish monk Arculf, who visited Jerusalem in
the 670s. Arculf’s description is incorporated into Adamnan’s De Locis
Sanctis, which is a descriptive account of Jerusalem and other places in

© The Author(s) 2018 27

A. Petersen, Bones of Contention, Heritage Studies in the Muslim
World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6965-9_3
28 A. PETERSEN

Palestine. Arculf’s account is of significance as it provides a description of

the Haram al-Sharif before the construction of the Dome of the Rock and
possibly before the Aqsa Mosque. Arculf portrays the religion of the Arab
ruler Mavias (Muawiyya, r. 661–680) as a form of Christianity and
describes a large, poorly built, house of prayer which could hold up to
3000 worshippers (Wilkinson 1977, 93–116). From the perspective of
Muslim shrines, this account is of importance partly because there was no
distinctive Muslim shrine in Jerusalem in this period and also because
Arculf could not see a clear distinction between Islam and Christianity.
During the next four centuries, Jerusalem and Palestine developed a dis-
tinctive Muslim identity, starting with the construction of the Dome of
the Rock in 691. For much of this period, Christian pilgrims continued to
visit Jerusalem, although the conditions deteriorated under the Fatimid
Caliph al-Hakim, who persecuted Christians and Jews and, in 1009,
ordered the destruction of the Christians’ most important shrine, the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The destruction of the Holy Sepulchre was
cited as one of the causes for the First Crusade, which captured Jerusalem
nearly a century later in 1099. During the period of Crusader occupation
and in the subsequent period of medieval Muslim (Ayyubid and Mamluk)
rule, Christian European views of Islam in general and Muslim shrines in
particular were characterized by ignorance, suspicion and often hostility.
There were, of course, some exceptions to this, but in general, Europeans
were disinterested in Muslim beliefs, and in any case, when they did ven-
ture into Palestine, their movements were often strictly controlled. For
example, when they arrived, pilgrims had to stay in caves at the ruined
port of Jaffa until they were picked up by Fransiscans, who would escort
them to Jerusalem and other Christian shrines (for medieval pilgrims’
accounts of Palestine after the Crusades, see Chareyron 2005; Pringle
2012).

The Early Modern Period

With the Ottoman conquest of Palestine in 1516, the situation for
Christian visitors to Palestine improved. On the one hand, the Ottomans
were more confident of their military power than their Mamluk predeces-
sors and were not threatened by Christians visiting the region. In any case,
by the sixteenth century, Ottomans had control of the Eastern
Mediterranean, reducing the likelihood of a renewed Crusader invasion.
The Reformation had divided Europe between Catholics and Protestants,
 MUSLIM SHRINES IN EUROPEAN DESCRIPTIONS OF PALESTINE 29

and Muslims were no longer automatically regarded as the primary enemy.

This situation was favourable to the establishment of trading links with
some European countries; thus in 1581, the English Levant Company was
established by Elizabeth I to trade with the Ottoman Empire with a
regional base in Aleppo. Although conditions for pilgrims travelling to
Jerusalem remained difficult, the number of pilgrims increased consider-
ably. In addition to pilgrims, there were now merchants who were also
interested in understanding the culture with which they were trading. For
example, Henry Maundrell and his associates from the Levant company
made a journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem in 1697. They travelled with an
escort, staying in Khans with local merchants and other travellers. On
March 3, 1696, the bad weather induced them to seek permission to stay
in a nearby Muslim shrine. At first, the local Shiʿa population objected to
Christians defiling their sanctuary but were eventually persuaded to allow
Maundrell and his travelling companions to place some of their baggage
within the shrine although they themselves were still excluded. However,
at nightfall the travellers sneaked into the shrine, where they spent the
night. Maundrell gives the following account of the shrine:

Being now crept into the inside of the Shecks house, I must not omit, in
requital for our lodgings, to give some account of the nature of such struc-
tures. They are stone fabrics, generally six or eight yards square (more or
less) and roofed with a cupola; erected over the graves of some eminent
Shecks, that is, such persons, as by their long beards, prayers of the same
standard, and a kind of pharisaical superciliousness (which are the great vir-
tues of the Mahometan religion) have purchased to themselves the reputa-
tion of learning and saints.
Of these buildings there are many scattered up and down the country
(for you will find among the Turks far more dead saints than living ones).
They are situated commonly, though not always, upon the most eminent
and conspicuous ascents. To these oratories the people repair with their
vows and prayers, in their several distresses, much after the same manner as
Romanists do to the shrines of their saints. Only in this respect the practice
of the Turks seems to be more orthodox, in regard that though they make
their saint’s shrine the house of prayer, yet they always make God alone, and
not the saint the object of their addresses. (Maundrell 1703 [1836], 16–17)

Maundrell’s description of Muslim shrines is notable for its accuracy,

and although he does not appear that well disposed towards the religion
of Islam, he is more critical of Roman Catholics (the Romanists). At the
30 A. PETERSEN

end of his book, he gives some general comments about the religion of the
Turks and again compares the behaviour of Muslims to that of the Jewish
Pharisees, as depicted in the Gospels.
Maundrell’s account is, however, not typical and the majority of
European accounts of Palestine were focussed on the biblical associations
of the Holy Land with very little interest in the beliefs of the local Muslim
population. For example, the account of Richard Pococke, who travelled
to the region some 50 years later, is entirely concerned with antiquities
and biblical associations. Although he does provide a plan of the Dome of
the Rock described as a mosque, he gives virtually no information about
the local inhabitants except where they interfere with his investigations
into biblical antiquity. Within the two volumes covering a journey which
includes Egypt and Syria, he only has a very small section which discusses
Muslim beliefs and practices, which he describes as follows:

They think the greatest villanies are expiated, when once they wash their
hands and feet. This is their preparation to go to prayers which all the polite
people constantly do: for the outwards appearance of religion is in fashion
among them and it is look’d on as genteel to say their prayers in any place at
the usual hours. Their prayers are very short, and repeated five times; but
they may perform all these devotions at one time. They always pray on a
carpet or cloth, to avoid touching anything that is unclean. They pray in the
most publick wherever they are; and when they are in visit, will call for water
to wash their feet, and so perform their devotions. The Arabs that live in
tents seldom pray. (Pococke 1743, Vol. 1, 181)

Although Pococke’s account summarizes some of the basic facts about

the Muslim faith, it is also a misleading and superficial view with little
attempt to understand the theological basis of Islam. Instead, Pococke’s
main interest in the local inhabitants is concerned with describing their
military and political structure. Pococke’s account is not unique in its dis-
missive attitude to Islam and Muslims. His main interest, like that of many
other eighteenth- and nineteenth-century travellers, is the search for his-
torical evidence of the Bible. Instead of the medieval pilgrim’s implicit
devotion and belief in the authenticity of the Bible, the post-Reformation
traveller was interested in finding scientific evidence for biblical narratives.
The beliefs of local Muslims were generally considered irrelevant to this
investigation except where they restricted access to biblical sites or con-
tained some reference to biblical traditions.
 MUSLIM SHRINES IN EUROPEAN DESCRIPTIONS OF PALESTINE 31

Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

With Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1799, the European investigation
of the region reached a new stage with detailed maps and descriptions
accompanying the military conquest of the region. From this point
onwards, the European descriptions became part of the process of con-
trolling the region militarily and ideologically. This was the high point of
‘Orientalism’ as defined by the renowned Palestinian Egyptian author
Edward Said (1978). As part of this process, all aspects of the culture of
the region, including religion, history and archaeology, were valid subjects
to study. The foundation of the Palestine Exploration Society in 1863 was
one expression of this all-embracing interest in the culture of Palestine and
the surrounding region. It is in this context that Muslim shrines became a
subject of detailed academic enquiry at the end of the nineteenth and the
beginning of the twentieth centuries.

Five Studies of Muslim Shrines

Although Muslim shrines are mentioned in many of the late-nineteenth-
and early-twentieth-century travellers’ accounts of Palestine, there are
only a few detailed academic studies. The earliest study was carried out as
a by-product of the Survey of Western Palestine carried out during the
1870s. The other four studies were all carried out in the early years of the
twentieth century. Within this section, these studies will be looked at in
detail, paying particular attention to the context and purpose of the
studies.

1. The earliest systematic study of Muslim shrines was published in the

Palestine Exploration Quarterly Statement (Conder 1877) and later
included in the publications of the Survey of Western Palestine vol-
ume, Special Papers on Topography, Archaeology, Manners and
Customs and so on (Wilson et al. 1881). The 15-page study by
Claude Conder appeared under the title ‘Moslem Mukams’ and was
based on his fieldwork in Palestine. Conder was a soldier in the
Royal Engineers before being seconded to work for the Survey of
Western Palestine between 1875 and 1878 and again from 1881 to
1882. In addition to his work as surveyor, editor and contributor to
the Survey of Western Palestine, Conder also published his own
popular account of the survey, Tent Work in Palestine (Conder
32 A. PETERSEN

1878). Conder was fluent in Arabic and, although he did not con-
sider himself ‘a competent Arabic scholar’ (Conder 1877, 272),
translated the Arabic names of the more than 10,000 villages
recorded during the making of the maps for the Survey of Western
Palestine (Jacobson and Cobbing 2005). The study of the ‘Mukams’
was firmly based on the experience of encountering more than 300
of these buildings during the survey. The mapping of the country
was carried out using trigonometrical observations from elevated
points throughout Palestine. Given that many of the high points
were occupied with Muslim shrines (Mukams), it is evident that
Conder developed an appreciation of their special significance.
Conder’s interest in the shrines is clearly expressed at the beginning
of the study and is worth quoting in full:

Next to the study of the language of the peasantry in Palestine there

is probably nothing that will throw more light on the question of the
origin of the race than that of the vulgar faith exemplified in the local
sanctuaries scattered over the country, a study which is also of no little
importance in relation to the ancient topography of Palestine, as is
shown by various sites which have been recovered by means of the
tradition of sacred tombs preserved after the name of the site itself
had been lost. (Conder 1877, 258)

In other words, Conder’s primary interest in the shrines was that

their names might help in the identification of ancient biblical sites.
After a brief introduction describing the physical characteristics of
Muslim shrines, Conder divided the shrines into seven categories
based on their names although, as he acknowledges, ‘the distinction
[classification] is not observed by the natives’. The categories are as
follows: (1) Biblical characters, (2) Christian sites, (3) Native heroes,
(4) ‘Later and known historic characters’, (5) Saints names relating
to the place, (6) Sacred sites with no saint’s name and (7) Ordinary
Muslim names. Whilst this categorization appears logical, it is nota-
ble that, in practice, there could be considerable overlap and/or con-
fusion particularly in categories 3–7. For example, a shrine Naby
Yukîn, which is identified with the biblical town of Cain, appears
both in the first category (Biblical names) and in the fifth (saints
names relating to the place). In some cases the placing of a shrine in
one or other of these categories seems arbitrary; thus, ‘Neby Dŭhy’
 MUSLIM SHRINES IN EUROPEAN DESCRIPTIONS OF PALESTINE 33

is included in the category of Biblical characters (category 1), as it

might be equivalent to Gideon, whilst Naby N’amăn is listed in cat-
egory 4, which relates to native traditions (N’amăn has biblical asso-
ciations either through Na’aman the leper or as Micah a name
frequently encountered in the Hebrew Bible). In other cases,
Conder’s knowledge of Muslim beliefs is limited; thus in category 4
(Native traditions), he notes, ‘Neby Săleh … has four Mŭkams, one
of which is shown as the place of his martyrdom’. He then asks the
question, ‘Who was Neby Săleh?’ For those familiar with the Quran,
Salih is an Arabian prophet who appears nine times in the Quran,
appealing to the people of Thamud to repent (the name is preserved
in the name of Medain Saleh in modern Saudia Arabia). Despite his
familiarity with Arabic, Conder was evidently more concerned with
identifying biblical characters rather than those from Muslim
tradition.
One further methodological problem with Conder’s work on
Muslim shrines was that some of his biblical identifications were
regarded by his contemporaries as erroneous. This was one of the
reasons that Kitchener was promoted as Survey leader above Conder
whose identifications were regarded as ‘too speculative’ (Jacobson
and Cobbing 2005, 171). Despite the reservations about categoriza-
tion and the etymology of names, Conder’s work on shrines is impor-
tant as the first attempt to discuss them as a whole, taking into
account both their distribution and their local identifications. In
addition to his discussion of shrines, Conder was also responsible for
the descriptions of many of the shrines listed in the three volumes of
the Memoirs as well as for their depiction on the Survey’s maps.
Without the work of the Survey of Western Palestine and, in particu-
lar, Conder’s contributions, the names, locations and even the exis-
tence of many of these shrines would not have survived.
2. In the summer of 1903, nearly a quarter of a century after Conder’s
article was published, two Americans, Lewis Paton (1864–1932)
and Samuel Curtiss (1844–1904), made a trip through the rural
districts of Syria and Palestine, looking at Muslim shrines as part of
an investigation of ‘primitive religion’. Both Patton and Lewis were
biblical scholars and the Muslim shrines were primarily seen through
the prism of the biblical scriptures. Instead of seeking direct conti-
nuity of names and places from biblical times in the manner of
Claude Conder, the Americans were interested in how shrine
34 A. PETERSEN

v­ eneration at the beginning of the twentieth century might shed

light on ancient practices. They were particularly interested in how
the shrines were used by the local people and especially the tradition
of animal sacrifice. Despite their biblical perspective, these accounts
(Curtiss 1904; Paton 1919–1920) provide valuable information
about a number of Muslim shrines in Syria and northern Palestine.
Curtiss’ death in 1904 (Paton’s 1919–1920 article was also based
on the 1903 trip) and the outbreak of the First World War meant
that the project was never completed and it was superseded by sub-
sequent much more detailed studies (see Nos. 3–6 below).
3. The third work on shrines was a series of articles published by the
distinguished orientalist Paul Kahle (1875–1964) based on his time
in Jerusalem during the last years of Ottoman. Prior to his arrival in
Palestine, he had been pastor to the German community in Cairo
(1903–1909), where he also carried out research on Arabic folk
poetry. Although Kahle was only in Jerusalem between 1909 and
1910, he managed to publish three articles based on his observa-
tions of Muslim shrines (Kahle 1910, 1911, 1912; for English trans-
lations, see Schick 2010, 64–164). Unlike Conder, Kahle’s interests
were primarily in Muslim religious practice, although as a trained
clergyman, he was also aware of the possible biblical and Christian
associations of the various Muslim shrines. Kahle’s approach was
systematic and based on an interest in popular Muslim culture.
His first article was limited to the shrines around Jerusalem,
which was a deliberate policy to enable him to not only deal with
individual shrines but also achieve a comprehensive list of types. As
sources for his study, he used Mujir al-Din, Abdel Ghani al-Nabulusi
(see Muslim authors above) and a Muslim guide to shrines around
Jerusalem produced by the Haram and compiled by Yusuf al-Ansari
(1906). Apart from these sources, the main source for Kahle’s arti-
cle on the Jerusalem region was oral history or folk tales. The article
divides the discussion of shrines into three main sections, the shrines
of Muslim personages, shrines relating to biblical figures and natural
shrines, including trees, rocks and water sources. Because of his
interest in living narratives, Kahle was able to trace the evolution of
shrines from living holy men (or women) to the recently deceased,
and link this to Muslim saints who died during the early years of the
Muslim conquest of Palestine. One of his findings is that stories are
often forgotten or changed over time so that the name of the shrine
 MUSLIM SHRINES IN EUROPEAN DESCRIPTIONS OF PALESTINE 35

can completely change. Of course, this has implications for narra-

tives such as that of Conder, who assumed that names remained the
same throughout the centuries. Kahle devotes proportionately less
time to the shrines connected with biblical figures (both from the
Hebrew Bible and the Gospels). He concentrates his attention on
the four main figures Abraham, Moses, David and Solomon, stating
that the other biblical figures cannot compete. The final section
dealing with natural shrines firmly links these with ancient pre-
Islamic nature veneration. He includes the rock within the Dome of
the Rock within this section as well as numerous other natural fea-
tures, such as a sacred stone (ḥajar debken) near the orthodox mon-
astery of Mar Saba.
The second article (Kahle 1911) is concerned with the physical
appearance and daily operation of shrines most of which are in the
region of Jerusalem. He describes a variety of forms and features
commonly found in shrines (e.g. grave, mihrab, taqa or niche for
offerings, qubbe or dome, prayer room etc.) although he is careful to
point out that none of these features is mandatory. The remainder
of the article discusses methods of administering the shrines and the
various powers benevolent and harmful attributed to shrines. In all
cases, the emphasis is on showing the variety of practices and also
the oral testimony of local people. The final article (Kahle 1912) is
a continuation of the second and deals with gifts (and sacrifices) at
various shrines as well as a detailed description of a day at the Nabi
Musa festival.
4. The third study of Muslim shrines was written by another American,
Chester McCown (1877–1958), a noted biblical scholar and one-­
time director of the American School (now Albright Institute) in
Jerusalem. In addition to being a biblical scholar, McCown was also
a Methodist minister and, before studying for his PhD, spent four
years in Calcutta as Principal of the American Methodist Institution
(Albright 1958). His study of Muslim shrines was carried out whilst
he was Professor of the New Testament at the Pacific School of
Religion at Berkley in California. The fieldwork in Palestine was car-
ried out with the assistance of Mr Haddad of the Syrian Protestant
Orphanage, and he was also sometimes accompanied by W.F.
Albright. McCown was interested in Muslim shrines because their
veneration ‘represents the persistence of ancient and universal
impulses’, whereas in Christian countries ‘a relatively more
36 A. PETERSEN

e­nlightened theology has gradually strangled them or set them

operating in other directions’ (McCown 1923, 47). He was keen to
distance himself from the idea that Muslim shrines were direct
ancestors of ancient re-Islamic Semitic shrines and therefore of
direct use in reconstructing biblical topography and beliefs, as
argued by Conder (1877). As a fluent German speaker, McCown
was influenced by Paul Kahle’s publications on Muslim shrines
(Kahle 1910, 1911, 1912), and in many ways, his work can be seen
as a continuation of Kahle’s research. Although he does discuss the
architecture and appearance of a few domed shrines, he was much
more interested in the way the shrines were used. He was particu-
larly interested in the use of oil lamps in shrines and the construction
of stone mounds (‘Stones of Witness’) within view of shrines as a
substitute for visiting on a particular occasion (see, e.g. McCown
1923, 79, Plates 21 and 22) Also, he draws attention to the vast
number of Muslim shrines ‘which were never tombs and do not
have the remotest connection with saints’ (McCown 1923, 55).
5. The largest and probably the most important study of Palestinian
Muslim shrines was by Tawfik Canaan (1882–1964), a medical doc-
tor born in Beit Jala near Jerusalem (al-Nashef 2002). Unlike the
other studies of Muslim shrines, Canaan’s study was carried out
from the perspective of a Western-educated indigenous Palestinian.
His interest in Muslim shrines was part of a wider interest in
Palestinian folklore, and he also wrote a book about superstition and
popular medicine as well as some books discussing the political situ-
ation in Palestine. His interest in folklore originated from his medi-
cal work, where he found that many of his patients used amulets as
part of their healthcare. Canaan’s work on shrines was originally
published as a series of articles in the Journal of the Palestine Oriental
Society and later published in London by Luzac and Co. as a single
volume with the title Mohammedan Saints and Sanctuaries in
Palestine (Canaan 1927).
Besides being a native of Palestine, Canaan had a number of other
advantages in his research on shrines, including the fact that he could
draw on the work of the previous studies of Conder, Kahle and
McCown. In a number of places, Canaan takes issue with other writ-
ers on Palestinian shrines; thus he disagrees with Chester McCown,
who wrote that there was little correlation between elevated loca-
tions and the occurrence of shrines (Canaan 4–5; cf. McCown 1923,
 MUSLIM SHRINES IN EUROPEAN DESCRIPTIONS OF PALESTINE 37

63–64). The motivation behind Canaan’s work was to record infor-

mation quickly because ‘the primitive features of Palestine are disap-
pearing so quickly that before long most of them will be forgotten’.
Canaan made no pretence of expertise in archaeology or biblical
studies and stated in the preface that he was ‘not attempting to do
more than place on record the bare material which I have collected,
leaving the task of comparison with other data to the professional
archaeological and biblical student’ (Canaan 1927, v).
In total, Canaan refers to 235 shrines which he had personally
visited as well as a further 348 shrines of which he had detailed
information. The result is a book of more than 320 pages divided
into two sections: Section A (pages 1–84) discusses the structure
and location of different forms of shrine, whilst Section B (pages
85–310) describes the rituals and practices associated with the
shrines. Canaan’s scientific training is in evidence in a number of
places where he compares features or attributes of a number of
shrines as a method of characterization. For example, he looks at the
relationship between shrines and cemeteries and comes to the con-
clusion that 63% of the shrines in a sample of 17 are situated in a
cemetery. However, he also writes that ‘the general percentage of
such a combination [shrine and cemetery] amounts only to 30%’
(Canaan 1927, 7). One of the problems of the work is that the
attempts to provide quantitative data are often thwarted by the
complex and diffuse nature of the material; thus in this case, it is not
clear how he arrived at the 30% for shrines associated with a ceme-
tery. One of the other frustrations is that Canaan obviously had at
his disposal a vast amount of material about shrines, which he used
to produce the book, yet his presentation uses this material selec-
tively. This is not to question Canaan’s integrity in presenting his
arguments, but it does mean that it is difficult to compare the shrines
or analyse the data independently. Despite these few reservations,
Canaan’s work remains the most comprehensive treatment of
Palestinian Muslim shrines and is still a rich resource for those wish-
ing to study the subject.
6. The fifth study was carried out by Antonin Jaussen (1871–1962), a
Dominican priest who was one of the first students at the École
Biblique in Jerusalem. Whilst based at the École, Jaussen developed
an interest in Arabian tribes and became fluent in a number of Arabic
dialects. He published a number of important works on the Arab
38 A. PETERSEN

tribes in Jordan and, with Raphael Savignac, undertook a pioneering

project investigating the archaeology of north-west Arabia, published
in three volumes as Mission Archaeologique en Arabié (1909–1914).
During the First World War, he was briefly imprisoned by the Turks
and later seconded to help the allied forces. In 1928, he left Jerusalem
for Cairo, where he established a new Dominican institute. With this
deep knowledge of Arabic and the geography of the region, his last
major project in Palestine was a book on the city of Nablus (Jaussen
1927). Part of this book was devoted to religion and contained a
detailed study of the mosques and Muslim shrines in the city (Jaussen
1927, 146–173). Although Jaussen’s study was only concerned with
Nablus, it contains one of the first detailed and systematic studies of
shrines outside Jerusalem. The distinguishing feature of Jaussen’s
study is that it integrates shrines into the wider context of Islam in
Nablus, looking also at the mosques which functioned in the city as
officially recognized places of prayer whilst the shrines were for popu-
lar devotion. The focus on the shrines of a particular city allows him
to set the shrines within the very specific religious context of
Samaritan, Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions. In addition to
describing the physical appearance of the shrines, Jaussen’s use of
local informants is more systematic than some of the other studies.
Instead of giving generalized information about the powers of a par-
ticular shrine or saint, he gives detailed accounts of conversations
with visitors to the shrines. However, it is clear that he does not take
the stories too seriously and is more interested in the origins of the
shrines either as Islamic foundations or as pre-Islamic antiquities.
Also, unlike any of the other early-twentieth-century studies, Jaussen
sets the shrines within a geographical context, carefully describing
the location of the shrine in relation to both the city and the underly-
ing natural topography.

Observations
Each of these accounts was written by an author of different nationality,
demonstrating the growing international interest in the region. For exam-
ple, Claude Conder’s article displays a suspicious attitude towards the
Palestinian peasants and a preoccupation with the shrines as vestiges of
biblical names, which may be seen as a precursor of Britain’s eventual colo-
nial occupation of Palestine. On the other hand, Paul Kahle’s articles were
 MUSLIM SHRINES IN EUROPEAN DESCRIPTIONS OF PALESTINE 39

written at a high point in German Turkish relations which had seen the
German emperor’s visit to Jerusalem in 1898 and, in 1914, a treaty
between Germany and the Ottoman Empire. In Kahle’s work the Muslim
shrines were simply an aspect of folk belief incorporated into a Muslim
context and were just as valid as German folklore. A decade later the
Ottoman Empire had been defeated and Palestine was under the rule of a
British Mandate. As an American, the biblical scholar Chester McCown
was able to travel around the country with an ease that was impossible
before the war. His work on Muslim shrines was infused with both his
experiences of Muslim culture in India and his expertise in biblical scholar-
ship. Although he did not seek direct continuity of tradition in the Muslim
shrines, he did think that they were a method of ‘opening the door back
into the atmosphere of the ancient East’. Just as the British Mandate pro-
vided unprecedented opportunities for Americans and Europeans to travel
and study in Palestine, so the end of Ottoman Muslim rule should have
been seen as beneficial to Christian Palestinians such as Tawfik Canaan.
However, Canaan saw that this was a double-edged sword, as he explained
in the preface to his work on shrines, ‘The simple, crude, but uncontami-
nated patriarchal Palestinian atmosphere is fading away and European civi-
lization, more sophisticated but more unnatural is taking its place’ (Canaan
1927, v). Canaan’s account is infused with the traumas of the recent war
which, as well as destroying some shrines, had led to the dislocation of
traditional Palestinian society. For Antonin Jaussen, the Muslim shrines of
Nablus were a part of the landscape of an Islamic city and a place for the
expression of natural and spontaneous religious impulses. The fact that
Jaussen was able to move so freely within the city and argue with Muslim
clerics indicates the new-found confidence of Christian Europeans in
Palestine.
The fact that four of the studies were written within 20 years of each
other is indicative of a growing feeling that the Muslim shrines were an
essential component of the Palestinian landscape as it emerged out of the
ruins of the Ottoman Empire. During this period, there was a unique
freedom to travel and the opportunity to see the shrines as part of a living
popular religion. Since the 1920s, growing political problems combined
with increasing urbanization and literacy has meant that veneration of
shrines has become marginalized. As a result, there are few general studies
of Muslim shrines after the 1920s and the subject was not revived as an
area of academic interest until the 1990s. At this point it is worth men-
tioning the work of the Finnish anthropologist Hilma Granqvist who
40 A. PETERSEN

made a detailed ethnographical study of the village of Artas near Bethlehem

during the 1920s and 1930s. She studied all aspects of life in the village
with a particular emphasis on the lives of women. The part of her work
most relevant to Muslim shrines is her documentation of death and burial
published in 1965 (Granqvist 1965).

Modern and Contemporary Studies of Muslim

Shrines
Since the 1990s, there has been a renewed interest in Muslim shrines in
the region. This interest may be attributed to a number of factors: (1) the
growing role or religion in the politics and culture of the Middle East, (2)
a growing interest in medieval and Ottoman texts which relate to the ori-
gins of shrines, (3) the fact that abandoned shrines are increasingly become
objects of archaeological and architectural interest and (4) the growth of
Palestinian (as opposed to Arab) national identity which regards shrines as
part of the lost Palestinian heritage.
This renewed interest will be discussed in more detail in Part III. For
the present, it is worth providing a brief introduction to current and recent
research relating to shrines. One of the most important books on the his-
torical development of shrines is Josef Meri’s 2002 book, The Cult of
Saints among Muslims and Jews in Medieval Syria. This book investigates
the development of the veneration of saints in eleventh- to sixteenth-­
century Syria, drawing attention to parallel developments in Jewish and
Muslim practice. This was followed three years later by a translation of
al-Harawi’s guide to pilgrimage (Meri 2005), which was one of the first
practical guides to saint veneration in the region (see Chap. 2 of this vol-
ume). Complementary to Meri’s work are the publications of Daniella
Talmon-Heller (2006, 2007) which look specifically at the relationship
between orthodox Sunni religion and the development of saint veneration
in the twelfth to thirteenth centuries. Daphna Ephrat has looked closely at
the development of Sufism in Palestine, which has a direct link to the
growth of shrines and saint veneration. She has also linked Sufism directly
to particular shrines and locations in medieval Palestine (2006, 2008).
More recently, James Grehan has looked at the cult of saints in the
Ottoman period from the perspective of social history (Grehan 2014). His
main thesis is based on a development of Canaan’s concept of a popular
religion into the idea of agrarian religion. According to Grehan, this
­religion was practised both by urban and rural Muslims and was shared
 MUSLIM SHRINES IN EUROPEAN DESCRIPTIONS OF PALESTINE 41

with members of both the Jewish and Christian communities. One of the
key sources in Grehan’s work is the Syrian Sufi writer Abd al-Ghani al-­
Nabulusi (1641–1731).
In addition to works dealing with shrines from an historical perspective,
there have been a number of articles (see, e.g. Bowman 2014; Firro 2005)
which discuss the role of Muslim shrines within contemporary heritage
and politics; these will be discussed in more detail in Part III. There are
also a few studies dealing with the architecture and archaeology of specific
shrines in Palestine (see, e.g. Petersen 1995, 1996, 1999, 2001; Taragan
2000, 2004), which will form part of the discussion in the following sec-
tion (Chaps. 4, 5, 6, and 7).

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Chareyron, N. 2005. Pilgrims to Jerusalem in the Middle Ages. Trans. W. Donald
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———. 1878. Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure.
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———. 2008. Spiritual Wayfarers, Leaders in Piety. Harvard Middle Eastern
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Grehan, J. 2014. Twilight of the Saints. Everyday Religion in Syria and Palestine.
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Claude Reignier Conder’s Contributions to the Exploration of Palestine. Near
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———. 1911. Das Wesen der moslemischen Heiligtümer in Palästina.
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———. 1912. Gebräch bei den moslemischen Heiligtümern in Palästina.
Palästinajahrbuch 8: 139–182.
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of Oriental Research in Jerusalem 2–3: 47–79.
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———. 2005. Lonely Wayfarers Guide to Pilgrimage: Ali ibn Abi bakr al-Harawi’s
Kitab al-Isharat ila ma rifat al-Ziyarat. Studies in Late Antiquity and Islam.
Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press.
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12–26.
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of the American Schools of Oriental Research in Jerusalem 1: 51–65.
Petersen, A.D. 1995. Preliminary Report on an Architectural Survey of Historic
Buildings in Ramla. Levant 28: 75–101.
———. 1996. A Preliminary Report on Three Muslim Shrines in Palestine. Levant
28: 97–113.
———. 1999. The Archaeology of Muslim Pilgrimage and Shrines in Palestine. In
Case Studies in Archaeology and World Religion, ed. T. Insoll, 116–127.
B.A.R. International Series 755. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 2001. The Tomb of Benjamin and Other Old Testament Figures. In
History of Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras III, ed.
U. Vermeulen and J. Steenberg, 361–384. Leuven: Peeters.
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London: W. Boywer.
Pringle, D. 2012. Pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, 1187–1291. Crusade
Texts in Translation, 23. Farnham: Ashgate.
Said, E. 1978. Orientalism. London: Vintage Books.
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Schick, R. 2010. Palestinian Life, Customs and Practices: German Articles from the
Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries. Amman: Bilad al-Sham History, Committee
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Syrian Sacred Topography (Eleventh–Thirteenth Centuries). ARAM 18–19:
601–620.
Talmon-Heller, D. 2007. Islamic Piety in Medieval Syria: Mosques, Cemeteries and
Sermons under the Zangids Ayyubids 1146–1260. Leiden and Boston: Brill.
Taragan, H. 2000. Baybars and the Tomb of Abu Hurayra/Rabbi Gamliel in
Yavneh. Cathedra 97: 65–84 (in Hebrew).
———. 2004. The Tomb of Sayyidna Ali in Arsuf: The Story of a Holy Place.
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 4:14:2, 83–102.
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Arculf ’s drawings of floor plans of Jerusalem’s holy sites on pp. 191–197).
Warminster: Aris and Philips.
 PART II

Types of Shrines
 CHAPTER 4

Shrines Sponsored by Sultans

Abstract This chapter discusses the roles of sultans and other high
Mamluk officials in the creation and embellishment of shrines. Significantly,
the chapter shows that although shrines existed in Palestine before the
Mamluks, they did not become a significant architectural feature of the
landscape until after the Crusades. It is also apparent that the early Mamluk
sultans sponsored shrines connected either with early Islamic history or
biblical history but did not seem interested in commemorating the graves
of warriors of the faith.

Keywords Baybars • Bilad al-Sham • Abu Huryara • Nabi Musa

Much of the discussion around Muslim shrines in Palestine is concerned

with traditional village shrines and the associated rituals and beliefs; how-
ever, there are a wide range of different building types. Some of the oldest
and architecturally most impressive buildings are those endowed or com-
missioned by sultans, emirs or other state officials. These buildings are
significant not only because of their high-quality architecture but also
because they tend to be better documented than many of the other shrines,
both through inscriptions embedded in the buildings themselves and also
through historical references from travellers and, in some cases, even royal
decrees. However, it is rarely the case that the origin of the shrine or tomb

© The Author(s) 2018 47

A. Petersen, Bones of Contention, Heritage Studies in the Muslim
World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6965-9_4
48 A. PETERSEN

in question is well documented, and in most cases, the sultans or other

high officials will build a structure at or around a pre-existing shrine whose
origins are often obscure. It is also the case that these larger well-endowed
shrines will often form the architectural model for less well-known shrines.
The following discussion does not aim to provide an exhaustive study of
shrines built through royal or high status patronage but instead will dis-
cuss some examples or case studies which shed light on the process and
motivation behind the construction of these buildings.
Although writers such as al-Muqaddasi and Nasir i-Khusraw indicate
that several important Muslim shrines existed in Palestine before the
Crusades, with the exception of Jerusalem and Hebron, no pre-twelfth-­
century buildings have survived. Even for the Ayyubid period, there are
few examples of Muslim shrines or mausolea in Palestine with the few
known examples confined to Jerusalem (and possibly one building in
Nablus). The reason generally given for this situation is that the Ayyubids
were too preoccupied with fighting the Crusaders to invest in the con-
struction of shrines, mosques and other non-military structures. The
majority of Ayyubid buildings which have survived in Palestine are differ-
ent forms of fortifications, including the fortresses of Jabal al-Tur (Battista
and Bagatti 1976) and Qal‘at Subayba (Sharon 1999, 59–87) as well as
towers such as in Daburiyya (Petersen 2001, 131). There are a few exam-
ples of mosques either built or renovated under the Ayyubids; thus a
sketchy inscription found at Ramla testifies to the rebuilding of a mosque
(probably the White Mosque) by Iyas ibn Abdullah in 1190 (Mayer 1959).
However, for practical purposes, the earliest shrines in Palestine built by
known royal or official patrons belong to the Mamluk period.
Before considering some examples of Mamluk shrines and by way of
introduction, we will first consider the case of victory monuments (mash-
had al-nasr), which share some of the outward characteristics of religious
shrines but in other ways are fundamentally different. The second part of
this chapter will consider some shrines connected with the first Mamluk
sultan Baybars I (al-Malik al-Zahir Rukn al-Din Baybars al-Bunduqdari
1222–1277).

Mashhad al-Nasr
Although there are no surviving Ayyubid shrines, it is perhaps worth men-
tioning a related form of building, which is the Mashhad al-Nasr or vic-
tory monument, which was built at the summit of Jabal Hattin north of
 SHRINES SPONSORED BY SULTANS 49

Lake Tiberias in 1187. The Arabic geographer al-Dimashqi (1256–1327)

gives the following account:

He[Salah al-Din] broke the Franks (al-afranj) on the Horn (qarn) of

Hattin, and killed many of them, and took their kings prisoner. And he built
on the Horn [of Hattin] a dome, which is called the dome of victory (qub-
bat al-nasr). (al-Dimashqi 1866, ed. Mehren, 212)

Thirty years later, the Christian pilgrim Thietmar visited the site and
described it as follows:

Here I crossed the field where the army of the Christians were defeated and
the Holy Cross taken as booty by the enemies of the Cross. At this place and
on a high certain ground, Saladin built a temple to his gods for the victory
gained. It is still there today but it is neglected and fallen into ruins.
(Thietmar, trans. Pringle 2012, 95)

The site was visited by a number of nineteenth-century travellers,

including Guérin, who notes a rectangular plaster-lined cistern and next to
it ‘A côte se apient les arrasements d’une petite construction mesurant
huit pas carrés, et qui passé pour être un ancient oualy’ (the ruins of a
small structure measuring 8 paces per side which seemed to be an ancient
wali) (Guérin 1880b, Vol I, 194). Excavations of the Iron Age fortifica-
tion of Hattin during the 1990s uncovered the remains of a structure
which was described as a medieval building made of comb-dressed masonry
and plaster. The remains comprised the foundations of a rectangular build-
ing (8.6 × 10 m) separated into two sections (3.75 × 6 m and 2.5 × 6 m)
by an internal dividing wall (Gal 1992, 214). Whilst it is probable that the
remains are those of Saladin’s victory monument, they give little indica-
tion of its original appearance.
In a study of Islamic victory monuments, Thomas Leisten has drawn
attention to two other related monuments in the region (Leisten 1996).
One is the monument erected by the Mamluk sultan Baybars to com-
memorate the victory over the Mongols at ‘Ayn Jalut. Unfortunately, this
building has not survived and there is no description of its appearance.
The other monument is a fourteenth-century structure known as Qubbat
al-‘Asfir, which stands on the roadside between Damascus and Homs. The
building comprises a tall square chamber capped with a dome resting on
an octagonal drum. Above the entrance there is an inscription which
­attributes the construction to the Mamluk sultan al-Malik al-Nasir in 741
50 A. PETERSEN

AH (1341 AD). The interior is empty, with the exception of a concave

mihrab in the south wall. The building and inscription were first published
by Sauvaget (1939–1940, Vol. 3, 15–18), who suggests that the building
commemorates a Mamluk victory over the Mongols in 1303 AD. Leisten
observes that without the inscription ‘the qubba could have been taken for
one of the numerous mausolea built over the tomb of a Mamluk emir or
local saint’ (Leisten 1996, 20). Lesiten also suggests that the victory mon-
uments at Hattin and ‘Ayn Jalut may have disappeared because they were
not tied to any endowments or waqf for their upkeep in which case Qubbat
al-‘Asfir is a rare survival. This may give a clue about one of the essential
differences between a Muslim shrine and a victory monument. A shrine is
a place endowed with spiritual significance by the visits and attention of
pilgrims, whereas a victory monument is a secular construction devoid of
spiritual meaning unless it commemorates individuals who may have died
in the conflict.

Shrines Sponsored by Baybars

As the Muslim ruler to finally re-conquer all of Palestine from the Franks,
the Mamluk sultan Baybars may be regarded as the architect of post-­
Crusader Palestine. His rule has been the subject of many studies con-
cerned with the twin themes of his own legitimacy as a Muslim ruler and
also his re-construction of a Muslim Holy Land based around shrines and
religious buildings (see for example Frenkel 2001; Taragan 2006b; Aigle
2010). In order to get an idea of how this was achieved, this chapter will
focus on three relatively well-documented shrines which illustrate differ-
ent aspects of Baybars’ patronage of shrines. The first example is the tomb
of Moses, who, after Abraham, is one of the most prominent figures in the
Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths; the second example is the tomb of Ali
ibn Alil, who despite his relative obscurity nevertheless also had some sig-
nificance for Christians. The third example is the tomb of Abu Hurayra, a
very well-known Muslim figure who was a companion of the Prophet.

Nabi Musa (Figs. 4.1 and 4.2; Fig. 9.1, No. 9)

The shrine of Nabi Musa (biblical Moses) is located in the Jordan Valley
20 km east of Jerusalem and 11 km south of Jericho. Moses is a very
important figure within the Islamic tradition and his name appears in the
Quran more than any other prophet or personality from the Bible. He was
 SHRINES SPONSORED BY SULTANS 51

Fig. 4.1 The Nabi Musa complex located in the Jordan Valley near Jericho.
Most of the outer part of the complex is Ottoman and dates from the nineteenth
century

also seen as a model for Muhammad, as he devised a constitution for his

people and spoke directly to God. According to the Hebrew Bible, Moses
died in the land of Moab and was buried somewhere in the valley of Moab,
though significantly, his exact burial place was unknown (Deuteronomy
34, 4–6). Christian tradition locates his grave on the east side of the Jordan
Valley at Mount Nebo, which became a pilgrimage centre in the Byzantine
period. However, according to an early Muslim tradition dated to 154 AH
(771 AD), Moses died and was buried within a stone’s throw of the Holy
Land in a place next to a road and under the Red Hill. According to the
same tradition, Muhammad passed by the tomb on his night journey to
the furthest place (al-Aqsa—generally interpreted as Jerusalem) and saw
Moses standing in his grave praying (Elad 1988, 1–3). During the eighth
century AD, there was an attempt to relocate this tradition to the region
of Damascus in order to restore some prestige to Syria after the Abbasids
had seized the caliphate and moved the centre of the Islamic world to
Iraq. However, it seems that the tradition of locating his tomb within the
52 A. PETERSEN

Fig. 4.2 The cenotaph marking the grave of Musa (Moses) covered by a domed
chamber dating to the thirteenth century

vicinity of the Jordan Valley in Palestine prevailed to the extent that al-­
Harawi (d. 1215) located the tomb of Musa (Moses) near Jericho (Meri
2005, 26).
Today, the tomb chamber and prayer hall of Nabi Musa form the centre
of a large two-storey complex surrounded with a vast cemetery and two
subsidiary shrines or tombs. According to his biographer, Ibn Shaddad,
Baybars ‘built over the grave of Moses—may Allah have mercy on him—
near the Red Hill south of Jericho a dome and a mosque. He created as
waqf for it for expenditures on the muezzin, imam, those who lived in its
immediate vicinity and those who came to visit’ (trans. in Amitai 2006,
45). Although the complex was significantly expanded under the
Ottomans, the domed mausoleum and the mosque mentioned by Ibn
Shaddad have survived. The mosque comprises a rectangular space in
which the mausoleum forms the north-west corner. From the design it is
evident that the mausoleum was built first with the mosque built around
 SHRINES SPONSORED BY SULTANS 53

it afterwards. The mosque or prayer hall is roofed with five domes and has
mihrab in the centre of the south wall. Although the mosque was origi-
nally built by Baybars, it has been remodelled several times and an inscrip-
tion above the doorway records the rebuilding by Abdullah Pasha in 1819
(Taha 2015, 54).
The mausoleum comprises a nearly square room (6.60 × 5.45) with a
huge cenotaph or tomb (5 m long) aligned approximately east-west. The
cenotaph occupies most of the south side of the tomb chamber and
obscures the view of the concave mihrab which is set in the centre of the
south wall. The mihrab has a hood in the form of a two centre arch deco-
rated with zig-zag moulding and supported on slender marble columns
decorated with Corinthian capitals. Above each of the capitals, decorated
with two tiers of acanthus leaves, there is a floral frieze also made from
marble. Hana Taragan has drawn attention to this marble decoration,
which is also seen flanking the entrance to the shrine and suggests that it
is re-used Crusader material derived ultimately from the Temple Mount
workshop (Taragan 2006b, 622–623). The dome which rises to a height
of over ten metres is supported by four squinches, one at each corner.
Each squinch comprises a series of two tiers of pointed arched niches sup-
ported by a small scallop-shaped niche lower down which acts as a form of
pendentive.
To the left of the entrance to the shrine there is a window connecting
with the shrine and above this there is a panel set in a shallow arched recess
containing Baybars’ foundation inscription dated 668 AH (1268–1269 AD).
According to the inscription, the construction of ‘this noble sacred place
over the tomb of Moses’ was begun after Baybars had completed his Hajj
to Mecca and before he visited Jerusalem. As Reuven Amitai has pointed
out, this does not give an accurate picture of Baybars’ movements, as it is
known that he visited Damascus and Aleppo immediately after his visit to
Mecca and Medina and visited Jerusalem only afterwards, towards the end
of 668 AH (Amitai 2006, 48). Baybars’ movements were famously erratic,
designed to surprise both his adversaries and his subordinates; thus his
detour to northern Syria is not unusual. However, what is interesting is
that within the inscription he wished to present his movements in the con-
text of pilgrimage first to Mecca and Medina and then to Jerusalem via this
sacred place where Moses was reputed to have been buried. In other
words, Baybars wanted to present himself as a l­egitimate Muslim religious
leader directly connecting Jerusalem and Mecca with the tomb of Moses.
In this context, Reuven Amitai has drawn attention to the term qasim
54 A. PETERSEN

amir al-mu’minin (associate of the Commander of the Faithfull), which

appears immediately after Baybars’ name in the inscription and also appears
on Baybars’ coins (Amitai 2006, 50–51).

Harram Sidna ‘Ali at Arsuf (Fig. 4.3 and Fig. 9.1,

No. 6)
The Shrine of Sayyidna ‘Ali at Arsuf is one of the more enigmatic shrines
sponsored by Baybars. Unlike Abu Hurayra or Moses, there is very little
independent information about the identity of Sayyidna ‘Ali and the earli-
est source of information is contained in a passage of Baybars’ official
biography written by Muhyi al-Din b. ‘Abd al-Zahir (d. 1292). The pas-
sage describes Sayyidna ‘Ali as ‘one of the famous holy men who are
famous for their wonders and miracles. One of the wonders is that he is
buried right at the gate of Arsuf’ (trans. in Taragan 2004, 88–89). The
passage also relates that he was revered by the Franks because of his mirac-
ulous powers, which included the ability to prevent pigs from entering the

Fig. 4.3 Harram Sidna ‘Ali at Arsuf (near modern Herziliyya) during restoration
work in 1992. The tomb of ‘Ali ibn ‘Alil is in an unroofed enclosure on the right
 SHRINES SPONSORED BY SULTANS 55

vicinity of his tomb. Further information about Sayyidna ‘Ali is provided

by the fifteenth-century writer Mujir al-Din, writing at a time when the
shrine was being renovated and expanded. He describes Sayyidna ‘Ali as
first and foremost a holy man with exceptional powers as well as a leader
of the Holy War (Jihad) who died on Saturday 12th, Rabi‘Awal 474 AH
(August 20, 1081) and was buried in Arsuf. He further relates that he was
a direct descendant of ‘Umar b. al-Khattab one of the companions of the
prophet and was also recognized as a saint by the Franks (Sauvaire 1876,
212–213; see also Mayer et al. 1950, 36–37; Taragan 2004, 83–84).
However, there is still considerable confusion surrounding Sayyidna
‘Ali, including the circumstances of his death (Was he killed in the Holy
War?—if so, against whom?) and why he is not mentioned by any writers
prior to the thirteenth century. Baybars’ visit to the tomb took place in
April 1265, prior to his attack on the Crusader-held city of Arsuf. As men-
tioned in the texts, the tomb of Sayyidna ‘Ali is located directly outside the
main gate to Arsuf and thus would have been a natural place to visit and
occupy prior to an assault on the city. According to Mujir al-Din, Baybars
camped next to the tomb prior to his attack on the city, prayed and made
vows, including the dedication of a waqf for the shrine. The subsequent
victory over the Crusaders provided further confirmation of the powers of
the saint. Although the sources agree that a waqf was established for the
shrine, no details of this have survived, nor are there any identifiable parts
of the shrine which can be attributed to the work of Baybars.
On the basis of the available information, a few general remarks are
possible in relation to this shrine. In the first place, it is clear that Baybars’
visit to the shrine and subsequent creation of a waqf were the first time
that the shrine received official recognition. Prior to this time, the shrine
may have been regarded as powerful by the people of Arsūf, but it was not
sufficiently famous to be included in, for example, al-Harawi’s book of
sacred places. It is also notable that Yaqut (1955–1957, Vol. 2, 151–152),
writing in 1225, does not mention Ali bin Alil by name as one of the
famous murābit ̣ūn from Arsūf. In any case, Baybars interaction with the
shrine marks a part of the process by which a local shrine is given external
validation. The shrine then had to wait another two centuries until
1482–1485 AD when it was provided with appropriate infrastructure,
including marble cladding on the tomb, a well and a minaret or watch-
tower by the Shams al-Din Abu al-Awn head of the Qadariyya Sufis (for a
more detailed discussion of the architecture and archaeology of the shrine,
see Chap. 5).
56 A. PETERSEN

The second observation relates to the multi-confessional nature of the

shrine. Both the medieval sources make it clear that the tomb of Sayyidna
‘Ali was also venerated by the Franks who took possession of Arsuf in 1101.
Given that Sayyidna ‘Ali’s death occurred in 1081, nearly two decades
before the arrival of the Crusaders in the region, was he a local inhabitant
who resisted the attacks of the Turkic tribal invaders or the Shi‘a Fatimid
forces in the anarchic conditions prior to the Crusader conquest?
Alternatively, he could have been a holy man unconnected with warfare who
had earned the trust of both local Christians and Muslims. The sources do
not provide enough information but what is clear is that Baybars regarded
him as an important saint whose powers would be reserved for Sunni Islam.

Maqam Abu Hurayra (Figs. 4.4 and 4.5; Fig. 9.1,

No. 8)
One of the most significant monuments associated with Baybars’ rule in
Palestine is the Maqam of Abu Hurayra. The shrine of Abu Hurayra is
located in the modern town of Yavneh (Ar. Yubna) in the southern coastal

Fig. 4.4 The riwaq or porch added to the tomb Abu Hurayra by the Mamluk
sultan Baybars in 1274
 SHRINES SPONSORED BY SULTANS 57

Fig. 4.5 Interior of the tomb chamber of Abu Hurayra rebuilt by the Mamluk
sultan al-Malik al-Ashraf in 1294. The cenotaph in the centre is covered with a
cloth embroidered with Hebrew characters, reflecting a minority Jewish belief that
this is the tomb of Rabbi Gamliel

plain between Jaffa (modern Tel Aviv) and Ascalon (modern Ashkelon).
The town is identified with the ancient biblical settlement of Jabneh/
Yabneh and the classical city of Jamnia. By the fourth century AD, the
town had a population of Christians and Samaritans, and in 480 AD, the
Empress Eudocia established a church and hostel. The city was captured
by the Muslim Arabs under the general ‘Amr ibn al-As in the seventh cen-
tury, and by the tenth century, the town had a mixed population of
Muslims Christians and Samaritans but no Jews. Al-Muqaddisi notes that
there was a beautiful mosque and a coastal lookout station at the nearby
coastal station of Mahuz Yubna. During the Crusades, Yubna was close to
or the site of three battles between the Crusaders and the Fatimids (August
12, 1099; August 27, 1105; and August 29, 1123). The conflict had a
negative impact on the settlement, so by 1123, it was reduced to the site
of a small village (for a recent review of the archaeology and history of
Yubna/Yavneh, see Fisher and Taxel 2007).
58 A. PETERSEN

The maqam of Abu Hurayra is located to the west of the tell which
formed the nucleus of the ancient city. The origins of the shrine are
obscure, although al-Harawi mentions a shrine of Abu Hurayra at Yubna
in the 1170s (Meri 2005, 88; Sourdel-Thoumine 1957, 77). The identifi-
cation of the tomb of Abu Hurayra is problematic, as most Arabic authors
state that he died and was buried in Medina. The shrine at Yubna is also
mentioned by Yaqut (1179–1229), who notes that the shrine either con-
tains the tomb of Abu Hurayra or ‘Abd Allah ibn Sa‘ad ibn Abi Sarh, who
was governor of Egypt 646–656 (Yaqut, ed. Wüstenfled 1866–1870, Vol.
4, 1007). Another suggestion is given by the anonymous author of a four-
teenth-century text known as Muthir al-Gharam who stated that the
tomb contained the remains of a son of Abu Hurayra (cited in Mayer et al.
1950, 21). Since the creation of Israel in 1948, the building has been
adopted as a Jewish Shrine and the tomb is said to contain the remains of
Rabbi Gamliel who lived in Yavne in the first century AD.
The shrine has been the subject of a number of architectural studies
(e.g. Clermont-Ganneau 1896–1899, Vol. 2, 179–180; Mayer et al. 1950,
21; Petersen 2001, 313–319; Taragan 2000) and is generally regarded as
one of the finest domed mauslea in Palestine. The building consists of a
domed tomb chamber and a six-domed portico or riwaq set within a
stone-walled enclosure. The portico is enclosed on three sides, and on the
north side, there are three tall pointed arches springing from the side walls
and two rectangular free-standing piers. The central arch is decorated with
a chevron moulding and the arches either side are decorated with cushion
voussoirs. The interior is divided into six domed bays supported by two
marble columns with Corinthian capitals divided into two acanthus bands.
Five of the domes rest on pendentives whilst the sixth dome adjacent to
the entrance to the tomb chamber is raised above the other domes and
rests on squinches. The entrance to the tomb chamber is a deeply recessed
portal covered with a muqarnas hood and decorated with alternating
bands of ablaq red and white masonry.
The tomb chamber is a large square room (6.2 m per side) covered
with a (11.5 m) high dome sitting on top of an octagonal drum. In the
centre of the south wall, there is a tall concave mihrab flanked by two
slender marble columns with muqarnas capitals. The rectangular
masonry cenotaph stands in the centre of the chamber and is aligned
east-west (i.e. a typical Muslim alignment). The lower four courses of
the cenotaph are made of plain ashlar blocks whilst the upper part is
decorated with marble panels decorated with Gothic trefoil arches (pos-
 SHRINES SPONSORED BY SULTANS 59

sibly re-used from the nearby dismantled Crusader church). On the

exterior there is a set of steps giving access to the roof. The complex
contains three medieval inscriptions, the earliest, dated 673 AH (1274),
states that the portico was built by Sultan Baybars. The second inscrip-
tion is carved into the lintel and around the entrance to the tomb cham-
ber is dated to 692 AH (1293 AD) and states that the mausoleum
(Mashhad of Abu Hurayra) was built by al-Malik al-Ashraf. The third
inscription is no longer visible but was originally built into the gateway
of the compound and was dated to 806 AH (1403 AD) (Clermont-
Ganneau 1896–1899, Vol. 2, 179–180).
As with many shrines, the history of this building is complex and there
is little certainty about its origins. Whilst the identity of the shrine with
Abu Hurayra may be doubtful (perhaps less so than the current Jewish
identification of the tomb with Rabbi Gamliel), it is clear that this had
become a firmly established tradition as early as the twelfth century. The
fact that the shrine was partially rebuilt by at least two Mamluk sultans
(al-­Zahir Baybars and al-Malik al-Ashraf) clearly indicates that it was
regarded as an important structure.
Hana Taragan (2000, 2006a, 54–56) has argued that Baybars’ motiva-
tion in renovating the shrine by the addition of the porch was a complex
piece of symbolism. In the first place, he wished to signal his victory over
the Crusaders by the creation of a distinctively Muslim building incorpo-
rating recognizable Crusader decorative elements. Through the actions of
its ruling family, Ibellin (Crusader Yubna) had become one of the most
important Crusader lordships in the Kingdom of Jerusalem and its final
transfer into Muslim hands in the 1230s will have been regarded as a sym-
bolic victory for the Muslims. Denys Pringle has shown how at the end of
Crusader rule the church in Yubna (Ibellin) was converted into a mosque
by blocking the west door and adding a new door in the north wall. In
addition, the size of the prayer areas was reduced by the demolition of the
south aisle and construction of a new south wall (Pringle 1998, 378–384).
The exact date of the conversion is not known although it probably
occurred before Baybars instigated the work at the shrine of Abu Hurayra.
In any case, the façade of the portico was decorated with cushion voussoirs
and zig-zag mouldings, which would have been regarded as typical of
Crusader architecture (see for example Salam-Liebich 1983, 221–223). It
is possible that this masonry was re-used from the destroyed portion of the
church, as it is known that the blocked west door of the church (destroyed
in 1948) was decorated with cushion voussoirs.
60 A. PETERSEN

The other symbolic aspect of the construction of the riwaq relates to its
claim to be the tomb of Abu Hurayra. Although Baybars’ inscription (now
lost) referring to the construction of the riwaq does not explicitly refer to
Abu Hurayra, the fact that it was first identified as his tomb by al-Harawi
in the 1170s suggests that this attribution was probably taken for granted
by Baybars some hundred years later. In any case, when the domed mau-
soleum was rebuilt 19 years later by Sultan al-Ashraf Khalil in 1292, the
foundation inscription explicitly refers to Abu Hurayra, the companion of
the Prophet (RCEA, XIII, 4965; Petersen 2001, 315). Abu Hurayra is
also known to Muslims as one of the most prolific and respected transmit-
ters of hadith (more than 1500). Hana Taragan has suggested that as a
new Muslim, Baybars would have felt the need to legitimize his power and
that an association with such an important figure as Abu Hurayra would
have been one way to add to his Islamic credentials. There are two other
aspects to Abu Hurayra which might be of significance in this context. The
first is that he was explicitly against the veneration of tombs; thus he trans-
mitted the following hadith: ‘The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon
him) said: Let Allah destroy the Jews for they have taken the graves of
their apostles as places of worship’ (Sahih Muslim Book 4, No. 1080).
However, within the context of thirteenth-century Bilad al-Sham, the
construction of shrines was normal, and this hadith was one of thousands
transmitted by Abu Hurayra and was not one of his more famous narra-
tions. Probably of more significance is the fact that the Shiʿa Muslims have
a very negative view of Abu Hurayra, stating that he converted to Islam
only two years before his death and that only those hadith corroborated
by other sources can be accepted. In this context the sponsorship of Abu
Hurayra’s tomb gives a very positive Sunni message in an area which, prior
to the Crusader conquest, had been under Shiʿa Fatimid control. Also of
possible significance is that 25 km to the south, at Ascalon, was the
Mashhad of Husayn’s head which had been built by the Fatimids in the
tenth or eleventh centuries. The shrine remained in use during the thir-
teenth and fourteenth centuries even after the city itself had been destroyed
(Talmon-Heller et al. 2016, 194–6). In this case, the renovation of the
shrine of such an important Sunni figure as Abu Hurayra would have been
an appropriate means of countering the attractions of the predominantly
Shiʿa shrine at Ascalon. The fact that the sultan Ashraf Khalil chose to
continue the restoration of the shrine nineteen years later by the rebuild-
ing of the mausoleum itself is further evidence of the symbolic importance
that was attached to the Abu Hurayra shrine.
 SHRINES SPONSORED BY SULTANS 61

Conclusions
A number of observations can be made based on this review of shrines
sponsored by Baybars.
The first and most important is that none of these shrines was a new
creation by Baybars—in each case there was a pre-existing tradition con-
necting the person concerned with the particular location. The newest
shrine—that of ‘Ali ibn ‘Alil—has the least antiquity both through the
dates of the individual concerned (he died less than two centuries before
Baybars’ visit) and through the fact that the shrine appears in writing for
the first time in connection with Baybars’ visit in the Spring of 1265. The
description of ‘Ali ibn ‘Alil in Baybars’ biography is very general and says
little about him beyond the fact that ‘he was one of those righteous men
famed for their wonders and miracles’ (Taragan 2004). The identification
of ‘Ali as a warrior of the faith (mujahid) and as a direct descendant of
‘Umar ibn Khattab only occurs later in the work of Mujir al-Din so that
just as the shrine complex was developed in the fifteenth century so also
the biography of the saint was augmented at this time. The other two
shrines, Nabi Musa and Abu Hurayra, are both mentioned by al-Harawi
and thus have more credibility. This credibility is very important, as in
both cases the claims are very big and contradict established scriptural
traditions about the place of burial.
The second observation is that construction activity at all three of these
shrines was minimal; thus at the tomb of ‘Ali ibn ‘Alil, there is no evidence
of any construction activity associated with Baybars. At the Maqam of
Abu Hurayra, Baybars’ building work was limited to the riwaq (porch),
whilst at Nabi Musa, arguably the most important shrine, he built only a
small domed maqam and a prayer area. In contrast to this rather limited
building activity, it should be noted that at each of the shrines Baybars
endowed a waqf (foundation) for the maintenance of the shrine. In view
of the revenues assigned to the shrines, it appears that lack of finance was
not amongst the reasons for the limited construction work at each of
these sites. Instead, it seems likely that Baybars was reluctant to be seen as
an innovator of shrines but rather as a ruler who sought to support what
had already been established by recognized Islamic traditions. The same
conservative policy is evident in Baybars’ work on other religious build-
ings and shrines in Palestine; thus in Jerusalem, he had the Dome of the
Rock covered with a new lead roof, and in Hebron, he had the sanctuary
painted white and also refurbished the tombs and re-paved the floors of
62 A. PETERSEN

the sanctuary. It is also worth noting that Baybars’ patronage of these

shrines provided a basis for their subsequent development with both Nabi
Musa and Harram Sayyidna ‘Ali expanding to become major complexes
with annual festivals during the Ottoman period.
The third observation is that despite his martial prowess, Baybars did
not seem particularly interested in building or sponsoring shrines con-
nected with warriors of the faith (mujahid). Within the three examples
looked at here, only the tomb of ‘Ali bin Alil has been identified as a war-
rior and this seems to be a later attribution not connected with Baybars. If
we look beyond these three examples, at other shrines in Palestine spon-
sored by Baybars or his followers, none of them is primarily known as a
warrior and his preference seems to have been for companions of the
Prophet. Thus at Isdud near modern Ashdod, one of Baybars’ command-
ers built a mausoleum and mosque for Salman al-Farisi, the first Persian to
convert to Islam (Petersen 2001, 156–157), and on the east side of the
Jordan, Baybars built a shrine for Abu ‘Ubayda b al-Jarrah (RCEA, Vol.
12, 208–209), another sahabi (Companion of the Prophet). The only
shrine sponsored by Baybars which is explicitly that of a warrior is the
tomb of Khalid b. al-Walid, the early Muslim general credited with the
conquest of Syria. The tomb is located at Homs in central Syria and thus
outside Palestine. Although Khalid was also one of the Companions of the
prophet, the inscription on the tomb clearly identifies him for his military
prowess, describing him as sayf Allah (Sword of God) (RCEA, Vol. 12,
104–106). However, it is interesting that Khalid b. al-Walid is still regarded
as a controversial figure amongst the Shiʿa and it may be that Baybars
sponsored this tomb for the same reasons that he chose to build a riwaq
for the tomb of Abu Hurayra in Yubna (i.e. as part of a Sunni revival).
There are two possible reasons that Baybars may not have been keen to
support a shrine of a Muslim warrior in Palestine. One is that he may have
wanted to keep Palestine as a Holy Land, emphasizing its holiness and
antiquity rather than any recent warfare. The other possibility is that
Baybars wished to portray himself as the epitome of Muslim warriors and
did not wish to be outshone by any other Muslim leader of the recent past.
Support for this view is contained in an article by Denise Aigle (2006)
which shows how Baybars portrayed himself as the ideal Muslim sover-
eign, a fighter for the faith and just ruler. Although Baybars sought the
validation of the Abbasid caliphs, he was apparently afraid that their
attempt to recapture Baghdad would threaten his own pre-eminence as a
Muslim ruler.
 SHRINES SPONSORED BY SULTANS 63

The last point considers how the shrines were part of a process of re-­
configuring the landscape of Palestine. In order to discourage the return
of the Crusaders, Baybars destroyed the coastal towns, personally taking
part in the destruction of Jaffa’s harbour. Instead of its ports, Palestine was
provided with roads, bridges and khans to facilitate rapid overland trans-
port between the twin capitals of Cairo and Damascus. Whilst the shrines
emphasized both the biblical antiquity of Palestine and its connection with
early Islam, Baybars’ destruction of the coastal towns cut it off from its
Mediterranean heritage and links to Christian Europe.

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 CHAPTER 5

Major Sufi Shrines

Abstract This chapter discusses the development of Sufism in the Islamic

world and also its growth within Palestine. The chapter includes a case
study of the Qadiriyya order of Sufis and shows how they established a
network of shrines and festivals in central Palestine. In addition to rela-
tively literate and well-documented shrines, there were also shrines such as
Dayr al-Shaykh which are only known through local history but which
nevertheless had a significant presence within the Palestinian landscape.
The final part of the chapter describes shrines associated with the
Yashrutiyya order in Acre during the early nineteenth century.

Keywords Sufism • Dayr al-Shaykh • Acre

It will be apparent from Chap. 4 that the development of shrines in

Palestine is intimately connected with the growth of Sufism, particularly in
the period following the expulsion of the Crusaders. Whilst the history of
Sufism in general and in Palestine in particular have been the subjects of
detailed study, the relationship with the architecture of shrines has been
little investigated (for some examples from other parts of the Islamic
world, see Blair 1990; Yusupova 1999). Part of the reason for this is that
Sufism is a spiritual form of Islam, and although buildings obviously played
a role in the diffusion of Sufi thought and in the maintenance of certain

© The Author(s) 2018 65

A. Petersen, Bones of Contention, Heritage Studies in the Muslim
World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6965-9_5
66 A. PETERSEN

rituals, the buildings are generally regarded as secondary. This can be seen,
for example, in some of the terms used to describe Sufi architecture. For
example, the term zawiya comes from the Arabic word for corner and
originally means a place (corner) where Sufis would meet to engage in
rituals or a location where a Sufi mystic or elder would reside. As the name
implies, a zawiya or corner is usually part of a larger building, such as a
mosque, which was then used by Sufis. In other words, although the term
zawiya can be used to describe a purpose-built Sufi structure, it can also
refer to a location in a building which otherwise has little to do with Sufis.
For example, al-Ghazzali is known to have resided in a zawiya above the
Bab al-Rahma in the Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem (al-Tibawi 1965, 73).
Although this was later rebuilt specifically as a zawiya at the time of al-­
Ghazzali’s residence, it was probably a room that was available at the time.
Similarly, the term khanaqah is a Persian word which refers to the place
where a meal cloth is laid out and, as in the case of zawiya, can refer to
multiple locations which may be outside or inside buildings. The term was
first applied to buildings in the ninth century AD when the Sufi Muhammad
ibn Karram (d. 839) established a khanaqah as a meeting house for his
followers. Other terms which are also used interchangeably include tekke
(Sufi residence) and khalwah (individual Sufi retreat).
One of the most problematic words is the term ribat, which in the early
Islamic period (pre-eleventh century AD) was used to describe a fortress,
fortification or tower where religious Muslims would reside to defend
Islam from external attack (for a detailed discussion of the origin of the
term, see Masarwa 2006, 54–105). Many of the surviving examples of
early Islamic ribats were located on the coast, which for much of the
Islamic world constituted the border, although ribats also existed along
the inland frontiers. With the decline of the Abbasid caliphate in the tenth
century and the disintegration of the Islamic world, many of the ribats fell
into ruin through either warfare or neglect. The ruins of these ribats were
associated with a more glorious past and the former inhabitants were
regarded as holy men who had dedicated themselves to Islam (see, e.g.
the Haram Sayyidna ‘Ali at Arsuf discussed below). At roughly the same
time as military ribats were falling into disrepair, Sufism was gaining
ground as a form of Muslim religiosity. It is in this context that ribats
started to be built specifically as Sufi institutions devoid of their earlier
military character. Nile Green has pointed to the earliest surviving exam-
ple of this transformation in the form of the Guardamur ribat on the
south-eastern coast of Spain built in 944 AD according to its foundation
 MAJOR SUFI SHRINES 67

inscription. This ribat contains 13 cells for the Sufi inhabitants as well as
accommodation for pilgrims, a mosque and other ancillary rooms.
Although it is not certain that this was a Sufi establishment, the presence
of mihrabs in each of the 13 cells, together with Arabic graffiti by pilgrims
asking for intercession, is strongly suggestive of a Sufi institution (Green
2012, 56–57).
Historically, at least 11 Sufi orders are known to have operated in
Palestine and 6 of these (al-Qadiriyya, al-Rifa ‘iyya, al-Disuqiyya, al-­
Ahmadiyya, al-Wafa ‘iyya al-Shadhiliyya and al-Yunusiyya) can be traced
back to the early Mamluk period whilst the other five were introductions
of the Ottoman era (Mawlawiyya in the sixteenth century, al-Sa’diyya in
the seventeenth century, al-Wa’fa‘iyya al-Sa‘diyya in the seventeenth
century, al-Naqshabandiyya also in the seventeenth century and the al-­
Yashrutiyya in the nineteenth century). One of the notable features of
Palestinian Sufism is that each of the orders appears to have been auton-
omous, and although the name of a particular tariqa might be the same
as a larger group elsewhere, it may have had little in common in terms of
either organization or spiritual beliefs. The one exception to this is the
al-­Mawlawiyya, which was ranked as a Mevlevikhane of the second order
and had its leader appointed direct from Konya (De Jong 1983).
As Sufism developed in Palestine during the medieval and Ottoman
period, purpose-built Sufi meeting houses were established referred to
variously as khanaqahs, zawiyas or ribats. The first designated Sufi lodge in
Palestine was the khanaqh al-Salahiyya founded in 1189 within the former
palace of the Latin patriarch. The first Mamluk sultan Baybars continued
this policy by giving the church of the Crucifixion in Jerusalem to his
favoured Sufi Shaykh Khadir as a Sufi lodge (Frenkel 2001). In addition to
zawiyas, there were also Sufi mosques (masjid or jami’) as well as mash-
had’s and other buildings. Because Sufism was based around groups of
teachers and their pupils when the founder of a particular group died, he
was often buried within the building complex where he lived. In this way,
many Sufi buildings came to incorporate tombs which were then vener-
ated not only by the pupils of the deceased teacher but by people from
other orders and from the wider population if the person was sufficiently
well known or had special powers. Thus, Sufi practices provided an accel-
erated method of developing Muslim shrines.
The other means by which Sufism encouraged the veneration and visi-
tation of shrines was through the appropriation, repair and modification of
earlier shrines and the organization of festivals (mawsim) associated with
68 A. PETERSEN

these shrines. For example, the shrine of Nabi Rubin was rebuilt or reno-
vated by the Qadiri Shaykh Shihab al-Din Ahmad (d. 1440), who also
established the festival of Nabi Rubin, which continued into the twentieth
century (Sauvaire 1876, 211).
In order to get a better idea of the architecture connected to Sufi mys-
tics, this chapter will look at some well-documented examples of Sufi
shrines, looking first at buildings connected with the Qadariyya order,
then at the tomb of Shaykh Badr at Dayr al-Shaykh and finally at the
Yashrutiyya shrine complex in Acre. In each case the shrines comprised
complexes of buildings, which included both prayer areas as well as one or
more tombs.

Muhammad Abu al-‘Awn and the Qadariyya Order

The Qadariyya order is named after ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Gailani (d. 1165),
who was born in Gilan, northern Iran, and lived most of his adult life in
Baghdad, where he was employed as a Hanbali jurist. Although he was
known for his ability in preaching and his asceticism, he does not seem to
have been the founder of the order which bears his name. Instead, as a
leader of the Sufis, his writings inspired others to establish an order (tariqa)
based on his teachings which are derived from Hanbali law and amongst
other things refer to a Sufi hierarchy (Baldick 2012, 71–72). As with many
of the other Sufi orders, it first appears in Palestine during the early Mamluk
period and remained one of the main orders into the twentieth century
(cf. De Jong 1983, 156). The order was introduced into the Syria Palestine
region in the thirteenth century by the Ibn Qudama and Yunini families.
Both these families were prominent followers of Hanbali law and fostered
the order within the Hanbali religious institutions of Damascus and
Aleppo. However, during the fourteenth century, the followers of the
Qadiriyya tariqa were predominantly adherents of the Shafi’I school of
law. The two personalities credited with the expansion of the Qadariyya
into the region are Sharf al-Din Yahya (d. 1333) in Hama and Shihab al-
Din Ahmad, also known as Ibn Arslan (d. 1440), in Palestine. Both leaders
claimed descent from ‘Abd al-Qadir, although according to Daphne
Ephrat, the Palestinian Shihab al-Din Ahmad did not transmit authority or
spiritual knowledge through his family but rather through disciples
inspired by his teaching and charisma (Ephrat 2009, 3).
Muhammad Abu al-‘Awn (d. 1504) was one of Shihab al-Din Ahmad’s
disciples and became his successor as leader of the Qadariyya in Palestine
 MAJOR SUFI SHRINES 69

in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. He was born in Gaza
before moving to the village of Jaljuliyya, where he established his
­reputation as a religious charismatic and later settled in Ramla where he
eventually died and was buried. According to a seventeenth-century biog-
raphy, Abu al-‘Awn was a charismatic figure noted for his wondrous deeds,
mystical revelations and elevated mystical states. He was also known for his
social justice, treating both the rich and the poor in the same manner and
redistributing gifts which he received from wealthy donors to the more
needy (al-Ghazzi, cited in Ephrat 2009, 5–6). He is well known both
through the buildings associated with him and through the writings of his
near contemporary Mujir al-Din. Muhammad Abu al-‘Awn represents the
high point of Sufism under the Mamluks and illustrates the local networks
of buildings and people which constituted the religious fabric of late medi-
eval Palestine. Three buildings associated with Muhammad Abu al-Awn
have survived: (1) a mosque in Jaljuliyya, (2) a mosque in Ramla and (3)
the Haram Sidna ‘Ali (near modern Herziliyya), which was introduced in
the previous chapter.

1. It is not clear when or for how long Muhammad Abu al-‘Awn lived
in Jaljuliyya, although he must have been there early in his life or
have had family connections to have acquired the epithet al-Jaljuli in
the biography by al-Ghazzi (Vol. I, 74–77). The town always appears
to have been fairly small, although during the fourteenth century, it
acquired some significance because of the establishment of a khan by
the Mamluk emir Sayf al-Din Tankiz (1312–1340) (al-Nu‘aimi,
trans. Sauvaire 1894), which served the Cairo-Damascus highway.
In addition to the large khan which had its own mosque with a
minaret, there was also a small mosque to the north and the larger
complex known as the Mosque of Abu al-‘Awn to the south (Petersen
1997). Although now in a ruinous condition with less than half of
the original structure still standing, the form of the Abu al-‘Awn
mosque can be reconstructed from early descriptions and photo-
graphs (Fig. 5.1). The mosque was divided into two main intercon-
nected bays, one roofed with a folded cross-vault (the East bay) and
the other roofed with a large dome resting on a decagonal fenes-
trated drum (the West bay). In the south wall of each bay there was
a projecting mihrab flanked by windows which looked out on a cem-
etery to the south. In the east wall of the east bay there were three
small arched doorways leading into three separate small chambers.
70 A. PETERSEN

Fig. 5.1 Exterior of the mosque Jaljuliyya, which may have originally been built
as a mausoleum for Muhammad Abu al-‘Awn

The form of the building is unusual, especially the three small

chambers and the arrangement of the cross-vaulted and dome, and
it is probable that it served as a zawiya or Sufi lodge rather than as a
Friday mosque. It is possible that the area beneath the large dome
may have been intended as a burial place for the founder of the
building, either Abu al-‘Awn himself (who was actually buried in
Ramla—see below) or perhaps his father or spiritual mentor. In any
case, the presence of graves on the south side of the building sug-
gests that the building may have been regarded as a shrine. The
building is too ruinous to detect whether there was originally a
tomb in this location; only excavation would resolve this question.

2. The mosque of Abu al-‘Awn in Ramla is in a much better condi-

tion and has recently (since 1992) been restored for use as a
mosque. Like the Jaljuliyya building, this mosque is located at the
edge of the town on the main road from Cario to Damascus. The
Ramla mosque has a more conventional design for a mosque,
comprising a prayer hall divided into six bays roofed with shallow
 MAJOR SUFI SHRINES 71

Fig. 5.2 The Mosque of Abu al-‘Awn in Ramla which contains the tomb of
Muhammad Abu al-‘Awn and his wife

domes (Fig. 5.2). There is a mihrab in the centre of the south

wall, and in the 1950s, there was a tall minbar (or pulpit) adja-
cent to this. On the roof there is a small unroofed staircase mina-
ret capped with marble finial. The area beneath the central dome
on the north side of the prayer hall (i.e. adjacent to the courtyard
and opposite the mihrab) is divided from the rest of the prayer
hall by low walls and contains two marble-clad cenotaphs, one of
which belongs to Abu al-‘Awn. The courtyard of the mosque
contains a number of tombs also clad in marble and engraved
with inscriptions (for photographs and a full description of this
building, see Mayer and Pinkerfeld 1950, and for inscriptions on
the tombs in the courtyard, see Sauvaire 1874, 183–223). The
tomb of Abu al-Awn and his wife have clearly been inserted into
the prayer hall of a building designed as a Friday mosque. It
seems likely that the mosque at Jaljuliyya with its tall dome was
built as a funerary mosque for Abu al-‘Awn, who had expected to
die and be buried in Jaljuliyya. Instead, it appears that he had
72 A. PETERSEN

died in Ramla and had to be interred in the Friday mosque, which

subsequently became his shrine.
3. According to Mujir al-Din, the greatest achievement of Abu al-
‘Awn was the refurbishment and revitalization of the shrine of ‘Ali
ibn ‘Alil at Arsuf (al-‘Ulaymi, trans. Sauvaire 1876, 212–213). In
his discussion of the shrine, he states that it was one of the most
important saints’ tombs in the land of Palestine. He also states that
‘Ali bin ‘Alil (d. 1081 AD) was noted for his pursuit of jihad,
miracles, asceticism and noble lineage going back to ‘Umar ibn al-
Khattab (583–644 AD). His grave was venerated by both Christians
and Muslims, including Sultan Baybars, who refurbished his tomb
possibly including the construction of a domed mausoleum (see
above, Chap. 4 and Taragan 2004, 96–97). Mujir al-Din specifies
the work at the shrine carried out by Abu al-‘Awn included clad-
ding the tomb with marble, digging a well in the courtyard and
building a minaret at the west end of the courtyard. In addition to
the building work, Abu al-‘Awn was also responsible for organiz-
ing the annual summer pilgrimage to the site, which brought visi-
tors from near and far.
Haram Sidna ‘Ali is located at the north edge of modern
Herziliyya and to the south of the ruined city of Arsuf (Fig. 9.1,
No. 8). The complex comprises an approximately rectangular enclo-
sure (50 × 38 m) aligned east-west with the main entrance at the
north side (Fig. 4.3). The enclosure is divided into two courtyards,
a small outer courtyard on the north side and a larger courtyard to
the south. The sides of the main (south) enclosure are lined with
cross-vaulted arcades and there are further rooms on an upper floor.
In the centre of the south side of the courtyard, there is an unroofed
walled enclosure containing the cenotaph or tomb of the Sayyidna
‘Ali bin ‘Alil. According to Guérin, the tomb was covered by a vault
when he visited in 1873 although this appears to have been subse-
quently removed.
The majority of the standing structure dates to the Ottoman
period and later although there are some areas of the complex
which may be earlier. For example, the folded cross-vaults which
line the qibla (south) side of the courtyard may date to the late
fifteenth century. Taragan (2004, 92–102) suggests that the entire
inner courtyard dates from the Mamluk period; however, the well
 MAJOR SUFI SHRINES 73

is located in the smaller northern courtyard, and according to

Mujir al-Din, this was located within the courtyard. On this basis,
it seems likely that the late Mamluk courtyard was much larger,
incorporating the area of both the present courtyards. Taragan
also dates the minaret to the early Mamluk period on the basis of
the similarity between its doorway and the portals of the Red
Mosque in Safed (1274–1275 AD), the Maqam of Abu Hurayra in
Yubna (1292 AD). In particular, she draws attention to the lintel
supported on corbels and the recessed inscription panel above
(Taragan 2004, 97–98). However, both features can also be found
later in Ottoman architecture in the region (see, e.g. Petersen et al.
2012, Chap. 9). Taragan further suggests that the doorway between
the two courtyards may be re-used Crusader masonry possibly
inserted during the early Mamluk period (Taragan 2004, 98–100
and Fig. 3, p. 94); however, this also seems unlikely as both the
form of the arch (horseshoe shaped) and the quality of the masonry
suggest an Ottoman date.
Although little of the standing structure dates from before the
Ottoman period, the size, location and layout of the complex bear
a striking resemblance to the early Islamic ribat identified at
Ashdod Yam (57 × 38 m) and at Kafr Lam (46.6 × 62.8 m) (cf.
Petersen 2016, 191). Given that Arsūf was identified by Muqaddasi
as one of the ribats along the coast of Palestine, one would expect
to find a building similar to those at Ashdod and Kafr Lam. Just as
the ribat at Ashdod lies outside the main Byzantine and early
Islamic city, so the shrine at Arsuf also lies outside the walls of the
city. Taragan (2004) has suggested that ‘Ali ibn ‘Alil was one of
the muraabit religious fighters resident at Arsūf; if so, it is prob-
able that when he died he was buried in the ribat. After the
Crusader conquest in 1101, the ribat was probably destroyed to
provide building materials for the Crusaders and to prevent its
being used as a base for anyone attempting to besiege the city.
When Baybars came to Arsuf in 1265, the grave of ‘Ali bin ‘Alil
was probably a shrine amongst the ruins of the destroyed ribat.
Although Baybars may have rebuilt the actual shrine, perhaps the
renovation of the whole complex had to wait until the work of
Muhammad Abu al-‘Awn in 1482.
74 A. PETERSEN

Fig. 5.3 Dayr al-Shaykh—exterior of complex with large dome covering the
prayer area and the smaller dome covering the tomb of Shaykh (Sultan) Badr

Dayr al-Shaykh (Figs. 5.3, 5.4 and 5.5; Fig. 9.1,

No. 1)
Unlike the shrines associated with Abu al-‘Awn, there is very little written
information about the Dayr al-Shaykh shrine. There are, for example, no
inscriptions on the building itself and only a few historical references. The
primary sources of information are provided by some passages in Mujir
al-Din (Vol. 2, 146–147) and some oral history collected by Tawfiq
Canaan (1927, 305–308). According to these sources, the shrine at Dayr
al-Shaykh was established around the tomb of Sultan Badr who made the
place his home sometime during the thirteenth century. Badr acquired the
title Sultan not because of any political power but because of his spiritual
significance at a qut ̣b within the Sufi movement. According to some
accounts, he originated in the Hijaz later migrating to Khurasan (North-­
East Iran) before arriving in Palestine whilst other accounts state that he
was born in Khurasan. Although neither his date of birth nor the year of
his death is known, he seems to have lived during the thirteenth century
given that his first son Muhammad died in 663 AH (1264–1265 AD).
 MAJOR SUFI SHRINES 75

Fig. 5.4 Interior of tomb chamber at Dayr al-Shaykh. The cenotaph marking the
grave of Sultan Badr is behind the low wall and can be accessed through the rect-
angular opening on the left

Many of Sultan Badr’s descendants (both men and women) became spiri-
tual leaders in their own right and Mujir al-Din gives an account of the
location of shrines which developed around their tombs. Mujir al-Din also
states that his lineage went back to ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib and that all the other
Sufis of the time followed his teachings. He established a zawiya in the
Wadi al-Nasur, where after his death he was buried. His tomb became a
76 A. PETERSEN

Fig. 5.5 Plan of shrine complex at Dayr al-Shaykh showing two main phases of con-
struction. (1) Vault containing tombs, (2) vaulted room, (3) vault containing tomb of
Sultan Badr, (4) domed prayer room, (5) domed anti-chamber to Sultan Badr’s tomb
and (6) cross-vaulted canopy used as kitchen area (Drawing by Ifan Edwards)

place of veneration and was even visited by animals and birds. His son
Muhammad was buried near him after his death in 663 AH
(1264–1265 AD).
In order to get some understanding of the shrine, it is necessary to give
a physical description of the complex and then set it within the wider con-
text of Sufi shrines (the following description is based on a survey of the
building carried out in 1995 and published in Petersen 1996).
Dayr al-Shaykh is built in a remote location on the south side of a steep
and narrow valley (Arabic Wadi Nasur or Hebrew Nahal Soreq) to the
south-west of Jerusalem. Even today the complex is difficult to access
although its white dome can be seen amongst the surrounding trees from
a considerable distance. The shrine is a compact complex of buildings built
into the hillside and surrounded by an enclosure wall. Adjacent to the
 MAJOR SUFI SHRINES 77

shrine there are traces of ruined buildings, probably houses, as well as fruit
trees and some terraces, indicative of former agriculture in this otherwise
wild landscape.
The shrine is entered through a single doorway on the west side of the
enclosure wall which opens onto a platform and a set of steps leading
downwards into a small courtyard. Within the courtyard, there is a well
and a cross-vaulted canopy resting on stone piers. To the south there is a
large open arch or iwan covered with a white dome. This is the largest and
most visible part of the complex and comprises a rectangular room with a
concave mihrab roughly in the middle of the south wall. Next to the
mihrab (on the west side) there is an uneven rectangular shape which may
represent a grave or cenotaph or the remains of some earlier structure. An
arch at the eastern end of the room leads into a low vaulted room with a
blocked doorway or niche in the north-west corner. It is probable that the
original floor level was considerably lower as the vault appears to spring
from the current floor level and there is very little height within the room.
The other part of the complex is located to the east and comprises a
series of small rooms. Immediately east of the domed prayer hall there is a
small domed chamber which opens into a small low vaulted chamber to
the south. The dome is supported on arched squinches and there are win-
dows on the west and east sides. The vaulted chamber contains a rectan-
gular cenotaph or grave and is separated from the small domed chamber
by a low wall. Another doorway at the east end of the courtyard leads into
a large room containing a series of six graves. Like the vaulted room adja-
cent to the prayer hall, the floor level of this room was probably consider-
ably lower originally and it is currently not possible to stand upright in this
room.
Based on the architectural survey, two main periods of construction are
evident, an initial phase comprising two or more vaulted rooms followed
by a second phase which includes both buildings covered with domes. The
first phase appears to represent the remains of some earlier ruined struc-
ture which was then used as a basis for the construction of the domed
shrine complex. The second phase comprises the domed prayer hall, whilst
the small domed building or maqam must be contemporary or slightly
later, as it is built against the east side of the archway of the prayer room.
In the absence of any inscriptions, precise dating of the complex is not
possible although the architecture gives some approximate dates. The
­earlier building uses vaults of pointed profile, suggesting a date in the
thirteenth century or later, possibly associated with a Christian monastery.
78 A. PETERSEN

Fig. 5.6 The interior of the Yashrutiyya complex in Acre showing the unused
fourth mausoleum built for the current head of the order

The use of squinches in the small domed maqam suggests an Ayyubid or

Mamluk date (i.e. pre-1500), whilst the use of pendentives in the dome of
the prayer hall suggests that it was built after 1300 AD.

Yashrutiyya Shrine Complex in Acre (Fig. 5.6)

The majority of studies of Sufi shrines in Palestine are concerned with
sites established in the medieval and early Ottoman periods and there
are few studies of late Ottoman and contemporary Sufi shrines. One
exception to this is the shrine of the Yashrutiyya order in Acre, which is
currently undergoing restoration and is still a place of veneration. The
Yashrutiyya order was a branch of the SP Shadhiliyya order which devel-
oped in North Africa and traced its origins back to Abu al-Hasan ‘Ali
al-Shadhili (d. 1258) (Trimingham 1971, 47–48). The founder of the
Yashrutiyya was Ali Nur al-Din al-Yashruti, who was born in Bizerte
(Tunisia) in 1208 AH (1793–1794 AD) and educated at the Zaytouna
Great Mosque in Tunis, where he was inducted into the SP Shadhiliyya
 MAJOR SUFI SHRINES 79

order by Sheikh Muhammad Hassan Bin Hamza Dhafer al-Madani (d.

1852 AD). In 1846 AD, he moved to the Hijaz from where he made his
way to Palestine, arriving in Acre in 1850. He soon became popular
establishing zawiyas in Tarshiha (near Acre), Jerusalem, Haifa, Beirut
and Rhodes. His success initially caused alarm to the Ottoman authori-
ties (possibly influenced by the British) who exiled him to Rhodes for 21
months. Ali Nur al-Din al-­Yashruti (d. 1892) nominated his son Ibrahim
to succeed him as leader of the order. Ibrahim died in 1928 and was, in
turn, succeeded by his son Muhammad al-Hadi, who moved the order
to Beirut following the establishment of Israel. On his death in 1982,
Muhammad’s body was returned to Acre for burial (Abu Hannieh 2011,
138–139). Although the Yashrutiyya are primarily based in Palestine,
Jordan and Lebanon, there is also a branch of the order in the Comoro
Islands established by Sa ‘id ibn al-Ma‘ruf (d. 1904), who had been
initiated in Acre.
Initially Ali prayed and held gatherings in the Zaytunia mosque (built
in 1754–1755) but his followers soon became too numerous to be accom-
modated within the existing building, so in 1862, he established his own
zawiya. The zawiya complex is located in the north part of the Old City
of Acre, next to the citadel between Jami Magdala and the Hammam al-­
Pasha bathhouse. It is approached via a ramp which leads up to the meet-
ing room or prayer hall which comprises a tall square building roofed with
a large dome supported by buttresses of similar design to those on the
Ahmad Jazzar Pasha Mosque (built 1781–1782 AD). Although the build-
ing resembles a mosque, it has neither a mihrab nor a minaret and is built
on the site of one of the towers of the Hospitaller compound and may
incorporate some of the structure. Adjacent to the prayer hall there is a
rectangular building or pavilion with a wooden tiled roof and large arched
windows supported on slender columns on two sides. The interior is
divided into three aisles with the central aisle supported on slender col-
umns similar to those supporting the arched windows. In each of the four
corners there is an octagonal mausoleum only three of which contain
tombs (in 1996, the fourth tomb remained unoccupied). The earliest
tomb contains the remains of Ali Nur al-Din al-Yashruti (d. 1899), whilst
the second oldest contains the grave of Ibrahim al-Yashruti (d. 1925–1926)
and the third mausoleum contains the remains of Shaykh Mohammad al-­
Hadi (d. 1980–1981), which were transferred from Beirut (for translation
and discussion of the inscriptions on the mausolea, see Sharon 1997,
74–75).
80 A. PETERSEN

Each mausoleum has a similar design comprising a central marble-clad

cenotaph contained within an octagon, with arched windows on each side
and a doorway on one side. The upper part of each mausoleum has the
form of a fenestrated octagonal drum above which there is a dome which
is visible from the exterior of the building. The marble decoration of the
mausolea is similar to that used on buildings associated with Baha ‘ullah,
who was resident in Acre from 1868, although it also resembles the mar-
ble decoration on the sabil outside the Jazzar Pasha Mosque (built
1781–1782 AD). In addition to the meeting hall/mosque and the mash-
had, the complex also comprises a large courtyard or haush which contains
apartments and accommodation for guests, visitors and residents of the
Yashrutiyya order.
The complex fell into disrepair after the creation of Israel in 1948,
which isolated Acre from the majority of the Yashrutiyya adherents who
had moved to Lebanon, Jordan and the West Bank. Also, the waqf estab-
lished by the founder of the tariqa ‘Ali Nur al-Din al-Yashruti was confis-
cated by the Israeli authorities, which ‘deprived the tariqa of the principal
financial basis for the upkeeping of the remaining zawiya which fell into a
state of dilapidation in consequence’ (De Jong 1983, 179). However, the
Israeli occupation of the West Bank in 1967 allowed refugees elsewhere in
the Middle East to send money for the upkeep of the zawiya in Acre. By
1979, a complete restoration of the main hall and the mashhad had been
completed (De Jong 1983, 180). A second major restoration project has
been carried out in recent years (Luz 12.03.2014).

Discussion
On the basis of the examples presented in this chapter, it can be seen that
there was an intimate connection between the development of Muslim
shrines and the growth of Sufism as a central part of Muslim religious
experience. The nature of Sufi practices often led to the development of
complexes built around the tomb of the founder of a particular order or
tariqa. Subsequently, these complexes developed into shrines which in
some cases were accessible to all as in the case of Muhammad Abu al-
‘Awn’s complexes in Ramla and Jaljuliyya (both located on the main road).
In other cases, such as Dayr al-Shaykh, the shrines would be likely to
attract only the serious pilgrim. In addition to shrines developed around a
particular Sufi holy man, it is clear that Sufis developed the cult of shrines
more generally. For example, both Muhammad Abu al-‘Awn and his
 MAJOR SUFI SHRINES 81

predecessor, Shaykh Shihab al-Din Ahmad (d. 1440), developed pilgrim-

age sites around the tombs of figures (Nabi Rubin and ‘Ali bin ‘Alim),
neither of whom was a noted Sufi. In the case of ‘Ali bin ‘Alil at Arsuf, we
know that a waqf to provide for the tomb had already been established by
Sultan Baybars and that Muhammad Abu al-‘Awn expanded the shrine,
making it a pilgrimage centre of regional significance. It is not clear
whether the tomb of Nabi Rubin (Fig. 9.1, No. 2) existed before the
intervention of Shaykh Shihab al-Din Ahmad (d. 1440) although it is
probable that there was some form of shrine before this period. For exam-
ple, Conder (1886, 447–448) states that during the twelfth century there
was an annual market which was the precursor of the annual Nabi Musa
festival (unfortunately, he does not give the source for this information).
The motivation for developing connections with older figures either from
biblical times or from the early Islamic period was probably to establish
Sufism as part of an ancient tradition. Nile Green has argued that the rise
of institutional Sufism was directly linked to the collapse in the central
caliphal authority and the instabilities of the tenth and eleventh centuries.
In this context, traditions were an essential component of Sufi Islam which
was used both to validate current practices and to give them added author-
ity (Green 2012).
The Yashrutiyya complex at Acre provides a clear example of the role of
tradition in creating a major Sufi shrine. The fact that the tombs of the
hereditary leaders are all concentrated in one building in Acre adds to the
spiritual importance of a shrine physically demonstrating the continuity of
place and of doctrine. This is especially important when the order is faced
with physical separation from the majority of its adherents located else-
where in the Middle East (the Palestinian Diaspora) and also as far afield
as the Comoro islands near Madagascar. The proximity of the Bahai’s in
Acre and the surrounding district may have provided some form of com-
petition for the Yashrutiyya tariqa who also had adherents in the vicinity,
and it is known that ‘Ali Nur al-Din al-Yashruti ‘became deeply involved
in the controversy and the debate surrounding the Bahá’i Faith’ (Abu
Hannieh 2011, 138).

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Baldick, J. 2012. Mystical Islam: An Introduction to Sufism (first published 1989).

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Conder, C.R. 1886. Syrian Stone Lore. London: R. Bentley and Son.
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Green, N. 2012. Sufism: A Global History. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.
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yashrutiyya-lodge. Accessed 16 June 2016.
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———. 1997. Jaljuliyya: A Village on the Cairo – Damascus Road. Levant 29:
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J. Simpson, and M. Tütüncü. 2012. The Medieval and Ottoman Hajj Route in
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Petra, et sur la rive gauche du Jourdain, ed. Honoré Théodoric Paul Joseph
d’Albert duc de Luynes. Tome 2: Voyage d’exploration à la mer Morte, à Petra,
et sur la rive gauche du Jourdain. Paris: Libraire de la Société de géographie.
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fin du XVe siècle de J-.C. (excerpts from Kitāb al-ins al-jalı̄l bi-tarı̄kh al-quds wa
al-khalı̄l by Mujı̄r al-Din al-‘Ulaymı̄). Paris: Henry Sauivaire.
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and Boston: Brill.
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Quarterly 9: 65–122.
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In Bukhara: The Myth and Architecture, ed. A. Petruccioli. Cambridge, MA:
Agha Khan Program for Islamic Architecture.
 CHAPTER 6

Shaykh’s Tombs

Abstract This chapter is concerned with the large number of Muslim

tombs and sacred sites which have been identified in archaeological sur-
veys and maps throughout Palestine. The chapter discusses the distribu-
tion of sites throughout Palestine in relation to topography and settlements.
Whilst some of these sites are associated with Sufi leaders, others are the
tombs of either the founders of settlements or local holy men.

Keywords Shaykhs tomb • Cemeteries • Ramla

The previous two chapters have discussed Muslim shrines which are known
both through historical references and, in many cases, also through inscrip-
tions. The present chapter will discuss shaykh’s tombs which are known
only on a local scale and are often undocumented in the written historical
sources. Despite their historical obscurity, these tombs are the most
numerous form of Muslim shrine in Palestine and are the subject of the
majority of the academic literature (for a recent bibliography of local
shrines in Palestine, see e.g. Frantzman and Bar 2013). The most compre-
hensive study of local shrines is Tewfik Canaan’s book on Mohammedan
Saints and Sanctuaries (Canaan 1927; see also discussion in Chap. 3),
which is based on a study of 583 shrines, 235 of which were personally
investigated by the author.

© The Author(s) 2018 85

A. Petersen, Bones of Contention, Heritage Studies in the Muslim
World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6965-9_6
86 A. PETERSEN

The definition of a shaykh’s tomb or local shrine is not absolute or pre-

cise but, within the present context, can be taken to refer to a tomb or place
of burial associated with a person who has some significance within the local
community but is unknown on a provincial or regional scale. Thus visitors
to a tomb will predominantly come from nearby villages if in a rural context
or from the adjacent quarters of a town if in an urban context. This does not
mean that local tombs are never visited by pilgrims from further afield, as
the travelogue of Nabulusi (Sirriyeh 2005) makes clear; however, it does
mean that both the maintenance of the tomb and the traditions associated
with the tomb will be primarily a local affair. The perceived identity of the
person within a tomb can vary from legendary heroes such as Alexander (Ar.
Iskander) to the deceased head of a local family or clan.
Before discussing the different types of shaykh’s tombs, it is worth
looking at some of the general characteristics in terms of architectural
form, site location and geographical distribution. Although each tomb has
its own particular form often with unique details, there is a remarkable
consistency in the architecture which is usually based around a square
domed chamber (Figs. 6.1 and 6.2). Shrines of this type are entered by a

Fig. 6.1 Exterior of the tomb or maqam of Muhammad al-‘Ajami at Majdal near
Tiberias
 SHAYKH’S TOMBS 87

Fig. 6.2 Interior of the maqam of Muhammad al-‘Ajami at Majdal. There appear
to be two graves inside, each covered with a green cloth

single door which leads into a square space with a mihrab in the south wall
(opposite the door). In most cases the centre of the shrine is a rectangular
cenotaph aligned east-west which marks the burial place of the shaykh. If
the shrine is in religious use the cenotaph will be covered with a green
cloth. There is usually at least one window or opening in addition to the
door and a number of niches set into the walls. The interior is generally
whitewashed and sometimes it is decorated with henna in the form of
geometric patterns or stylized vegetal forms (e.g. see Canaan 1927, 33
Plate I).
Although the domed cube is not universal, it is certainly the most com-
mon architectural form for shrines to the extent that the Arabic term
qubba has become synonymous with shaykh’s tomb (Canaan 1927, 11). A
basic typology for the architecture of local shrines can be proposed which
at its simplest comprises a marked grave. A second stage of development
is represented by a rectangular cenotaph, often with a rounded or
­keel-­shaped top. A third stage might involve the construction of a square
domed tomb chamber over the tomb, whilst subsequent stages might
88 A. PETERSEN

involve the construction of a riwaq or vaulted stone canopy adjacent to

the tomb chamber. Multiple variants are possible, and in many cases, the
actual tomb or cenotaph might be outside the domed chamber. The
domes have a variety of forms in terms of both profile and setting. The
most basic form of dome has a hemispherical form and rests on sphero-­
conical pendentives which spring directly from four square corner piers.
More complex forms include the use of octagonal or polygonal drums
which may either rest on pendentives or squinches (arched recesses which
bridge the corners of a square). The shape of domes may vary to include
two-centre pointed arch profiles and stilted arch profiles. However, sophis-
ticated double shell domes, which are relatively common in Iranian archi-
tecture, were not used in Palestine.
In addition to the built tombs, there are a number of shrines which are
either natural features (e.g. springs, wells, caves, water courses, rock out-
crops and trees) or simple man-made features such as a pile of stones or
part of some ruined structure (see below ancient sites). In many cases, one
or more natural features may be found in the vicinity of a built shrine; thus
Canaan (1927, 31) states that 60% of shrines are associated with one or
more trees. Also, in cases where there is a solitary tree identified as a shrine,
it is usually associated with a niche or cleft in a rock which can be used
either for lamps, offerings or prayers. Where natural features are identified
as shrines, the spirit of a saint or other venerated personage is said to
inhabit the feature. For example, Canaan (1927, 68) lists a number of
wells inhabited by saints who, amongst other things, would save people
who accidentally fell into the water.
The geographical distribution of local shrines has been discussed by a
number of authors, including Conder (1877), McCown (1923) and
Canaan (1927); however, the most systematic and comprehensive study is
that of Frantzman and Bar (2013), which used data from the British
Mandate period (1918–1928). This study was primarily based on the anal-
ysis of 181 maps initially issued between 1929 and 1930. The maps were
produced at a scale of 1:20,000, covering all of the country with the
exception of the Negev, which was mapped at a scale of 1:100,000. The
authors also consulted the village and urban maps which were produced at
larger scales and cross-referenced the names with the Palestine Index
Gazetteer published in 1941. The maps created by the Survey of Palestine
for the Palestine Exploration Fund were also used for comparison. Within
the whole of Palestine, a total of 786 shrines were identified as being in use
during the Mandate period. In addition to the general survey of the whole
 SHAYKH’S TOMBS 89

country, Frantzman and Bar also carried out a detailed study of the Judean
hills using both maps and field visits. For the first time, many of the theo-
ries and ideas of spatial distribution suggested by earlier authors could be
tested against comprehensive survey data.
One of the topics most frequently discussed by nineteenth- and early-­
twentieth-­century authors was the question of whether Muslim tombs
were predominantly located on hill tops and high places. The majority of
scholars (Conder 1886; Paton 1919–1920; Canaan 1927) agree that the
most shrines were located on mountain tops and other elevated locations,
whereas McCown (1923, 63) wrote that ‘there is that vast number of
shrines … which are not easily seen because they are not on hill tops’.
From their detailed survey, Frantzman and Bar have been able to show
that statistically most Muslim shrines were located in elevated places with
the average elevation of 347 m in the hills and 181 m in the coastal plain.
The other major area of debate was the relationship of shrines to built-up
areas such as villages and towns. The mapping data has shown that
although only 14% of the rural shrines were located in villages, the major-
ity were located in close proximity to villages with an average distance of
760 m. It seems likely that the reason for this situation is that many of the
local shrines are associated with cemeteries, which for obvious reasons are
more likely to be located outside villages but within easy walking distance
(cf. discussion of cemetery location in Bradbury 2016, 211). The number
of shrines within urban areas varied considerably, with Beersheba and
Jenin having none, whilst the cities of Jerusalem, Ramla, Hebron, Gaza,
Jaffa and Safed had many tombs.

Sufism and Local Shrines

As we have seen in the previous chapter (Chap. 5), Sufism was one of the
main factors behind the establishment of many of the more important
medieval Muslim shrines in the Palestine. However, Sufism was also a fac-
tor in the establishment shrines at a local level, as observed by Nile Green,
who writes, ‘While by no means every venerated saint was a Sufi in medi-
eval Islam any more than every Sufi was a saint the ideas and institutions
of Sufism nonetheless became inextricably woven with the saintly practices
that came to play a central part in the Islam of the ordinary believer’
(Green 2012, 93).
Whilst the larger and more important shrines are well documented,
many of the smaller local shrines are invisible in the written historical
90 A. PETERSEN

sources and the connections with Sufism are not always clear. It is, for
example, noticeable that Tewfik Canaan, writing in the 1920s, does not
discuss Sufism in relation to local Muslim shrines although he does men-
tion dervishes. This may, in part, be because Sufism was in sharp decline
during the early part of the twentieth century, culminating in the aboli-
tion of the Sufi orders in 1925 (Green 2012, 209). Other factors which
obscure the role of Sufism in the establishment of local shrines can be
attributed to two factors related in particular to Sufism in Palestine. The
first factor relates to the rather unregulated development of Sufism in
Palestine whereby Sufi shaykhs were able to establish their own tariqa
which still bore the name of one of the major Sufi orders but in other ways
was only loosely connected. This led to the proliferation of Sufi groups
which were nominally related but effectively independent, establishing
their own zawiyas which subsequently developed into local shrines. In
Egypt, by contrast, all Sufi orders were registered and regulated, which
meant that a new branch of an order was required to register under a
separate name to receive recognition (for a discussion of this situation, see
De Jong 1983, 151–155). The second factor which has impeded the
study of local shrines in Palestine is the Egyptian occupation in the early
nineteenth century (1831–1840). In an effort to improve the agricultural
productivity of the country, many of the waqfs dedicated to local shrines
were dissolved, depriving the leaders of local tariqas of their revenue and,
in the process, breaking the link between the shrines and local Sufi orders
(De Jong 1983, 156). Deprived of revenue for their maintenance and
connections to the local hierarchy, many of the shrines became neglected
or taken over by local villagers who assumed communal ownership of the
shrines.
One of the most interesting examples of a local Sufi tomb is the maqam
of Shaykha Badriya located in the Sharafat region outside Jerusalem.
Badriya was one of three daughters of Shaykh or ‘Sultan’ Badr, whose
shrine complex in Wadi Nasur was discussed in the previous chapter
(Chap. 5). She died before her father moved to Wadi Nasur and is buried
in the village where the family was living at the time. Badriyya’s shrine is
one of the few well-known female shrines and forms the centre of a small
shrine complex which includes a mosque and the tombs of Badriyya, her
husband and her children. The shrine is still in religious use and is vener-
ated by the people of the village. Tewfik Canaan investigated the shrine in
detail and published a plan of the complex as well as photographs to illus-
trate the layout of a typical shrine.
 SHAYKH’S TOMBS 91

Cemeteries and Holy Men

Very important is the fact that the shrines or graves of many holy men are
situated in the midst of cemeteries or adjacent to them. (Canaan 1927, 7)

As Canaan observed, there is a very strong association between the

local shaykh’s tombs and cemeteries. What is sometimes less clear is
whether the shrine is the first feature to be established at a particular site,
forming the nucleus of a cemetery, or whether the tomb of a ‘Holy Man’
is discovered within an existing cemetery. Generally, cemeteries will
develop around the tombs of holy men (or sometimes women), although
in large cemeteries such as the graveyard of the White Mosque in Ramla or
some of the cemeteries in Jerusalem shrines developed within an existing
funerary context. Daniella Talmon-Heller has given some examples of this
process from the early thirteenth century whereby long-forgotten graves
within an existing cemetery were rediscovered and provided with mauso-
lea (2007, 191). At Tell al-Hesi in southern Palestine, the relationship
between a shaykh’s tomb on the top of the tell and the surrounding cem-
etery has been investigated in detail through archaeological excavation.
Whilst the results are not definitive, it appears that the shaykh’s tomb was
built within an existing cemetery. However, the presence of the shrine
affected the layout of subsequent graves with a shift towards the shaykh’s
tomb at the southern end of the tell (Toombs 1985, 30–32).
The process by which a grave becomes a shrine has been described in
detail by Paul Kahle in the first of his three articles on Muslim Shrines. He
gives the example of a tomb in the Burj Laqlaq cemetery next to the city
walls ‘which is scarcely distinguished from the other graves’ and is only
differentiated by ‘a pole that stands in a pile of stones and on which are a
few nails’. Oil lamps were sometimes hung on the pole at night and a flask
of oil lay adjacent to the grave. A simple inscription states that this is the
grave of the wali Hasan Abu al-Halawa who died in 1305 AH
(1887/1888 AD) only 22 years earlier. In his lifetime, he was known for
his ability to cure infirmities of both humans and animals (Kahle 1910,
67–68). In other examples, Kahle notes that domes were sometimes built
over the graves of revered personalities although this was not always
required. An early example of the creation of shrine in a graveyard is
­provided by Ibn Kathı̄r, who relates how a ‘painted edifice’ was built above
the graves of Yusuf al-Kamini and Ibrahim b. Said Ji ‘ana. The presumably
wooden building was used as accommodation for those who came to visit
92 A. PETERSEN

the shrine, demonstrating the functional purpose of building over graves

(Talmon-Heller 2007, 191–192). In Egypt, at Qarafa and other places,
the custom of building over graves reached a highpoint with wealthy citi-
zens of Cairo establishing house like mausoleums next to the shrines of
favourite Sufi saints (Abdalfattah 2016, 84).
Although a dome or qubba above a grave often indicates a degree of
holiness, the presence of a dome also served a function for those visiting
the grave of a holy person. In the first place, it helps visitors identify a
shrine amongst large numbers of graves. Also some form of covering in
the form of either a dome or a canopy would provide relief from the sun
for those people who came to visit a particular grave. In some cases the
creation of an enclosure around the grave of a wali would serve as a sacred
space in which items could be left without fear of theft.

Categories of Local Saints

The range of people or rather graves of people that could develop into
Muslim shrines is quite considerable, from early Islamic companions of the
Prophet to local village ancestors and heroes. At a local level, two main
categories of people were represented in shrines: (1) spiritual leaders and
(2) village founders or ancestors.

1. In addition to the major Sufi shrines discussed in the previous chap-

ter (Chap. 5), many of the local shrines evolved around the graves of
local spiritual leaders, many of whom were considered to be Sufi.
Although well known at a local level, these local Sufis are not famous
on a regional scale and do not appear in written historical accounts.
The important feature of these personalities is that they are consid-
ered as spiritual leaders during their lifetimes, so when they are bur-
ied, there is often an expectation that their graves will develop into
a shrine (Canaan 1927, 265). This is well documented by Paul
Kahle, who observed this process first-hand and gives the following
account of the foundation of village shrines:

There are many dervishes who come from afar, perhaps after long
journeys, and end their life in a village. They undoubtedly as shēks of
a ṭarı̄qa (an order of dervishes), would lead the dhikr in the village
and they would gain a certain reputation in their lifetimes through the
 SHAYKH’S TOMBS 93

writing of ḥijābs (amulets) and healings. After their deaths, their

graves would be visited. Also people from the village itself can become
welis. (1910, 70–71)

2. In many villages the grave of the founder of the village will develop
as a shrine which is visited by subsequent generations. The ances-
tral link between the present inhabitants and the founder of the
village interred in the shrine is occasionally fictitious although
there is usually some familial relationship. Canaan (1927, 302)
observes that the direct descendants of the village founder will
enjoy an elevated status and that the eldest will be known by the
title Shaykh. When the descendants die, they will be interred in
close proximity to the shrine. In some cases such as Dayr al-Shaykh
(see Chap. 5), the founder of a village will be a Sufi or other form
of spiritual leader.

A typical example of a Muslim shrine related to the foundation of a

settlement is the tomb of Shaykh Baraz al-Din at Majdal Yaba (Fig. 9.1,
No. 18). Although the exact identity of Shaykh Baraz al-­Din in relation to
the foundation of the Majdal Yaba is unclear, it is known that he was a
member of the al-Rayyan family which founded the village (Tsuk et al.
2016). It is also known that Shaykh Baraz al-Din died some time before
1873, when his tomb was already an established feature of the landscape,
as it appears on Sheet 14 of the Survey of Western Palestine (Conder and
Kitchener 1882, 360–361). The shrine comprises a square domed cham-
ber built directly on the rock to the north of the village and fortress of
Majdal Yaba. The door to the tomb is flanked by two windows and there
is a mihrab in the south wall. A line of stone stones aligned east-west on
the floor of the building represents the destroyed remains of a cenotaph
marking the grave of Baraz al-Din (for photographs and a full description,
see Petersen 2001a, 214–215).
Amongst the Bedouin, the veneration of the grave of the founder of a
part12icular settlement or lineage appears to be particularly common.
Paul Kahle gives two examples of Bedouin shrines located in the vicinity of
Jerusalem. In both cases the shrine consisted of an ordinary grave in a
cemetery, distinguished from the other graves by a simple whitewashed
cenotaph and the presence of broken pots and glass bangles (Kahle 1910,
75–76, Fig. 3). In the desert areas to the south of Palestine, ancestral
94 A. PETERSEN

Bedouin tombs provide places of ancestral memory which can be used to

strengthen oral histories and tribal genealogies. For example, the presence
of the ancestral tombs of ‘Atiyah and Naba‘ located in the Wadi Watir
south of Thamad helps confirm the history of the Tarābı̄n tribe in Sinai,
which dates back to the fifteenth or sixteenth century (Bailey 1985, 42).
The location of shaykh’s tombs also provides a cultural topography for the
desert regions with the place names along the main caravan routes reflect-
ing the names of prominent shrines (Bailey 1984, 47). The living signifi-
cance of ancestral tombs for the Bedouin has recently been highlighted by
Pävi Miettunen in her study of the Bedul shrines in the vicinity of Petra,
where she states that ‘the religious identity of the Bedouin was closely
interrelated with the tribal identity and religious devotion expressed in the
vernacular was often more concerned about the matters of this world than
what may wait beyond. Even the ancestors and local saints, those who had
already passed away, were not really absent but still continued to be pres-
ent in the everyday life as guardians, protectors and providers’ (Mietteunen
2013, 165).
Probably the most famous example of an ancestral village tomb is the
mausoleum of Shaykh Mustafa Abu Ghosh located in the village of the
same name. Abu Ghosh was the leader of a group of bandits controlling
the pilgrimage route between Jaffa and Jerusalem and, in the nineteenth
century, became so famous or notorious that the village of Qaryat al
‘Inab was renamed after him. The mausoleum is the focal point of a
Muslim cemetery located on a hill to the north of the Benedictine con-
vent. The tomb comprises a square building (approx. 5 × 5 m) covered
with a domical vault. Whilst there is a door and window on the east side,
the main decorative feature of the exterior is a projecting arched gable
housing a rectangular marble inscription praising Mustafa [Abu Ghosh]
and dated 1260 AH (1863/1864 AD). Inside the building there is a
large cenotaph marking the grave of Abu Ghosh and a small mihrab in
the south wall (for a detailed description, see Sharon 1997, 7–13).
Despite its typical appearance, there is some dispute about whether this
building was ever actually used as a shrine. Paul Conder (1878, 231),
writing soon after its construction, thought that the tomb was a shrine,
whilst McCown used a photograph of the building to illustrate ‘the
appearance of the typical ḳubbi in the average Palestinian village’.
However, McCown was unsure whether it really was a shrine, stating
 SHAYKH’S TOMBS 95

that he was doubtful ‘whether the people as yet make vows and pray to
the former bandit’ (McCown 1923, 50 and Plate 4). Paul Kahle is more
definite, stating that the grave of ‘the robber chief is not considered to
be a shrine today; I think it doubtful if it was ever to be considered one’.
The fact that the mausoleum of Abu Ghosh does not appear to have
been venerated despite its appearance indicates that shrines required
some degree of reverence from local people and visitors. Paul Kahle’s
discussion of the formation of shrines in the Jerusalem region gives a
number of requirements for the establishment of a local shrine, which
include the fact that the person concerned enjoyed a high reputation in
their lifetime, they are considered to have special God given powers, and
that when they are buried, they continue to have intercessionary powers
(Kahle 1910, 68).

Architecture and Chronology

Buildings identified as Muslim shrines span a huge array of architectural
forms (from simple cenotaphs to monumental buildings) and a very long
time span from the pre-Islamic period to the present day. There is also the
problem that many shrines form part of complexes with a variety of archi-
tectural forms sometimes developed and rebuilt over several centuries.
However, the central part of the majority of shrines can usually be set
within one of three main periods: pre-Islamic, Medieval or Ottoman. Pre-­
Islamic shrines are those in which the main structure was either built
before the advent of Islam (circa 622 AD) or contains a significant amount
of pre-Islamic material. In theory, there should be a large number of early
Islamic (circa 622–1099 AD) shrines given that many shrines incorporate
the graves of early Islamic warriors and religious leaders. However, in
practice (with the exception of the Dome of the Rock and other major
shrines which are outside the scope of this chapter), there are few, if any,
local Muslim shrines with structural remains dating to the early Islamic
period. There are, however, a number of shrines which can be dated to the
Medieval period (circa 1099–1516 AD), especially the time after the rise
of the Mamluks in 1260. The largest number of extant shrines within
Palestine date to the Ottoman period (1516–1918), although it is likely
that a significant portion of these are built on older sites or contain earlier
elements.
96 A. PETERSEN

Re-used Pre-Islamic Shrines

Just as some of the more famous shrines built by emirs, sultans and other
notable persons were built over ruins or incorporated ancient features, so
local shrines also often included pre-Islamic elements. In Syria for exam-
ple, Jennie Bradbury noted a large number of re-used Roman and
Byzantine architectural fragments incorporated into the tomb of the local
“holy man” at the village of Dimeni al-Gharbiyya (Bradbury 2016, 208).
Canaan (1927, 9) stated that approximately 32% of the shrines which he
had visited in Palestine were in the vicinity of ancient ruins. In some cases
an ancient feature on its own such as a column capital or an ancient grave
will be enough to designate a local shrine. For example, Canaan describes
a shrine in the Hauran associated with the prophet Job, which comprises
a single slab of rock or stella inscribed with a hieroglyph in the name of
Rameses II (Canaan 1927, 78).
For many of the nineteenth-century European and American scholars,
the principal value of these local shrines was that they preserved ancient
place names and associations with biblical narratives (see, e.g. the discus-
sion of Conder in Chap. 1). However, for the average Palestinian peasant
the construction or veneration of a Muslim shrine around an ancient fea-
ture could be interpreted as an act of social memory—a means of estab-
lishing a connection with a particular place either for ownership of land or
as a means of re-enforcing communal identity (cf. Bradbury 2016,
211–215). Alternatively, the identification of an ancient feature as a
Muslim shrine could be interpreted as a means of Islamiscizing the pre-­
Islamic past in a continuation of the process begun by Ayyubid and
Mamluk sultans. Just as Baybars had appropriated the memory of Moses
by establishing the tomb of Nabi Musa near Jericho, so the local shrines
were a means of establishing Muslim associations with the landscape. The
fact that this often represented a localized version of Islam for people who
may not have had easy access to a mosque should not detract from the fact
that these were regarded as shrines by a population which professed Islam.
Another incentive for the creation of Muslim shrines around ancient
structures may have been to prevent them from being taken over by the
jinn. Although in theory the jinn can be either good or evil, they are
­generally associated with evil and harmful behaviour. According to the
fourteenth-­century theologian Ibn Taymiyya, the jinn ‘only have the right
to reside in places not occupied by humans like abandoned buildings and
open country … or places of impurity like toilets, garbage dumps and
 SHAYKH’S TOMBS 97

graveyards’ (Phillips 2007, 45). Within Palestinian folklore, good spirits

such as the awlia (friend of God) were perpetually at war with the bad and
evil spirits of which the jinn were the most powerful (Canaan 1927, 281).
As the jinn were often thought to inhabit abandoned structures and
ancient ruins, the creation of a Muslim shrine in the vicinity would make
such a location safer. For example, the Muslim saint al-‘Ajami asked to be
buried at the entrance of Bayt Jibrin to prevent the jinn from entering the
village (Masterman and Macalister 1915, 172).
Probably the most spectacular example of the appropriation of an
ancient structure for a local tomb is Naby Yahya near the former village of
Mezra’a (now destroyed) at the foot of the Judean Hills. The shrine of
Nabi Yahya (John the Baptist) is located in a very well-preserved late
Roman family tomb (circa 300 AD). The date of the conversion is not
certain, although it is known that the building was already a Muslim shrine
by the mid-nineteenth century when it was visited and described by a
number of European visitors (see, e.g. Conder and Kitchener 1882, Vol.
2, 365–367). The tomb consists of a nearly square rectangular building
with a portico resting on square corner piers and two central columns
topped with Corinthian capitals. The interior is divided into two cham-
bers, a small rectangular room (2.04 × 5.7 m) to the east containing the
remains of a staircase to the roof and a large square main chamber
(4.8 × 5.7 m) to the west. The main room is entered via a small low door-
way and has a corbelled roof supported by large transverse arches.
Originally this room would have contained sarcophagi but these have long
since disappeared (Kochavi and Beit-Arieh 1994; Site 263). The only rec-
ognizably Muslim features are a plastered mihrab located in the south-east
corner of the main room and a low rectangular cenotaph aligned east-west
adjacent to the south wall. It is probable that the cenotaph may originally
have formed the base of a Roman sarcophagus. It is not known when the
mihrab was added, although Conder and Kitchener (1882, 357), who
visited in 1873, thought that it was a modern addition. The mihrab was
already in situ when it was seen by Consul James Finn, who first visited the
building in 1848 (1868, Frontispiece). It is probable that the mihrab was
at least several decades older than this. Excavations in and around the
mausoleum by Jacob Kaplan in 1964 and 1983 found large numbers of
Muslim burials (Kaplan 1985).
The fact that this building survived more or less intact for more than
one and a half thousand years suggests that it was protected from stone
robbing and other damage largely because of the protection of the local
98 A. PETERSEN

people. The reasons for its preservation may have included the fact that it
was an architecturally impressive building and also that it was part of the
social memory of the area. Whatever the reason for its preservation, the
conversion to a Muslim shrine would have provided religious protection
to the monument. Ironically, the building came close to destruction after
1948 when it was used as target practice by Israeli tanks (Rapoport 2008).
In this new context, it was the archaeological significance which saved the
building, which had probably been targeted because it was a Muslim
shrine.
Another example of a Muslim shrine which incorporates significant
amounts of ancient architecture is the nearby shrine of Abu ‘Ubayda at
Emmaus (Figs. 6.3 and 6.4; Fig. 9.1, No. 10). During the early Islamic
period, the town of Emmaus (Arabic ‘Imwas) was the administrative base
for the Arab armies in the region. In the year 18 of the hijra (639 AD),
the camp was devastated by a plague which spread throughout the region
and killed many of the leaders of the Arab army, including Abu ‘Ubayda.
By the thirteenth century, ‘Imwas was known for the many graves of the
companions of the Prophet (Sharon 1997, 82). Two standing buildings
venerated as shrines remain; these are the tomb of Ibn Jabal and the
tomb of Abu ‘Ubayda. Both attributions are unlikely, as according to al-
Baladhuri (trans. Hitti, 215) and other local traditions, both men died in
the area of modern Jordan. The shrine of Ibn Jabal is in the form of a
traditional Palestinian Muslim tomb with a central dome flanked by two
windows (for a description prior to its recent rebuilding, see Sharon
1997, 183–184). However, the tomb of Abu ‘Ubayda is a re-used
Roman-Byzantine bath house complete with a hypocaust. During the
Crusader period, a mezzanine floor was inserted so that the building
could be used as a store house, and in the fourteenth century, it was
converted into a Muslim Shrine (Gichon 1979). As with the Roman
tomb at Mazor (Mezra’a), the reasons for using an existing building as a
shrine are unknown although it is possible that the ancient building was
associated in people’s minds with the famous plague and was therefore a
point of contact with the times of the initial Arab conquests. The fact
that al-Harawi also gives Baysan (Beth Shean) and ‘Amta in Jordan as
burial places for Abu ‘Ubayda testifies to the significance of this early
Islamic personality. The selection of this ancient building as his tomb
may therefore have lent a degree of authenticity to the shrine at ‘Imwas
(Emmaus).
 SHAYKH’S TOMBS 99

Fig. 6.3 Roman bath house at Emmaus re-used as tomb of Abu Ubayda

Fig. 6.4 Section through the shrine of Abu Ubayda at Emmaus showing differ-
ent stages of construction (Drawing by Ifan Edwards)
100 A. PETERSEN

Medieval Shrines
There are very few shrines in Palestine which can, with any certainty, be
dated to the Ayyubid period, although there are a number of twelfth-
and early-thirteenth-century shrines in Syria (see, e.g. Talmon-Heller
2007, 190–198). In Jerusalem and other cities, there are a few examples
of Ayyubid shrines, although in most cases they were remodelled in the
later period. Jaussen cites an interesting example of a shaykh’s tomb in
Nablus which dates to the Ayyubid period. This is the shrine of Shaykh
al-­Mussalm al-Samady located in the east of the old city of Nablus near
the al-Anbiya mosque (Mosque of the Prophets). Beneath the window of
the shrine there was an inscription giving the date of 623 AH
(1226/1227 AD). Jaussen (1927, 162–163) had some difficulty tran-
scribing the inscription and was helped by a local visitor to the shrine
who explained that Shaykh Musallam was his ancestor who had died dur-
ing Saladin’s conquest of Nablus. The building has not been the subject
of a detailed architectural survey and it is not clear whether the present
structure dates from the Ayyubid period (i.e. early thirteenth century).
One of the few examples of an Ayyubid period rural shrine from Palestine
is the Maqam al-Shaykh Ridwan at ‘Arura 10–15 km north of Ramallah.
An inscription set into the side of the cenotaph indicates that this is the
tomb of Shaykh Ridwan who was carried to this location in June/July
1230 after his death in Egypt in January of the same year. Unfortunately,
the building itself was rebuilt in Ottoman times and more recently so that
little remains of the early-thirteenth-century shrine (Sharon 1997,
121–123).
For the Mamluk period (1260–1516), there are a number of dated
examples of Muslim shrines as well as a much larger number of undated
tombs which are almost certainly of Mamluk date. The previous two chap-
ters (Chaps. 3 and 4) featured some of the larger shrines developed during
the Mamluk period, including Maqam al-Nabi Musa, Dayr al-Shaykh,
Maqam Abu Hurreira, Haram Sidna ‘Ali at Arsuf as well as the two shrines
of Abu al-‘Awn at Jaljuliyya and Ramla.
The majority of dated examples of medieval shrines are located in the
cities of Palestine with large numbers in Jerusalem, Gaza, Nablus, Hebron
and Ramla. Examples from Ramla include Shaykh ‘Abdallah al-­Bataihi
(1469 AD), Sitt Halima (1399 AD), Shaykh Raslan (1404 AD) and Abu
Fadl (1450 AD). In addition to the tombs which are dated by inscrip-
tion, there are a number of shrines in Ramla which, on architectural
 SHAYKH’S TOMBS 101

grounds, are certainly of Mamluk date. One of the best examples is the
tomb of Shaykh Hammar located in the west part of the old city. The
shrine comprises two main structures, a prayer hall and a mausoleum
linked together with a courtyard. As with many of the other local shrines,
it fits into a narrow rectangular space in the urban layout, suggesting its
possible origin as a domestic property. The mausoleum of Shaykh
Hammar is a small square chamber with a cenotaph in the centre and a
dome resting on a small octagonal drum supported by squinches alter-
nating with blind arches. The cenotaph itself is aligned diagonally to the
orientation of the tomb chamber and has four octagonal stone corner
posts, which is a characteristic feature of Mamluk tombs. The prayer hall
which unusually has a corner mihrab was subsequently also used as a
burial place and contains another cenotaph (for a discussion of shrines in
Ramla, see Petersen 1995).
Within a rural context, dated Mamluk shaykhs’ tombs are more unusual.
Even where a dated inscription exists, this does not necessarily reflect the
date of the structure. For example, the Maqam of Shaykh Zayd at Bayt Jiz
(located approximately mid-way between Jerusalem and Ramla) comprises
a single square chamber with a narrow mihrab located on the left (east)
side of the south wall. The building is in a ruinous condition, and although
no internal features are visible, there was probably a cenotaph located on
the west side of the interior of building which would account for the posi-
tioning of the mihrab at the east end of the south wall. During excavations
in the vicinity of the shrine during the 1970s, an inscription was found
recording the reconstruction of a building in 734 AH (1334 AD) by the
Mamluk Amir Sayf al-Din Aqul (Amitai-Preiss 1994, 235–237). The
building is currently roofed with a domical vault, and although vaults of
this type existed in medieval Islamic architecture, their use in Palestine is
mostly a late Ottoman innovation. In this case, it seems that the shrine was
once more renovated in the late Ottoman period (Petersen 2001a,
123–124).
Two undated examples of smaller rural shrines which almost certainly
belong to the Mamluk period are the Maqam of Nabi Thari and the
Maqam of Nabi Yamin. The Maqam of Nabi Thari (Fig. 9.1, No. 4) is
located near the modern Israeli settlement of Kefar Sirkin and in the gen-
eral vicinity of Ben Gurion airport. Excavations in 1996, 1999 and 2000
indicate that the shrine was built in the Mamluk period on the ruins of a
site dated to the early Islamic period (Negev and Gibson 2001, 358). The
shrine has a similar plan to the mosque of Abu al-’Awn at Jaljuliyya com-
102 A. PETERSEN

prising a large central domed area with two vaulted side aisles. The tomb
of Nabi Thari is marked by a marble column embedded in the floor of the
east aisle. The large central dome was supported by an octagonal drum
resting on four large corner squinches (for photographs and a plan, see
Petersen 2001a, 232–234; Mayer et al. 1950, 35). The building is cur-
rently in ruins although photographs taken in the 1940s indicate that the
central dome was decorated with a monumental painted inscription
(Quran 2, 256).
Nabi Yamin (Fig. 6.5 and Fig. 9.1, No. 7) is a small domed mausoleum
which stands in the centre of a larger complex which includes a riwaq
(arcade with mihrab) and a sabı̄l (drinking trough and fountain), both of
which may be dated to the Ottoman period. The mausoleum comprises a
small square room with the cenotaph of Nabi Yamin in the centre and a
projecting mihrab in the south wall. The structure is roofed, with a dome
resting on an octagonal drum supported by internal corner arches
(squinches). Although the tomb itself is not dated, the architectural style

Fig. 6.5 The tomb chamber at the centre of a complex dedicated to Nabi Yamin.
The tomb chamber appears to be of fourteenth or fifteenth century, whilst the rest
of the complex (not in the photograph) dates from the late Ottoman period
 SHAYKH’S TOMBS 103

of using an octagonal drum and squinches to support the dome is indica-

tive of a Mamluk date. Further corroboration of a Mamluk date is pro-
vided by two inscriptions from within the complex, one dated to 1312 AD
and the other dated to 1300 AD (for a full discussion of the building, see
Petersen 2001b).

Ottoman Shrines
By far the largest group of shrines are those built or rebuilt during the
Ottoman period (1516–1918). These buildings range from sophisticated
pieces of architecture to very simple vernacular structures. Most of the
shrines discussed by Canaan were built in the Ottoman period and
Ottoman shaykhs’ tombs form the bulk of the shrines mapped by
Frantzman and Bar (2013).
Architectural features typical of Ottoman shrines include domes sup-
ported on pendentives (triangular corbels supporting the dome) rather
than squinches (corner arches). Also, in shrines built during this period,
the dome is often built directly on the roof of the shrine without an octag-
onal drum. The domes of Ottoman shrines are usually built out of rubble
stones rather than the cut stones used in Mamluk era shrines. From 1750
onwards, domes are sometimes made out of ceramic vaulting tubes rather
than stone. In some of the simpler shrines, domes are dispensed with alto-
gether and the mausoleum is covered with either a cross-vault or a domical
vault. In general, however, some form of dome is preferred as an indicator
that a particular building is used as a shrine. The cenotaphs in Ottoman
era shrines tend to have a single headstone and footstone rather than the
four corner posts in Mamluk era cenotaphs.
The shrine of Shaykh Abdallah al-Sahili in Balad al-Shaykh, which was
built in the sixteenth century, represents a more elaborate example of an
Ottoman rural shrine (Petersen 2001a, 108–109; Ronen and Olami 1983,
xvii, 40). Shaykh Sahili lived in Balad al-Shaykh at the time of the Ottoman
conquest and was granted the ownership of Balad al-Shaykh as well as
Rushmiyya by Sultan Selim I in 1517 (Yazbak 1998, 133). The shrine
which also functions as a mosque comprises a rectangular building set into
the north-­facing slope of Mount Carmel. The interior comprises three
vaulted bays with a mihrab in the south wall opposite the entrance. The
tomb of the Sufi ‘Abd Allah al-Sahili and his two sons are located in the
western bay. Each bay is roofed with a folded cross-vault with a small
dome at the apex. Until the 1980s, there was a large vaulted building to
104 A. PETERSEN

the south-east of the shrine which may have served either as a meeting
room for Sufi rituals or as some form of accommodation for pilgrims visit-
ing the shrine (for a detailed description of the building before its destruc-
tion, see Ronen and Olami 1983, xvii). In this case the shrine clearly
formed the centre of the settlement, providing both the local mosque and
the tomb of the founder of the village.
An example of a much simpler and more typical shaykh’s tomb is pro-
vided by the anonymous maqam at Khirbat Ja‘athun in Galilee. Khirbat
Ja’athun is a ruinous farmstead developed on an ancient site during the
rule of Zahir al-Umar in the mid-eighteenth century (Petersen 2001a,
180–182). The ruinous maqam is located to the east of the main buildings
and comprises two rooms, a square room (6.6 × 6.5 m) possibly originally
covered with a cross-vault and a smaller room (2.5 × 2.5 m approx.) with
a mihrab in the south wall. The walls are built of roughly squared re-used
Byzantine blocks and are built directly onto the bedrock. The smaller
room is roofed with a dome made of rubble stone set in mortar and sup-
ported by spherical pendentives. Because both parts of the structure are
ruinous, there are considerable quantities of rubble lying on the floor
obscuring any traces of a cenotaph or grave. The date of this maqam is
unknown, although its location on a site developed during the mid-1700s
suggests a date in the eighteenth or nineteenth century. The shrine is fairly
unusual, as it does not seem to be associated with any graveyard or cem-
etery, although this could be obscured by the vegetation cover in the area.
In other respects the shrine is a typical Ottoman Shaykh’s tomb with its
use of re-used ancient blocks, its use of spherical pendentives and its loca-
tion at the centre of a settlement.

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 CHAPTER 7

Shiʿa, Druze and Bahai Shrines

Abstract This chapter discusses how non-Sunni Muslim shrines fit into
the cultural landscape of Palestine. Although the religious beliefs of these
groups may be very far from those of Sunni Islam, the appearance of the
shrines is indistinguishable, suggesting a common architectural
vocabulary.

Keywords Shiʿa • Druze • Bahai

As we have seen in the previous chapters, Muslim shrines in Palestine were

mostly connected with the Sunni branches of Islam and, in particular, with
the growth of Sufi brotherhoods. However, there are a few areas of north-
ern Palestine contiguous with Lebanon which historically had a Shiʿa pop-
ulation. In addition to the mainstream Shi‘a adherents, Palestine also has
a population of Druze whose beliefs and practices developed out of Shiʿa
Islam. Another faith present in Palestine, which amongst other influences
has a strong Shiʿa component, is the Bahai religion. Although the Bahais
originated in nineteenth-century Iran, historical circumstances meant that
they had to relocate to Palestine, which became the world centre of this
global religion. Whilst Sunni Muslims might reluctantly accept Shiʿa Islam
as a part of the Muslim faith, both Druze and Bahais are usually consid-
ered to be outside Islam. Nevertheless, the material culture and the geo-
graphical origins of both Druze and Bahais are strongly related to Muslim

© The Author(s) 2018 107

A. Petersen, Bones of Contention, Heritage Studies in the Muslim
World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6965-9_7
108 A. PETERSEN

culture and theology. In addition, it is probable that the development of

Muslim shrines during the medieval period was heavily influenced by the
Shi‘a practices of veneration of members of the Prophet Muhammad’s
family. For example, Daniella Helmon-Teller (2007, 197–198) has shown
that during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Sunni Ayyubid rulers
initially sought to pacify the Shiʿa population by not only tolerating their
religious practices but also supporting their shrines (see also Mulder
2014). Later the Ayyubid rulers gradually took over the Shiʿa shrines,
establishing them as places for Sunni veneration, leading the Shiʿa to estab-
lish their own alternative shrines (Helmon-Teller 2007, 198).

Shiʿa Shrines
Given that most of the events concerned with the development of Shiʿa
Islam took place in Iraq, it is not surprising that there are no major Shiʿa
shrines in Palestine (for a discussion of the Shiʿa shrines in Iraq, see Allan
2012). Also, the fact that the majority of the Muslim population in
Palestine have been followers of Sunni Islam, even during the short period
of Fatimid domination in the tenth and eleventh centuries, has meant that
there are only a handful of Shiʿa Muslim shrines. Despite their limited
number, the Shiʿa shrines are of considerable historic and religious
significance.

Shrine of Husayn’s Head

Probably the most important Shiʿa shrine in Palestine is the mashhad in
Ascalon built to house the head of Husayn after he had been killed (mar-
tyred) at the battle of Karbala in Iraq on October 10, 680 AD. According
to several traditions, Husayn’s head was removed from his body and sent
to Yazid in Damascus, where it was kept in a niche in the Great Mosque,
whilst the body remained in Iraq and was interred in a grave, which
became the centre of the famous shrine at Karbala. According to some
views, Husayn’s head was returned directly from Damascus to Karbala
(Meri 2002, 192), whilst other traditions relate that it was removed from
Damascus and taken in secrecy to Ascalon by order of the Abbasid caliph
al-Muqtadir (d. 906). When the Fatimids gained control of Ascalon, they
established a shrine for the head which remained there until 1153 when
the city fell to the Crusaders. To protect the sacred relic, the Fatimids
transferred the head to al-Qaraffa in Cairo where another shrine was built
 SHIʿA, DRUZE AND BAHAI SHRINES 109

around the relic. According to the later Egyptian author al-Maqrizi

(1364–1442 AD), the head was taken to Cairo by the Fatimid vizier in a
green silk bag after paying a ransom to the Crusaders (Meri 2002, 193).
The Crusaders finally departed from Ascalon in 1247, leaving the city and
the fortification in ruins, although the shrine of Husayn’s head appears to
have survived intact, judging from the accounts of later Muslim visitors to
the city.
Although the original structure in Ascalon has been destroyed (see
below), the location of this shrine continues to have considerable signifi-
cance for Shi‘a Muslims who come from as far away as India to visit the
shrine. According to some scholars, the location of the mashhad on a hill
outside the city was previously known as the place of martyrdom of two
beheaded Christian martyrs. If this is the case, it is another example of a
sacred place being appropriated and re-invigorated as a Muslim shrine.
The history of the Ascalon shrine of the head is a complex phenomenon
with some significant gaps, which has recently been reconstructed in some
detail (Talmon-Heller et al. 2016). It is not clear when a shrine for the
head was first built in Ascalon, although a number of medieval Arabic
authors attribute the construction of the mashhad to the Fatimid vizier
Badr al-Jamali (d. 1094). The clearest physical evidence for the shrine is a
wooden minbar in the shrine of the Patriarchs in Hebron. The minbar
which was made in 1091–1092 AD (484 AH) carries a long inscription
which commemorates the construction of the mashhad in Ascalon and the
endowment of properties for the upkeep of the shrine. In addition to the
minbar, there are reports of five inscribed stones within the mosque at
Hebron which may actually be from the destroyed shrine at Ascalon
(Talmon-Heller et al. 2016, 187, note 2). Apart from the inscription on
the minbar, the earliest historical reference to the shrine of the head at
Ascalon is by the twelfth-century author Muhammad b. ‘Ali Ibn al-‘Imrani
(d. 1185) who records how the head was brought to Ascalon in the sev-
enth century during the reign of the Umayyad caliph Yazid (r. 683–684 AD)
(Talmon-Heller et al. 2016, 190).
There are only a few descriptions of the shrine in Ascalon (Grabar 1966,
29–30) and all of these are from the period after the removal of the head
to Cairo. One of the earliest descriptions is by the geographer Qazwini (d.
1283) who describes ‘a large shrine with columns’. The Moroccan traveller
al-‘Abdari visited Ascalon in the 1290s and described the Mazar Ra‘s
Husayn (Shrine of Husayn’s head) as a tall mosque built by the Fatimids,
according to an inscription above the entrance (Talmon-Heller et al. 2016,
110 A. PETERSEN

195). The shrine was singled out for particular criticism and ridicule by Ibn
Taymiyya, who described it as a fabrication of the Fatimids with no histori-
cal basis (Matthews 1936, 15). Despite this criticism, the mashhad contin-
ued to be an important shrine during the subsequent centuries and was
mentioned by both Mujir al-Din (d. 1522) and al-Nabulsi (d. 1731). By
the nineteenth century, the building was in ruins, and in 1876–1880, it was
rebuilt on the initiative of local villagers who also endowed it with waqf
properties to pay for its upkeep (Talmon-Heller et al. 2016, 198). This
building continued to be a place of visitation (ziyara) throughout the final
years of the Ottoman period and during the British Mandate until its
demolition by the Israeli army in 1950. The shrine comprised a central
courtyard built up on three sides with a prayer room on the south side.
According to Canaan, the former resting place of Husayn’s head was
marked by a pillar capped with a green turban over a red cloth (Canaan
1927, 151). Unfortunately, no plan of the building was made and the
reconstructions of the shrine by Talmon-Heller et al. (2016, 202, Fig. 4)
are based on a few photographs and Canaan’s observations of the interior.
Despite the limited information on the physical configuration of the
building and the absence of the primary relic (Husayn’s head) for the
majority of its existence, the shrine continued to be of great significance
up to its destruction in 1950, so much so that a commemorative prayer
platform was built on the site in 2000 AD. One of the interesting features
of this continued veneration is that throughout its history, visitors to the
shrine have been both from the Shiʿa and Sunni branches of Islam. This is
despite the Shiʿa origins of the shrine and the fact that its authenticity has
always been in question. If, as asserted by Ibn Taymiyya (Matthews 1936,
15–16) and more recently by De Smet (1998), the site was previously a
shrine for two beheaded Christian martyrs, this is a very strong argument
for the persistence of a sacred location which survived major changes in
professed faith and belief systems.

Nabi Yusha (Fig. 7.1 and Fig. 9.1, No. 3)

Unlike the shrine of Husayn’s head, which has considerable historical doc-
umentation but no surviving ancient structure, the shrine of Nabi Yusha
has a large ancient structure but very little historical documentation.
Nabi Yusha is located at the north-east of Palestine, on the border with
the modern country of Lebanon. The shrine formed the centre of a small
village at the edge of a ridge overlooking the Jordan valley and Lake Huleh
 SHIʿA, DRUZE AND BAHAI SHRINES 111

Fig. 7.1 The shrine of Nabi Yusha (Joshua) located high on a mountain to the
north of the Sea of Galilee. In addition to the tomb chamber and prayer hall, there
are rooms providing accommodation and facilities to the pilgrims

(now drained). During the Mandate period (1918–1948), Nabi Yusha was
one of a few sacred sites in northern Palestine where Lebanese pilgrims
were allowed to cross the borders to visit the shrine. During the month of
Sha‘ban, thousands of Shiʿa pilgrims from all over southern Lebanon gath-
ered at the shrine. Nabi Yusha was exceptional because in addition to pil-
grims, the terms of the ‘Bon Voissinage’ agreement allowed Lebanese
police to accompany the pilgrims to the shrine (Abou Hodeib 2015, 392).
According to local oral history, the village was first settled by members
of the Elghoul family in the mid-eighteenth century (Mohammed Elghoul
September 30th, 2002). The Elghoul family were Shi‘a Muslims originally
from the village of Mai al-Jabal in southern Lebanon. This tradition also
states that the village was built at a site already known as Nabi Yusha (the
Prophet Joshua). Certainly there are biblical traditions (Joshua XI, 1–11)
which associate the region with Joshua, a fact which was noted by Van de
Velde, one of the first nineteenth-century travellers to visit the shrine (Van
de Velde 1854, Vol. II, 416–417).
112 A. PETERSEN

Possibly the first indication of a Muslim shrine at the site is provided by

the Jewish traveller Rabbi Yizhaq Elfarra from Malaga in Spain, who vis-
ited Galilee in 1441. He states, ‘In Temnat Seraḥ, called in Arabic Kefar
Hanun [are the graves] of Nun, father of Hosea and his son Joshua and
Kaleb b. Yefuneh. A large sepulchre (binyan) [stands] on each of them.
The attendants are Muslims. They kindle lights over them and let in the
Jews. They sing songs of praise (shirot) and say penitential prayers (ṣliḥot)’
(trans. Meri 2002, 246).
Although the shrine was noted by a number of nineteenth- and early-­
twentieth-­century visitors to the region (e.g. Curtiss 1904, 101), there
was no archaeological investigation until 1966, when an emergency
archaeological survey established the need for a full documentation of the
site. In 1994, a detailed architectural survey of the shrine was carried out
followed by an excavation in 2014. The architectural survey revealed that
the shrine was a multi-period construction with the majority of structures
dating to the Ottoman period (Petersen 1996). The archaeological exca-
vations were carried out at three locations in the vicinity of the shrine and
revealed pottery and other objects dating from the late Ottoman to
Mandate periods (circa 1700s–1948), thus confirming the oral history
(Berger 2015).
A number of observations about Nabi Yusha are possible. The first is
that unlike Mashhad Ras Husayn, which has an explicit Shi‘a connection,
there are no particular Shi‘a connections with Nabi Yusha’ (Joshua).
Although not certain, it appears that in the fifteenth century, Nabi Yusha
was a shrine visited by probably Sunni Muslims. At some time after this
date, the shrine was abandoned until the eighteenth century, when it was
rediscovered and taken over by the Shi‘a population of the village. In this
case, it is the local population and visitors to the site which give it a Shi‘a
identity. The complex of buildings around the shrine is similar to those at
other Palestinian shrines catering for large numbers of pilgrims such as
Nabi Musa or Nabi Rubin. This suggests a common concept of shrine
architecture to accommodate festivals with little to no differentiation
between Sunni and Shi‘a shrines.

Druze Shrines
The Druze are a small ethnic religious community whose population is
divided between Syria (approx. 50%), Lebanon (approx. 40%), Jordan
(approx. 3%) and Israel/Palestine (approx. 7%). Although it is probable
 SHIʿA, DRUZE AND BAHAI SHRINES 113

that the ancestors of the Druze had some form of ethnic or religious iden-
tity before the eleventh century, they do not appear in history before this
time. Historically, the Druze trace their origins back to the reign of the
Fatimid caliph al-Hakim (985–1021 AD), who also figures as one of the
spiritual leaders of the faith. In religious terms the Druze can be regarded
as an offshoot of Ismaili Shiʿism, although in practice the faith shares little
in common with mainstream Shiʿa beliefs. Within Israel/Palestine, the
Druze are principally located in the hills and mountains of Galilee and
since the creation of Israel in 1948 have been unique amongst the Arab
populations in embracing and supporting the state of Israel. Although in
religious beliefs the Druze differ significantly from their Arab Muslim
neighbours, in cultural terms they are very similar and historically have
shared many of the same customs and sacred sites. However, since 1948,
the Druze in Israel have developed a more distinct identity, demonstrating
their enhanced status under Israeli rule. One of the main features of the
new identity is a preoccupation with sacred sites which, historically, were
only peripheral to the religious life of the community (Firro 2005, 219).
A recent study by an Israeli scholar gave a list of 67 Druze holy places
within Galilee (Avivi 2000). According to this study, an emphasis on
Druze sacred sites was encouraged by the Israeli state, which saw them
both as a means of claiming territory within a predominantly Muslim and
Christian Galilee and also as a means of establishing a distinct Druze iden-
tity. Within Israeli law, legal protection for a holy site was only given to
sites which comprise a mausoleum and preferably associated buildings.
However, until recently, the majority of Druze sacred places were not built
structures but instead comprised trees, springs and other natural features.
In order to gain recognition for these sites, many of them were converted
to maqams by the addition of buildings (Firro 2005, 223).

Nabi Shua’ayb (Fig. 9.1, No. 5)

Amongst the many sacred sites associated with the Druze, the shrine of
Nabi Shu’ayb has developed to become a major site of exclusively Druze
pilgrimage.
The shrine of Nabi Shu’ayb is located on a north-facing hillside to the
north-east of the village of Hattin. Much of the current shrine has been
rebuilt since 1948, although a series of cross-vaulted halls dates to the
Ottoman period or earlier (Petersen 2001, 148–150). One of the earliest
descriptions of the shrine is by the Persian traveller Nasir i-Khusraw, who
114 A. PETERSEN

travelled eastwards from Acre in 1047 specifically to visit sacred sites. His
description of the shrine is as follows:

In this valley is a spring of clear water gushing out from a rock, and over
against the spring, and upon the rock, they have built a mosque. In this
mosque are two chambers built of stone, with the ceiling likewise of stone;
the door of the same is so small that a man can only enter with difficulty.
Within there are two tombs, placed close side by side, one upon which is
that of Shu’ayb (Jethro)—peace be upon him!—and the other that of his
daughter, who was the wife of Musa and on him too be peace! The people
of the village are assiduous in keeping the mosque and the tombs swept
clean, and in the setting here of lamps and other such matters. (trans. Le
Strange 1893, 15–16)

Apart from the intrinsic interest of this early description of Nabi

Shu‘ayb, this description is of importance because it indicates that this was
a significant Muslim shrine before the advent of the Druze as religious
faith. It is likely that the shrine became more significant after the defeat of
the Crusaders in 1187 at the nearby Horns of Hattin. The shrine was also
visited by the fourteenth-century pilgrim al-Harawi (1957, 51–52), who
noted that there was another tradition placing Shu’ayb’s grave at Mecca.
In the seventeenth century, the Turkish traveller Evliya Çelebi (1980,
51–52) visited Nabi Shu’ayb, noting the gardens and caves in the vicinity
of the shrine. Evliya Çelebi (1980, 51–52) also relates a tradition that
Saladin entrusted the safe keeping of the shrine to Shaykh Imad al-Din,
who was a descendant of the Fatimids. Regardless of the origins of the
tradition, that fact that there was a Fatimid association in the seventeenth
century suggests that the Druze may have established some form of cus-
todianship of the shrine at this relatively early date. The earliest discussion
of the site within the Druze tradition occurs in the seventeenth-century
manuscript of Muhammad al-Ashrafani, which describes the shrine as
follows:

[Shu’ayb] had migrated from hijaz to Ard al-Sham [Greater Syria] and set-
tled in a village called Hattin where he died and was buried close to its
western side, in a valley which had no exit. The revered maqam is situated at
the edge [of the valley]. (Firro 2005, 225)

By the nineteenth century, the shrine of Nabi Shu’yab had become the
centre of an annual Druze religious festival. With the creation of the state
 SHIʿA, DRUZE AND BAHAI SHRINES 115

of Israel in 1948, Nabi Shu’ayb was made into an exclusively Druze shrine
and the centrepiece of Druze identity in Israel (Firro 2005, 239).

Bahai Shrines
The Bahai faith originated from the teachings of Baha’ulla in nineteenth-­
century Iran. Baha’ulla was himself a disciple of Ali Muhammad Shirazi,
also known as the Bab (Ar. door), who in 1844 founded the movement
known as Babism in expectation of the return of the twelfth Imam pre-
dicted in Twelver Shiʿism. Persecution of the Babi community in the late
1840s culminated in the execution of the Bab (Ali Muhammad Shirazi)
and many of his followers. Baha’ulla was imprisoned by the Qajar rulers
but eventually released, choosing exile within the territory neighbouring
Ottoman empire. The Ottoman authorities at first treated Baha’ulla as an
important guest, but following a series of controversies and court cases, he
was sent into internal exile in Acre, where he and his family arrived in
1868. On arrival in Acre, Baha’ulla was kept a prisoner in the citadel but
was later allowed to move outside the city, eventually being housed in a
large summer house outside Acre known as the Bahji Mansion, where he
died in 1892.
There are two major Bahai shrines in Palestine, one is the tomb of
Baha’ulla at the Bahji house outside Acre and the second is the tomb of
the Bab (‘Ali Muhammad Shirazi) whose remains were removed from Iran
in 1909 and are now interred in a specially built mausoleum in Haifa. In
addition to these two official Bahai shrines, there are a number of graves
of Baha’ulla’s relations and other people connected with the early history
of the movement which can be regarded as shrines (Ruhe 1986; Sharon
1997, 66–74). For example, the grave of ‘Awdah, a Christian (Greek
Orthodox) merchant who gave a house to Baha’ulla, is located within the
house at Bahji. His white marble tomb is located in a room in the south-
east corner of the mansion and identified by an Arabic naskhi inscription.
It is not clear whether ‘Awdah is to be regarded as a Christian or an early
convert although he clearly has a high status within the Bahai faith. On the
other hand, Baha’ulla’s son Muhammad ‘Ali Baha’i is not regarded with
favour by the Bahai community because he opposed the succession of his
half-brother ‘Abd al-Baha to leadership of the faith. Muhammad ‘Ali
Baha’i is buried in one of the two private Bahai cemeteries in a square
mausoleum covered with a white dome.
116 A. PETERSEN

Tomb of Bahá’u’lláh
When Baha’ulla died, he was interred in a tomb in the garden of the Bahji
mansion. The tomb is set within a square building covered with a ceramic
tiled roof. In front of the mausoleum there was a rectangular paved area
with a tree at the centre, which was subsequently enclosed and covered
with a pitched tiled roof with a glass clerestory. Both the entrance to the
enclosure and the door to the mausoleum itself are marked by identical
Arabic inscriptions on brass discs praising the splendour of God (Sharon
1997, 69). This is the holiest Bahai shrine and it also forms their direction
of prayer (qibla). Whilst the mausoleum complex is relatively simple, it is
located in the centre of a geometrically planted garden which recalls the
Persian origins of Bahá’u’lláh.

Tomb of the Bab

Before his death, Baha’ulla had travelled to Mount Carmel outside Haifa
and indicated the place where he thought the Bab’s remains should be
buried. Following the First World War and the defeat of the Ottoman
empire, the Bahais were able to construct a huge nine-roomed mausoleum
at the site and inter the mortal remains of the Bab, which had been brought
out of Iran. During this same period, the Bahais were ordered by their
second leader to live outside Palestine to allow the movement to grow as
a global faith. In consequence, the design of the shrine of the Bab at Haifa
has more in common with western architectural tradition than with the
architecture of Muslim shrines. The shrine is a massive classically inspired
building covered with a golden dome and sits at the centre of a huge
ornate set of terraced gardens which have become one of the defining
features of modern Haifa.

Conclusions
A number of observations are possible based on this review of Shiʿa and
other non-Sunni Muslim shrines in Palestine.
The first and most obvious point is that there are not many Shiʿa shrines
in Palestine compared with the thousands of Sunni shrines revealed in the
research of Frantzman and Bar (2013). The non-Sunni Muslim shrines are
limited in number, and in the case of the Shiʿa and Druze shrines, most
were either shared with Sunnis or primarily Sunni at some time in the past.
 SHIʿA, DRUZE AND BAHAI SHRINES 117

This is a very different situation from Iraq, Syria and Lebanon and is indic-
ative of an unusual degree of religious homogeneity amongst the Muslims
of Palestine.
The second point is that shrines can be used by different Muslim groups
and are not restricted to particular Muslim sects. For example, the tomb
of Nabi Shu’ayb was revered by Muslims even before the foundation of
the Druze faith just as the shrine of Nabi Yusha appears to have been
revered by Sunni Muslims and Jews prior to the arrival of Shiʿa families in
the mid-eighteenth century. This point is well known in relation to shrines
shared with Christians or Jews where different religious groups can share
a shrine or, in some cases, take over exclusive use of a shrine when the
community which founded the shrine has moved elsewhere (see, e.g. the
Tomb of Abu Hurayra/Rabbi Gamliel in Chap. 4).
The third point, which will be discussed in more detail in the next chap-
ter, is that the creation and maintenance of shrines can be a very political
process. In the case of the Druze, there was a political need for a separate
non-Muslim identity, which was met by the recent conversion of large
numbers of natural shrines into identifiable Druze shrines (maqamat)
complete with tombs and prayer rooms. Political needs probably also led
to the construction of the shrine (mashhad) of Husayn’s head at Ascalon
in the final years of Fatimid rule in the city. In the case of the Bahais, politi-
cal considerations meant that Muhammad ‘Ali Baha’i (one of Baha’ulla’s
sons) was buried in a private cemetery and despite the shrine-like appear-
ance of his mausoleum, his tomb did not develop as a shrine.
The final observation is that the physical appearance of Shiʿa, Sunni and
Bahai shrines does not differ from the more numerous Sunni shrines.
Whilst each shrine is, by definition, unique, there are few outward features
indicating whether a particular shrine is Shiʿa, Druze, Bahai or Sunni.
Inscriptions are probably the most useful indicator of the sectarian affilia-
tion of a particular shrine, although these can sometimes be cryptic, as in
the case of the Bahai shrines, or generic with little indication of the alle-
giances of the visitors to the shrine (as in the case of the inscriptions at
Nabi Yusha).

References
Abou Hodeib, T. 2015. Sanctity across the Border [Chap. 24]. In The Routledge
Handbook of the Middle East Mandates, ed. C. Shaygh and A. Arsan, 383–392.
London: Routledge.
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Allan, J. 2012. The Art and Architecture of Twelver Shiʿism: Iraq, Iran and the
Indian Sub-Continent. Oxford: Azimuth Editions/Oxbow.
Avivi, S. 2000. ha-Druzim be-Yisrael ve Mekomotehen ha-Kdoshim (in Hebrew)
[The Druze in Israel and Their Holy Places].
Berger, U. 2015. En Nabi Yusha. Hadashot Arkheologiyot 27, December 9.
Canaan, T. 1927. Mohammedan Saints and Sanctuaries in Palestine. London:
Luzac and Co.
Curtiss, S. 1904. Researches in Syria and Palestine Conducted in the Summer of
1903. The Biblical World 3(2) (February): 91–103.
De Smet, D. 1998. La Translation du Ra’s al-Huṣayn au Caire fatị mide. In History
of Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras II, ed.
U. Vermeulen and D. De Smet, 29–44. Leuven: Peeters.
Firro, K.M. 2005. Druze Maqamat (Shrines) in Israel: From Ancient to Newly-­
Invented Tradition. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 32(2) (November):
217–239.
Frantzman, S.J., and D. Bar. 2013. Mapping Muslim Sacred Tombs in Palestine
during the Mandate Period. Levant 45 (1): 96–111.
Grabar, O. 1966. The Earliest Islamic Commemorative Structures, Notes and
Documents. Ars Orientalis 6: 7–46.
Le Strange, G. 1893. Diary of a Journey through Syria and Palestine by Nasir
i-Khusrau in 1047 AD. London: Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Society.
Matthews, C.D. 1936. A Muslim Iconoclast (Ibn Taymiyyeh) on the “Merits” of
Jerusalem and Palestine. Journal of the American Oriental Society 56: 1–21.
Meri, J. 2002. The Cult of Saints among Muslims and Jews in Medieval Syria.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mulder, S. 2014. The Shrines of the ʿAlids in Medieval Syria: Sunnis, Shiʿis and the
Architecture of Coexistence. Edinburgh Studies in Islamic Art. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press.
Petersen, A.D. 1996. A Preliminary Report on Three Muslim Shrines in Palestine.
Levant 28: 97–113.
———. 2001. Gazetteer of Medieval and Ottoman Buildings in Muslim Palestine
(Part 1). British Academy Monographs in Archaeology No. 12. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Ruhe, D. 1986. Door of Hope: A Century of the Baha’I Faith in the Holy Land.
Welwyn: George Ronald.
Sharon, M. 1997. Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum Palaestinae. Vol. 1: A. Leiden
and Boston: Brill.
Talmon-Heller, D. 2007. Islamic Piety in Medieval Syria: Mosques, Cemeteries and
Sermons under the Zangids and Ayyubids (1146–1260). Leiden and Boston:
Brill.
Talmon-Heller, D., B.Z. Kedar, and Y. Reiter. 2016. Vicissitudes of a Holy Place:
Construction, Destruction and Commemoration of Mashhad Ḥ usayn in
Ascalon. Der Islam 93 (1): 182–215.
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Van de Veld, C.W.M. 1854. Narrative of a Journey through Syria and Palestine in
1851 and 1852. London and Edinburgh: Blackwood and Sons.

Arabic, Persian and Turkish Sources

Çelebi, Evliya. 1980. Evliya Tshelebi’s Travels in Palestine (1648–1650). Trans.
H. Stephan. Jerusalem: Ariel Press.
al-Harrawi, Abu Hasan Ali b Abi Bakr. 1957. Guide des lieux de pelerinage (Kitab
al-Isharat ila ma’rifat al-ziyarat). Ed. and Trans. S. Thoumine. Damascus:
Ma’had al-faransi bi Dimshaq.
 PART III

Shrines in the Contemporary World

 CHAPTER 8

Destruction, Neglect and Appropriation:

The Demise of Muslim Shrines

Abstract This chapter discusses the decline of Muslim shrines during the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The creation of the State of Israel in
1948 has resulted in the destruction of some Muslim shrines, the aban-
donment and neglect of many more and the appropriation of others.
Whilst some of the damage to tombs might be a direct result of Israeli
actions, it is suggested that a large number of Muslim shrines have suf-
fered because of a decline in Sufism and the growth of fundamentalist
Islam.

Keywords Rachel’s tomb • Ramla • Nablus • Israel

It is difficult to gauge when Muslim shrines reached their maximum num-

ber in Palestine. The numerous descriptions and discussions of shaykh’s
tombs and maqams at the beginning of the twentieth century suggests
that the period immediately prior to the First World War may have marked
the high point of Muslim shrines in the country. Frantzman and Bar
(2013, 98–99) have argued that the high point was reached during the
Mandate period, as the Muslim population of the country was higher in
this period than during the late Ottoman period and because the shrines
were ‘still popular amongst the local population’. However, De Jong
(1983, 156) suggests that Muslim saints’ shrines may have suffered a

© The Author(s) 2018 123

A. Petersen, Bones of Contention, Heritage Studies in the Muslim
World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6965-9_8
124 A. PETERSEN

decline prior to the twentieth century which was caused by the Egyptian
occupation of the early nineteenth century. Without quantifiable data
from the early nineteenth and late eighteenth centuries, it is difficult to
assess how this compared with either the late nineteenth century or the
Mandate period. However, what is clear from the work of Paul Kahle is
that there was probably a constant change in which particular shrines were
in use at any one time. Writing in the last years of Ottoman rule, Kahle
notes that whilst some shrines were forming around the graves of recently
deceased Sufis, other longer-established shrines were falling out of use.
Shrines which became neglected were usually those without an endow-
ment or waqf to pay for their maintenance. Another cause of shrines fall-
ing out of use could be the movement of a population to another area,
although, of course, there are many examples of shrines continuing to be
visited in these circumstances.
According to Canaan, many shrines were either damaged or destroyed
during the First World War; thus he states that Shaykh Nuran between
Shallaleh and Khan Yunis was completely levelled ‘in order to deprive the
enemy of a mark for his guns’ (Canaan 1927, 11). However, there may
have been a revival in the use and maintenance of shrines after the war;
thus Frantzman and Bar (2013, 98–99) argue that shrines reached their
maximum number during this period. However, the period since 1948 has
seen a sharp decline both in the numbers of the shrines and in the numbers
of visitors to the shrines. This is the result of a number of different pro-
cesses which are related to issues such as the founding of the State of
Israel, the various conflicts and civil unrest which have become character-
istic of the region and changing perceptions on the role of shrines within
Muslim religion and culture. The combined effects of these factors have
led to a variety of outcomes, including (1) deliberate destruction or demo-
lition of shrines, (2) abandonment, neglect and disintegration of shrine
buildings and (3) appropriation of Muslim shrines by other religions.

Destruction
The destruction of shrines can be of several types, from deliberate targeted
destruction of particular buildings to generalized destruction or levelling
of abandoned settlements, which may include the demolition of shaykh’s
tombs as well as other buildings. In addition, buildings may be destroyed
or damaged accidentally, either as a result of conflict or during military
training exercises. The outright targeted destruction of Muslim shrines
 DESTRUCTION, NEGLECT AND APPROPRIATION: THE DEMISE OF MUSLIM… 125

appears to be fairly rare and was mostly carried out during the early years
of Israeli independence. Thus, Modechai Bar-On, a company commander
in Central Command, stated, ‘The villages were levelled and the mosques
disappeared with them, but I am not familiar with an order to demolish
only mosques. It doesn’t sound reasonable to me’ (cited in Rapoport
2008, 84).
One of the most famous examples is the Mashhad Ras Husayn or the
shrine of Husayn’s head in Ascalon, which was blown up by the Israeli
army in 1950 (for a discussion of the Shi‘a origins of this shrine, see Chap.
7). Whilst at first the destruction of the shrine was presented as an unfor-
tunate mistake which went against the expressed policy of the Israeli gov-
ernment, recent research has shown that it was carried out under the
orders of Moshe Dayan, commander of Israel’s Southern Command. It is
likely that this was part of a wider policy designed to encourage the Arabs
inhabitants of the region to leave the country (Talmon-Heller et al., 2016,
205–206). It is not clear why this particular shrine was targeted when
there were a number of other shrines and Muslim religious buildings in
the vicinity of ancient Ascalon, including the Shrine of Shaykh ‘Awad and
Sittna Khadra (Hammami 1994, 24). It is possible that the buildings of
the Mashhad Husayn were regarded as architecturally unimportant, espe-
cially as there had been some dispute about whether the building destroyed
was located in the same place as the shrine built in the twelfth century.
Certainly, it is known that the shrine complex was rebuilt in the late nine-
teenth century with money collected from the local villages, and extant
photographs of the shrine indicate that it was a roughly square complex of
buildings of late Ottoman design. During the Mandate period, the build-
ing was not recorded in detail by the Department of Antiquities partly
because it was in religious use and partly because it was thought to be
mostly a modern (i.e. nineteenth century) structure. More recent research
has shown that the destroyed structure was likely to have been at the same
location as the Fatimid building and probably contained parts of the
ancient shrine. However, the main reason that the shrine was destroyed
was probably because it was a major centre of pilgrimage for the local
population and held one of the five major annual festivals (mawasim) cel-
ebrated in Palestine (Canaan 1927, 214–215). The destruction of the
shrine would therefore remove an incentive to return for the displaced
population of the region and also provide a psychological victory for the
Israelis. The fact that the shrine does not appear to have contained any
human remains (as most accounts agree that the head was removed to
126 A. PETERSEN

Cairo in the twelfth century) will have made the destruction easier in
­ethical terms. Ironically, the destruction of the shrine by the Israeli Army
has enabled the site to be re-used and developed by a Shi‘a Muslim sect
(the Daudi Bohras) from India who rebuilt in the year 2000 (Talmon-
Heller et al. 2016, 211).
The former village of Isdud located approximately 15 km to the
north-­west of Ascalon provides another example of deliberate destruc-
tion. The village of Isdud was located to the east of the modern Israeli
town of Ashdod and part of the village was built over the ancient site of
Tell Ashdod. Prior to its capture by the Israelis in 1948, Isdud was a
densely built settlement with a population of 4000–5000 people living
mostly in mud-brick houses with thatched roofs made from date palm
leaves (Khalidi 1992, 110). The village had two mosques as well as two
shrines. Today, only one of the mosques and one of the shrines is still
standing (Petersen 2001a, 156–157). In 1948, the village was the site of
fierce conflict between Egyptian troops and Israeli forces which ended in
an Israeli victory. It is not clear how much of the village was destroyed,
but in 1949, Trude Dothan and L.A. Mayer carried out a survey of the
abandoned houses in the village as well as the Muslim shrine complex
containing the tombs of Ibrahim Matabuli and Salman al-Farisi (Dothan
1964). By this time the shrine was certainly known as an important his-
torical monument given that two inscriptions from the shrine dated to
1269 AD and 1472 were published by L.A. Mayer in issues of the
Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities of Palestine (Mayer 1933,
24–25). It is not known when the shrine was destroyed, although a large
part of the village had either been destroyed or completely fallen into
ruin by 1962, when a joint Israeli-­American expedition began the exca-
vation of the tell. The shrine had certainly been destroyed by the time
Trude Dothan published her description of the shrine in 1964. Neither
the motivation nor the people responsible for the destruction of the
shrine are known, although given that some of the buildings have sur-
vived, it was certainly a deliberate act carried out after the Israeli’s had
gained control of the site in 1948.
Whilst it is unlikely that the building housing the shrines of Ibrahim
Matabuli and Salman al-Farisi was destroyed to allow archaeological
excavations to take place at Isdud, the demolition of the houses in the
village would certainly have made excavation of the tell much easier.
Many of the other ancient sites identified with biblical narratives also had
Palestinian villages built over them with Muslim shrines in their centres.
 DESTRUCTION, NEGLECT AND APPROPRIATION: THE DEMISE OF MUSLIM… 127

Following the expulsion of the Palestinian inhabitants in 1948, many of

these villages were demolished, sometimes leaving the odd isolated
structure and in other cases leaving a hill or a tell completely free of
buildings and available for archaeological excavation of the pre-Islamic
levels. The Israeli historian Aron Shi‘a has recently produced evidence
that the clearance and levelling of villages was carried out in collabora-
tion with archaeologists from the Israel Archaeological Survey Society
(IASS). Between 1965 and 1969, the IASS was paid by the Israel Land
Administration to carry out a survey of more than 100 villages prior to
their destruction, to record features of archaeological importance. In
some cases, important buildings or features were designated for preser-
vation although the majority of buildings were ‘levelled’ (Shai 2006).
Examples of villages located on major biblical sites include the village of
Zar‘in, which occupied the ancient site of Tel Jezreel, and the village of
Abu Shusha, which occupied the summit of Tell Gezer. In both cases the
villages were levelled, leaving the site available for archaeological excava-
tion. Whilst there is direct evidence of the destruction of the medieval
tower at Zar’in/Tell Jezreel (Rapoport 2008, 87), the circumstances of
the destruction of the shrine at Tell Gezer are less clear. Tel Gezer was
first excavated in the early 1900s by a team led by R.S. Macalister from
the University College Dublin. In the resulting publication, Macalister
published a transcription and translation of an inscription dated 1607 AD
carved into a stone above the doorway of a shrine at the summit of the
tell. Macalister clearly found the presence of the shrine difficult, describ-
ing it as ‘a serious obstacle to our excavation’ (Macalister 1912, 43).
Following the creation of Israel in 1948, the village of Abu Shusha was
the site of a battle resulting in the expulsion of the Palestinian inhabit-
ants and a possible massacre. The remains of the village were destroyed
sometime in 1965, and it is probable that the shrine was also destroyed
at this time (Shai 2006, 86–106).
The situation within the old Arab Palestinian towns and cities such as
Haifa, Jaffa, Ramla, Lid/Lydda, Acre, Tiberias and Safed was similar but
different. In practical terms, it was impossible to demolish whole cities
and in any case would probably attract too much attention. Instead, large
parts of the historic centres of cities were demolished; thus in Tiberias, in
August 1948, ‘the army began to blow up a hefty strip of buildings in the
Old City’ (Pinkerfeld, cited in Rapoport 2008, 88). The demolition
included much of the old walls of the city including designated antiqui-
ties. Similarly in Haifa, large sections of the Old City were indiscrimi-
128 A. PETERSEN

nately destroyed, including mosques and synagogues (Rapoport 2008).

In such case, many Muslim shrines were destroyed as part of the general
destruction though others survived. Within the historic centre of Ramla,
approximately half of the designated historic buildings were destroyed in
1948, including the majority (10 out of 16) of the Muslim shrines (the
buildings designated as mosques had a better survival rate: 6 out of 15).
When the actual buildings destroyed are looked at in more detail, it is
evident that the six mosques destroyed could equally well be designated
as shrines (e.g. they were built around tombs), whilst the mosques which
survived were those which had prayer halls that had been in frequent use
(Petersen 1995, 78, Fig. 3). This may be because there was a specific
injunction against the destruction of mosques; thus Lieutenant Colonel
Michael Avitzur wrote that the demolition of the mosque in Yavneh
(Yibna) took place in July 1950 before ‘the date on which the cessation of
blowing up mosques was announced’ (Rapoport 2008, 84). Thus in
Ramla, it appears that Muslim shrines suffered disproportionately because
they did not have the protection given to mosques. Amongst the shrines
in Ramla which were destroyed was the Maqam Sitt Halima, which was a
square Mamluk domed building with a tomb in the middle dated to
1405 AD (807 AH). The walls of the building were lined with marble
panels and the dome rested on four squinches (Petersen 1995, Fig. 3, No.
37, Figs. 25–27).

Abandoned and Neglected Shrines

Although it is evident that large numbers of shrines were demolished as a
result of warfare and its aftermath, it is likely that the vast majority of
shrines indicated in the maps of the Mandate period were not destroyed.
This is partly because many of the shrines were located outside the resi-
dential areas of villages and also because they were simply too numerous.
However, the circumstances following the War of Independence in 1948
and the subsequent expansion into the West Bank and Gaza in 1948 meant
that many of the shrines have since been abandoned and neglected, often
falling into ruin or disappearing beneath vegetation or rubbish. At this
point, it is worth noting that the fate of Muslim shrines within the 1948
boundaries of Israel differs significantly from those within the West Bank
and Gaza. In order to gain a better idea of how shrines are either used or
abandoned in the whole of pre-1948 Palestine, the two areas, Israel and
the Palestinian territories, will be discussed separately.
 DESTRUCTION, NEGLECT AND APPROPRIATION: THE DEMISE OF MUSLIM… 129

Israel Within the 1948 Boarders

It will be evident that the demolition of Palestinian villages and large sec-
tions of towns not only led to the destruction of individual shrines but also
caused significant damage to the shrines which remained standing. In
addition, it should be pointed out that not all of the shrines identified
before 1948 were either in religious use or in a good physical condition.
For example, photographs of the shrines in Ramla show buildings in a
wide variety of conditions, from complete and well maintained to ruined
and apparently abandoned. Some of the buildings may have been dam-
aged in an earthquake which struck Palestine in 1927, whilst other build-
ings may have lacked funds for their maintenance due to decisions of the
Supreme Muslim Council, which, in 1922, had taken control of the
awaqaf (Ar s. waqf) funds for the maintenance of shrines. However, it is
clear that some buildings which were in a good condition before 1948
have since been abandoned and allowed to fall into ruin. Examples include
the shrine of Shaykh Abdallah al-Bataihi (Petersen 1995, Fig. 3, No. 30),
which has now virtually disappeared beneath vegetation and rubble but
which, though ruined, seemed to be well maintained and in use during the
1930s when it was photographed by the Palestine Department of
Antiquities. Other buildings in Ramla which are in a ruinous condition
and stand neglected include the shrines of Shaykh Stuh, Shaykh Sa’d wa
Sa’id and Shaykh Muhammad al-Qubbi (Petersen 1995, Fig. 3, Nos. 21,
23 and 32).
Throughout Israel there are similar examples of abandoned and
neglected Muslim shrines; documented examples include Maqam Shaykh
Zayd, Maqam Shaykh Musafir, Maqam al-Nabi Bulus, Nabi Kifl, Nabi
Thari, Maqam Shakykh Ghazi and Maqam ‘Abd al-Nabi (Petersen 2001a,
123, 195, 225–226, 227, 232–233, 282–283 and 298–299). In the
majority of these cases, the shrines are abandoned and falling into ruin
because the local Arab Palestinian population has been dispersed and is no
longer in a position to maintain the shrine. There also are many examples
of shrines which appear to be still maintained in some form even if the vil-
lage or settlement in the immediate vicinity no longer exists. Evidence for
continued use of shrines includes the presence of a green cloth draped
over the tomb or cenotaph as well as candles and, in some cases, olive oil
containers. In the better-maintained or well-used shrines, there may also
be mats and copies of the Quran. One of the best examples of a well-­
maintained tomb where the local population has dispersed is the Maqam
130 A. PETERSEN

Shaykh Tamim adjacent to the abandoned village of Bayt Jibrin. The

shrine comprises a domed mausoleum with an arched portico, a vaulted
prayer hall with mihrab and a well. The entire complex is surrounded by a
tall (1.5 m high) enclosure wall (Petersen 2001a, 122–123). However, the
majority of Muslim shrines which are well maintained are located either in
or adjacent to settlements with a Muslim population. For example, there
are many well-maintained shrines in Galilee, where a higher proportion of
Palestinian villages survived. In many cases, these appear to be in frequent
religious use. For example, in the twin villages of Shaykh Danun and
Shaykh Daud in northern Galilee, the respective shrines have prayer halls
attached which seem to function as the village mosque on a daily basis
(Petersen 2001a, 281–282). In both cases the mausoleum containing the
tomb of the saint is in a separate room, which means that modern ideas of
Muslim worship are not directly confronted with the veneration of
shaykh’s tombs (see below for a discussion of the impact of modern Islam
on Muslim shrines). In many cases, modern prayer halls are built next to
existing shrines; thus in the village of Shaykh Maysar a small domed
maqam is located next to the modern mosque. There have been attempts
to modernize the appearance of the shrine; thus the exterior is covered
with irregular stone cladding, whilst the interior walls are covered with
modern ceramic tiles.

The Palestinian Territories (West Bank and Gaza)

The Palestinian territories were first brought under Israeli control in 1968
and remained under military occupation until 1996. The current situation
within the Palestinian territories is complex with some areas under
Palestinian control, other areas under joint Israeli-Palestinian control and
some places where Israeli authority has been retained. Within this area, the
fate of shrines resembles the situation in Galilee where many shaykh’s
tombs continue to be used and maintained. Salah al-Houdalieh’s study of
the Maqam of Shihab al-Din, 21 km north-west of Jerusalem, provides a
good example of a local village shrine which is still in religious use, yet is
also valued for its historical significance see (al-Houhdalieh 2010).
However, in many cases there is a tendency to build new mosques either
next to the older shrines or, in some cases, over the shrines—a situation
which has also been observed in Lebanon, where historical Muslim shrines
are concealed within modern buildings. There are, however, some excep-
tions to this general situation—in the first place, there are some shrines
 DESTRUCTION, NEGLECT AND APPROPRIATION: THE DEMISE OF MUSLIM… 131

Fig. 8.1 Maqam Shaykh Zaytoun located on a high mountain near Ramallah.
Although technically within the designated Palestinian territory, the shrine is in a
zone controlled by the Israeli military

which although in the Palestinian territories are not accessible to either

Palestinians or civilians. Examples include shrines in Israeli controlled areas
such as Maqam Shaykh Zaytun which is located on a hilltop to the west of
Ramallah in an area controlled by the Israeli military (Fig. 8.1). Whilst the
building is not threatened with imminent destruction, its exposed location
and the fact that there is no access for repairs or maintenance means that it
will eventually fall into ruin. Secondly, there is the situation where Islamic
shrines are appropriated and Muslims are either excluded or have very
restricted and partial access to particular Holy places.

Contested Shrines
Whilst the fact that some shrines are used by two or more of the major
faiths (Muslim, Christians, Jews and Druze) has often been celebrated, it
has also caused some of the biggest controversies in the region. This of
course applies to the most famous shrines such as the Haram al-Sharif in
Jerusalem and the Haram in Hebron. In Jerusalem, to a certain extent the
132 A. PETERSEN

problem is contained by the fact that the Jewish population has had exclu-
sive religious access to the Western wall, which is generally accepted as part
of the Temple, whilst the Muslims have exclusive use of the enclosure
above, which only contains buildings of the Islamic period. In Hebron,
the situation is more problematic, as the Tombs of the Patriarchs are
claimed by both Jews and Muslims—the resulting compromise, whereby
the interior of the shrine is split between Jews and Muslims, is less clear
than Jerusalem and there are frequent eruptions of violence.
In addition to Hebron and Jerusalem, there are many examples of
shrines with shared Muslim and Jewish associations. For example, many of
the medieval shrines built or revived by the Mamluks related to figures
from the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) rather than to figures shared with
the Christian tradition (see, e.g. Petersen 2001b; Frenkel 2001, 154).
One of the most important shrines built or rebuilt by Baybars was the
tomb of Moses near Jericho. Although the site became a major pilgrimage
centre for Palestinian Muslims, it never acquired a Jewish following partly
because biblical tradition explicitly locates the tomb of Moses at an
unknown location outside Palestine. The site has also been protected from
appropriation because the site has had a continuous Muslim presence even
though the annual festival (mawsim) was banned during the British
Mandate because of its links to Palestinian nationalism.
There are, however, many other shrines connected with Old Testament
figures where there are disputes, confrontations and occasional violence.
Outside Jerusalem and Hebron, probably the most famous example of a
contested shrine is the tomb of Rachel which stands on the road between
Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

Rachel’s Tomb
According to biblical tradition, Rachel died whilst giving birth to Benjamin
and was buried where she died on the route from Bethel to Ephrath (for a
detailed structural history of the shrine, see Pringle 1998, 171–172). The
site identified with her place of burial has a long history and was first men-
tioned by Eusebius in the Onomasticon, stating that her grave was to be
found at the fourth milestone from Jerusalem. In the seventh century AD,
the site was visited by the monk Arculf, who stated, ‘Rachel’s tomb is …
on your right as you go towards Hebron. It is of poor workmanship,
unadorned and protected by a stone rail. Today they point out an inscrip-
tion giving her name, which Jacob her husband erected over it’ (Wilkinson
 DESTRUCTION, NEGLECT AND APPROPRIATION: THE DEMISE OF MUSLIM… 133

1977, 208–209). The first description of a building at the site was by al-­
Idrissi, who, in 1154, wrote, ‘The tomb is covered by twelve stones and
above it is a dome vaulted over with stone’ (trans. Le Strange 34; Le
Strange 1890, 299). The shrine was renovated in the fifteenth century
according to al-Dhahiri, who stated that his own father had built a dome
over the grave as well as a cistern and public drinking fountain (Marmardji
1951, 35). In the seventeenth century, Richard Pococke observed that the
arches supporting the dome were filled in to prevent the Jews coming into
the shrine whilst the surrounding area was a Muslim cemetery (Pococke
1743, Vol. II, 39). In the nineteenth century, the site increasingly attracted
the interest of European visitors to Palestine, who were coming to Palestine
in increasing numbers. One of the most prominent visitors was the Jewish
businessman Sir Moses Montefiore and his wife Judith, who visited the
tomb twice in 1827 and 1839. The second visit took place after the earth-
quake in 1837, and Lady Montefiore convinced Sir Moses to pay for the
renovation of the shrine, including the construction of a Muslim prayer
room or mosque attached to the tomb (Loewe, ed. 1890, Vol. 1, 182).
The renovation was completed by 1841 and included arrangements for
joint Jewish and Muslim access to the chamber containing the tomb
(Bowman 2014, 38). Although there are no descriptions of the tomb in
the Montefiore diaries, the fact that Sir Moses chose a replica of Rachel’s
tomb for his own mausoleum in Ramsgate indicates that the tomb had a
profound effect on both him and his wife (Kadish 2006, 58–62). Following
the renovation work paid for by Sir Moses, Rachel’s tomb increasingly
became available to Jews who now had their own keys to the tomb cham-
ber. From the late Ottoman period through to the end of the British
Mandate in 1948, there was joint Jewish and Muslim access to the shrine.
Between 1948 and 1967, Jewish access to the site was virtually non-­
existent as the shrine lay within Jordanian control. Following the occupa-
tion of the West Bank in 1968, the shrine became a predominantly Jewish
pilgrimage site with decreasing access to Muslims. In 1995, a Yeshiva
(Jewish Religious College) was built at the site, and five years later, in
2000, the entire complex was surrounded with a concrete wall and turned
into a fortress. As a result, since 2000, there has been virtually no access to
Muslims and Rachel’s tomb has become an exclusively Jewish shrine
(Bowman 2014, 36–37).
From this brief review, it is evident that for much of its history the
shrine was considered as a Muslim holy place, although it was evidently
also revered by people of other faiths. It is also clear that for some of this
134 A. PETERSEN

period Jews were excluded from the shrine but that for much of its history
the shrine was visited by Muslim, Jewish and Christian pilgrims. The fact
that Sir Moses Montefiore built a mosque at the site clearly indicates that
he regarded the shrine as a place to be shared between Jews and Muslims.
However, Bowman has argued that the provision of the mosque meant
that Muslims were increasingly separated from Jewish pilgrims and that
this strengthened Jewish claims to the site (Bowman 2014, 43–44). In any
case the current situation with the shrine encased in a six-metre-high wall
denies Muslim access to the site which for much of its existence was a tes-
timony to the shared heritage of Muslims and Jews.

Nabi Samwil (The Prophet Samuel)

The shrine of Nabi Samwil (Samuel) to the west of Jerusalem has had a
more complex history both in terms of the structure itself and because of
its location. The shrine is located on the summit of a hill (800 m above sea
level) within sight of Jerusalem and has many ancient traditions linking it
to the Prophet Samuel. By the sixth century, a Byzantine monastery was
established at the site, providing pilgrims with accommodation and facili-
ties on their way to Jerusalem. The Crusaders established a church at the
site in the twelfth century, which was later converted to a mosque during
the rule of Saladin. Although technically the shrine is located within the
Palestinian Territories, it is now within an area known as the ‘Seam Zone’,
which is the territory between the Green Line (1948 Armistice Line) and
Israel’s separation barrier. For practical purposes, this means that the
shrine is located within Israel. Prior to 1967 (the Six-Day War), the shrine
stood at the centre of a village which was subsequently depopulated and
demolished. In 1995, the area was declared an Israeli National Park and
there have been archaeological excavations of the former village to reveal
Crusader, Byzantine and earlier remains. Although Muslims continue to
use the mosque (formerly the Crusader church), they are excluded from
religious visits to the tomb chamber below, which is reserved for Jewish
ritual use (Mizrachi and Sulymani 2013).

Qabr Yusef (The Tomb of Joseph)

Whilst there are clearly some contentious issues surrounding the Tomb of
Samuel such as the fate of the Palestinian village or religious access to the
tomb chamber, these have not resulted in violent clashes. The same cannot
 DESTRUCTION, NEGLECT AND APPROPRIATION: THE DEMISE OF MUSLIM… 135

be said for the Tomb of Joseph located in the eastern part of Nablus,
which has been the focus of religious and communal violence culminating
in repeated attempts to destroy the tomb since the year 2000. Besides
damage to the tomb, the attacks have also resulted in many Palestinian and
Israeli deaths.
The association of the site with Joseph’s burial place is of considerable
antiquity and can be traced back to the Book of Joshua 24:32 (see Chap.
1 “Introduction”). The biblical site of Shechem is now generally acknowl-
edged to be the archaeological site of Tell Balata located to the east of
Nablus and near the building identified as the tomb of Joseph. Although
there is no comparable statement in the Quran, several Muslim traditions
identify Nablus as the burial place of Joseph. For example, Ali of Herat,
writing in 1173, notes that Joseph is buried at the foot of a tree near
Nablus although he also notes another tradition that he was buried in
Hebron (Le Strange 1890, 512). The fifteenth century writer Mujir al-­
Din appears to give preference to Hebron as the place of Joseph’s burial
although he also notes that there is a tomb of Joseph near to Nablus as
well as the tombs of other prophets (Sauvaire 1876, 21–23, 216–217). In
the eighteenth century, the tomb was visited by Abd al-Ghani al-Nalbusi,
who noted that although the shrine was covered with a dome, it was not
architecturally impressive (ed. al-Haridi 1986, 144).
The most detailed structural description of the shrine is provided by the
Survey of Western Palestine, which notes that it was repaired by Mr
E.T. Rogers, the British Consul at Damascus in 1868. Kabr Yusef is described
as a large rectangular structure (6’ × 3’ and 4’ high) with a ridge along the
top and pillars at either end. The pillar at the foot of the tomb contained a
cup-shaped recess ‘where oil lamps are lighted and incense burnt by the
Jews and the Samaritans’. The tomb itself is enclosed within a square court-
yard (18’7” × 18’7”) with whitewashed plastered walls 10 feet high. On the
south side of the enclosure wall, there was a mihrab niche and two modern
Hebrew inscriptions. To the north of the recently repaired building, there
was a ruined enclosure containing the remains of a small building covered
with a dome (Conder and Kitchener 1882, 194–195). It is not, however,
clear whether the tomb itself was covered with a dome at this point, although
photographs of the tomb from the end of the nineteenth century indicate
that it had the form of a typical shaykh’s tomb comprising a domed tomb
chamber, an arched portico and a small enclosure.
During the 1920s, the tomb was visited by Jaussen as part of his study
of Nablus. After describing the physical appearance of the shrine with its
136 A. PETERSEN

external courtyard and domed shrine, he notes that it was visited by

Muslims of all types (‘Le tombeau est visite par touse les Musulmans de
Naplouse et des villages voisoins’), women seeking reconciliation with
their spouses or men searching for their lost brothers (Jaussen 1927,
156–157).
Within the present context of the continuing violence surrounding the
Tomb of Joseph, it is difficult to discuss either ownership or rights of
access to the shrine. However, it is clear that in the past the shrine was
utilized by Samaritans, Jews and Muslims. With the Israeli occupation of
the West Bank in 1967, the tomb increasingly became identified as a
Jewish ritual site by Israeli settlers, leading to the exclusion of Muslims in
1975. The shrine was then developed by an Israeli settler group linked to
an adjacent Israeli army post. With the implementation of the Oslo
Accords, Nablus, including Joseph’s tomb, was placed in ‘Zone A’, which
meant that the area was totally within the control of the Palestinian
National Authority. However, Israeli settlers and extremists continued to
visit the tomb with resulting conflict over access. Since 2000, there have
been repeated attacks on the shrine and the Yeshiva by Palestinian activists
angered by the presence of Israeli settlers visiting the tomb (see, e.g.
Levinson 2015).

Conclusion
During the years since 1948, there has certainly been a decrease in the
number of Muslim shrines in Palestine. The decrease is due to a number
of factors which are both religious and political. In religious terms, there
has been a move away from the creation of new saints or shaykh’s tombs,
which is connected with a decline in Sufism and increased participation in
formal worship in mosques. In the course of time, one would normally
expect some shrines to deteriorate, as they no longer had visitors, whilst
other new shrines would gain in importance. However, this situation is no
longer the case and the shrines which have fallen out of active use have
generally not been replaced. Although the graves of a few prominent
­figures such as Iz al-Din Qassam have achieved shrine-like status, this is
very much the exception. Certainly, this is not the same situation as during
the early twentieth century when there were numerous shaykhs and holy
men, both living and recently died, whose places of burial were expected
to develop as shrines. This change may partly be connected with an
increase in literacy as well as the influence of Salafists in Saudi Arabia and
 DESTRUCTION, NEGLECT AND APPROPRIATION: THE DEMISE OF MUSLIM… 137

other Gulf countries, where many Palestinians have been employed as

expatriate workers.
Whilst shrines are no longer a mainstream part of religious Islam in
Palestine, the political and cultural significance of the existing shrines has
increased. As detailed above, large numbers of shrines, particularly in
southern Palestine, were destroyed as part of a planned policy of village
demolition. The same also occurred in towns such as Ramla and Lydda,
where large sections of the historic cores were destroyed. In some cases
the depopulated villages were destroyed but the shrines were left standing.
Many of these standing buildings are left derelict or in a neglected
­condition because there is no longer a local Muslim population to main-
tain and visit them. Sometimes, expelled villagers will make considerable
efforts to visit the shrines such as the case of ‘Ain Haud, where visitors will
come from Lebanon and Jordan to visit the shrine of Husam al-Din Abu
al-­Hayja whose origins are traced back to the time of Saladin (Slymovics
1998, 130–131; Petersen 2001a, 196–197) (Fig. 8.2). In some cases the

Fig. 8.2 Cenotaph marking the grave of Husam al-Din Abu al-Hayja within the
maqam of the same name in the village of Kawkab. Note the hand prints and
inscriptions painted in henna on the white walls of the shrine
138 A. PETERSEN

shrines are taken over by the new local Jewish population, as is the case
with the shrine Nabi Yamin near Jaljuliyya, which is now maintained as a
Jewish shrine probably because of its association with Benjamin, son of
Rachel. In other cases the name of the shrine is changed to reflect a per-
ceived Jewish link with a particular tomb or location (Petersen 2001b).
The most well-known example is the tomb of Abu Hurayra near Yavne
(see Chap. 3), which has been renamed as the tomb of Rabbi Gamliel,
who was the leader of the Sanhedrin in the first century AD (Petersen
2001a, 313–316; Taragan 2000, 2006).
Within the Palestinian Territories (West Bank), many shrines have been
maintained and continue to be used; however, in a few cases where there
is disputed access, there can be violent clashes. Much of the violence has
occurred since the West Bank has been brought under the control of the
Palestine National Authority. The shrines have been used by Israeli settlers
as a means of disputing and undermining Palestinian control and, in the
process, have meant that some of the most famous shrines, such as Rachel’s
tomb and the Tomb of Joseph, are currently inaccessible to Muslim pil-
grims. In each case, previously shared tombs have become politicized and
used as a means of justifying territorial acquisitions.

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Le Strange, G. 1890. Palestine under the Moslems: A Description of Syria and the
Holy Land from A.D. 650–1500. London: Palestine Exploration Fund.
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Palestinians. Haeretz, 15 October. www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.pre-
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Loewe, L., ed. 1890. Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore. 2 vols. Chicago:
Belford-Clarke Co
Macalister, R.A.S. 1912. The Excavation of Gezer 1902–1905 and 1907–1909.
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Mayer, L.A. 1933. Satura Epigraphica Arabica II, Safed. Quarterly of the
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park-2/. Accessed 11 November 2016.
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———. 2001a. Gazetteer of Medieval and Ottoman Buildings in Muslim Palestine
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———. 2001b. The Tomb of Benjamin and Other Old Testament Figures. In
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U. Vermeulen and J. Steenberg, 361–384. Leuven: Peeters.
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Shai, A. 2006. The Fate of Abandoned Villages in Israel 1965–1969. History and
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Arabic, Persian and Turkish Sources

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Haya al-Misriya al-Amma li’l-kitab.
 CHAPTER 9

Heritage and Conservation

Abstract This chapter focuses on a more positive outlook for Muslim

shrines and shows how they can be used and re-interpreted for thier cul-
tural and historical value. There are a number of ways in which the heri-
tage of shrines can be used and promoted. These include the documentation
and presentation of existing and destroyed shrines on the Internet, the use
of shrines for the promotion of tourism, the preservation of shrines as a
form of resistance to extremist interpretations of Islam and the role of
shrines in the promotion of interfaith understanding.

Keywords Heritage • Conservation • Internet

The previous chapter highlighted some of the difficulties faced by Muslim

shrines in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. These problems are
derived mostly from the current political situation as well as changing
religious attitudes to shrines within Islam. The current chapter will focus
on the more positive outcomes for Muslim shrines and show how they can
be used and re-interpreted for their cultural and historical value. There are
a number of ways in which the heritage of shrines can be used and pro-
moted. These include the documentation and presentation of existing and
destroyed shrines on the Internet, the use of shrines for the promotion of
tourism, the preservation of shrines as alternatives to Salafist versions of

© The Author(s) 2018 141

A. Petersen, Bones of Contention, Heritage Studies in the Muslim
World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6965-9_9
142 A. PETERSEN

Islam and the role of shared shrines in promoting interfaith u

­ nderstanding.
Before looking at these different contemporary roles, it is worth reviewing
the close connection between shrines and pre-modern views of the past.

Shrines as an Historical Resource

Palestine has a deep and rich archaeological heritage which was of great
significance in the pre-modern past just as it is today. One of the best
examples of this concern with relics and sacred locations is the alleged
discovery of the ‘True Cross’ by St. Helena, mother of the emperor
Constantine in the early fourth century AD. According to a number of
later sources, the relics of the True Cross were excavated from the site of
The Temple of Venus, which was subsequently demolished to make way
for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In this case, the presence of these
ancient relics was seen to lend authenticity to the site, which was subse-
quently developed as the foremost Christian shrine. Many other sites were
subsequently developed as shrines commemorating the life and works of
Jesus; thus an ancient tomb at Bethany was identified as the tomb of
Lazarus and a church built over the site. With the Crusader conquest of
Palestine in the eleventh-century, Christian shrines were developed around
the country, often based on the existence of ancient remains where the
remains lent authenticity to otherwise uncertain locations. For example, it
seems likely that the presence of a spring and a ruined caravanserai lent
some degree of authenticity to the Crusader Church at Qarayat al-‘Inab
(Abu Ghosh), which was mistakenly identified with biblical Emmaus (for
a detailed discussion of the site, see Pringle 1993, 7–17). Similarly, the
Crusaders misidentified the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem as the Jewish
Temple. In all these cases an ancient structure (the Dome of the Rock
would have been 400 years old when the Crusaders occupied Jerusalem)
provided a physical location to which biblical narratives could be attached.
Thus the topography of the Holy Land became a physical embodiment of
biblical narratives.
With the Islamic re-conquest of Palestine in the late twelfth and thir-
teenth centuries, ancient sites were often developed into Muslim shrines.
Whilst some of these shrines were built by Mamluk sultans or other high-­
ranking officials, large numbers were also established at a local level either
by Sufis or by prominent members of local communities. It is known that
some of these shrines were originally established by Christians, Samaritans
or Jews and later remodelled as Muslim shrines (as in the case of Nabi
 HERITAGE AND CONSERVATION 143

Yusef in Nablus). In other cases, ancient objects or sites were discovered

and re-interpreted within a Muslim context—one of the best-known
examples is the Rock of Job in the Huaran, which was locally referred to
as Shaykh Sa’d. The centre of the shrine comprised a rock or stelæ engraved
with a hieroglyphic inscription commemorating the victories of the
Egyptian Pharaoh Rameses II. Next to the stelæ there was a prayer hall
with a mihrab (Curtiss 1902, 85–86). Curtis saw the stelæ as a reversion
to a pagan religion with the mihrab as an incidental Islamic feature.
However, it seems more likely that Muslims had incorporated this ancient
feature from the past within their mosque as an example and perhaps proof
of the pre-Islamic past referred to in the Quran.
The many Muslim shrines to biblical figures are also examples of this
need to relate to the pre-Islamic heritage of Palestine. One of the most
impressive examples of relating an ancient site to Islamic narratives is the
cave of the Daughters of Jacob (Magharrat Banat Yaqub) set into the side
of the hill beneath the Mamluk citadel in Safed (Petersen 2001, 265–267).
The cave is probably a natural feature which was first modified in the
Roman or Byzantine period for use as a place of burial with 16 rock-cut
kokı̄m (rectangular burial chambers). In 1412 AD, the caves were remod-
elled as a place of pilgrimage to the biblical Jacob by the Mamluk Emir
Husam al-Adhami. The Mamluk additions comprised two prayer niches or
mihrabs and five cenotaphs, one of which marked the grave of Sudun al-­
Dawadari (d. 909 AH, 1502/1503 AD), daughter of the Mamluk gover-
nor of Safed (Mayer 1933, 128). The shrine was evidently run by the Sufi
order of ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Gilani, and in the seventeenth century, the ritu-
als carried out within the shrine were recorded by the Ottoman traveller
Evliya Çelebi (Stephan 1935–1944, Part II, 163). It is clear from the
inscription above the entrance that the Mamluk governors recognized the
pre-Islamic character of the cave tomb. By placing their own burials within
the cave, they made the shrine both familiar and relevant to their own
histories.
Alan Walmsley gives another interesting example of the Islamic re-­
interpretation of an ancient site near Amman (Jordan) where a Roman
cave tomb was identified as the cave of the sleepers, as related in the
Quranic story (Quran 18, 9–26). Christian tradition has a similar story
dated to the fifth century AD, which is located in a cave outside Ephesus.
According to the Quranic narrative, some young men fell asleep and
awoke 309 years later, thinking they had only slept one day. There are two
mosques next to the cave, one of which is probably of Umayyad date
144 A. PETERSEN

(seventh–eighth century) and a later mosque built in the thirteenth or

fourteenth century (Walmsley 2001, 534–536). The presence of two
­
mosques of different dates indicates that this shrine was venerated by
Muslims over an extended period of time and that the cave was regarded
as part of an Islamic heritage. In other words, the cave, together with the
mosques, presents an enduring relationship with a sacred past.
Both these examples show that medieval Muslims were able to recognize
subterranean pre-Islamic features and set them within their own conceptu-
alization of the past. James Grehan noticed that a large number of shrines
in the region were either underground or below the average ground level.
Grehan convincingly argues that this was because caves were seen as spiri-
tual zones where the living could communicate with the dead and could
gain many useful secrets and cures (Grehan 2014, 125–130). However, it
is also clear that the pre-modern inhabitants of Palestine recognized the
archaeological phenomena by which older features were buried beneath the
present ground level. In other words, it was understood that subterranean
features such as caves and excavations gave direct access to the past. Similarly,
it was recognized that ancient archaeological remains buried beneath the
ground could be disturbed by modern activities; thus al-Harawi noted that
the location of many important tombs in Damascus was unknown because
the cemetery had been ploughed up and used for agriculture (Meri 2005,
14–15). Other medieval authors demonstrate a sophisticated understand-
ing of the history of archaeological features; thus Ibn Shaddad related the
history of a marble seat from its use in a pagan fire sanctuary to its successive
veneration by Christians and then Muslims as a relic relating to either Jesus
or one of the apostles (Talmon-Heller 2007, 188–189).
Although for modern scholars many of the historical claims of shrines
may seem unlikely, for a pre-modern society, such physical markers of past
events and locations were a useful way of understanding and relating to
the past. Visiting the tombs and burial places of family or tribal ancestors
was a particularly important means of relating to the past and using history
as a method for understanding the present. In many ways, the past was
seen as intimately connected with the present and the need for ancestors
to be involved in the present meant that particularly important graves had
to be identified and maintained. Curtis gives an example from the early
twentieth century:

the Dhiab Arabs in the district known as el-Kasebi, east of the upper end of
the Sea of Galilee … were much alarmed during the spring of 1903 because
 HERITAGE AND CONSERVATION 145

of the prevalence of cholera at Tiberias. Their weli is Dhiab, whom, accord-

ing to the custom of other Arab tribes, they regard as their progenitor. They
had never erected a shrine in his honor, but when the cholera was at its
height in Tiberias, they built a shrine of rude stones under the open heavens
to their ancestor Dhiab. (Curtiss 1904, 96)

In this case the construction of the shrine was not only a connection
with the past but hopefully an insurance for the future to protect the tribes
from cholera.

Virtual Preservation: Muslim Shrines

on the Internet

The previous chapter documented how the number of Muslim shrines fell
from their probable maximum at the beginning of the twentieth century
to a much smaller and unquantified number by the end of the same cen-
tury. It is also noticeable that whilst in the early twentieth century many
Muslim shrines were in frequent religious use, by the twenty-first century
the veneration of shrines became an unusual practice, and in many cases,
people were reluctant to admit to visiting shaykhs’ tombs. The combined
effects of the physical disappearance and destruction of Muslim shrines by
non-Muslims, together with increasing indifference to shrines amongst
the increasingly sophisticated and urban population, have meant that this
distinguishing feature of the Palestinian landscape is in danger of
disappearing.
There are, however, several individuals and organizations which appre-
ciate the cultural and heritage value of shrines and have introduced a num-
ber of initiatives to make sure that they are a recognized part of the
landscape. Some of the most significant efforts have used Internet web-
sites as a means of publicizing shrines, preserving evidence of their physical
structure and supporting efforts to encourage their use as either religious
or cultural monuments.
One of the most useful and widely accessed Internet sites is an anony-
mous blog called ‘Muslim Shrines in Israel’ written under the pseudonym
of Borisfenus (https://borisfenus.blogspot.co.uk/). The blog combines
information from a variety of sources and includes recent digital photo-
graphs of many of the shrines. Although there is no information about the
purpose of the blog or the background of the blogger, the site does give
an extensive bibliography and references it sources. The shrines are
146 A. PETERSEN

arranged according to regions and types in a fairly systematic manner,

although there are some sections missing and it is sometimes difficult to
find a particular shrine. However, the blog is an invaluable resource for
keeping knowledge of the shrines up to date and it is also very reliable in
terms of its information. The following sections were available when the
blog was viewed on 15th July 2016, (1) Turbas in Jerusalem, (2) Tombs
of the Prophets, (3) Maqams. Judaean Mountains, (4) Maqams. Shfela,
(5) Maqams. Coastal Plain, (6) Maqams. Sharon Plain and Carmel, (10)
Rebuilt Maqams and modern replicas of Maqams, (11) Lost shrines, (12)
Maqams that were Judaized, (14) Not Maqams, (14a) Abandoned
Mosques South, (15) Sacred Springs and Sabils.
Another website with wide coverage of shrines is known as Palestine
Remembered (http://www.palestineremembered.com/index.html). The
website is primarily concerned with the displacement of the Palestinian
people and the history of the towns and villages formerly inhabited by
Palestinians. The website includes photographs and descriptions of many
locations which may include Muslim shrines. The website includes photo-
graphs from before 1948 as well as more recent dated photographs which
may show abandoned shrines or sites of a destroyed shrine. The website
has a core database much of which is derived from Walid Khalidi’s 1992
work on destroyed Palestinian villages (Khalidi 1992). In addition, the
website includes large amounts of information which has been uploaded
by Palestinians and other members of the public. As the primary purpose
of the website is to document settlements as a whole, shrines and individ-
ual structures are not always included. There is also the problem that some
of the photographs of shrines on the website do not coincide with either
descriptions of the shrines or photographs from other sources. Nevertheless,
the website provides an essential resource for any research on shrines and
provides a record of the urban and rural context of the shrines.
In addition to the websites which cover Palestine as a whole, there are
a number of websites which focus on aspects of Muslim shrines. One of
the more interesting examples is a website with the title ‘Sufi Trails in
Palestine’ (http://www.sufitrails.ps/index.php) which focusses on a num-
ber of shrines in the vicinity of Ramallah. The website is run by Palestinians
with funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.
The aim of the website is to promote walking tours to Sufi shrines and also
promote an understanding of the local people and natural landscape.
Within this website, the shrines are promoted as heritage assets with links
to the deep past as well as to the medieval and Ottoman periods. The
 HERITAGE AND CONSERVATION 147

shrines are not presented as particularly Muslim structures but rather as

symbols of continuity and harmony with nature. Another website of rele-
vance to Muslim shrines in Palestine called ‘Sacred Sites in Contested
Regions’ (http://sacredplaces.huji.ac.il/) which is part of a project
directed by Nimrud Luz and Nurit Stadler and funded by the Israel
Science. Although the website has much less coverage of Muslim shrines,
it addresses some of the issues relevant to contested shrines and also sets
Muslim holy places within the broader context of contemporary religion.

Actual Conservation and Preservation

The examples from the Internet show a wide range of different approaches
to shrines, ranging from simple documentation to heritage development
and political analysis. Whilst these different methods certainly raise the
profile of Muslim shrines and keep them in the public consciousness, the
actual preservation, conservation and rehabilitation of shrines is a much
more complex and expensive process.
The complexity of conserving or restoring an ancient shrine derives
from a number of issues which depend on the location of a particular
shrine (e.g. Israel, East or West Jerusalem, the Palestinian Territories A, B
and C), the relationship of the shrine to current or past inhabited settle-
ments and its religious significance and association. Within Israel (defined
by the 1948 Green Line), once the legal ownership of a particular building
has been established, the process of conserving or restoring a shrine can be
fairly straightforward. Where a building has been registered by the Israel
Antiquities Authority, it may be conserved and repaired as national monu-
ment. For example, the Muslim shrine of Nabi Yahya near the former vil-
lage of Mezra’a was renovated and conserved in the 1980s mostly because
the Muslim shrine was housed within a very important third-century
Roman family tomb (Fig. 9.1, No. 19). However, in most cases, even
when Muslim shrines are registered as ancient monuments within Israel,
they are not a priority for scarce conservation resources. Within the
Palestinian Territories, whilst some shrines are still in active use, there are
some shrines which, for a variety of reasons, are no longer visited or main-
tained despite their historical significance. One of the problems with most
of the Muslim shrines is that because of their function as religious build-
ings and as mausolea, they are not easily adapted for re-use. A similar
problem has been documented in Indian-administered Kashmir, where
the architecturally significant early Mughal shrine of Thag Baba was the
148 A. PETERSEN
 HERITAGE AND CONSERVATION 149

subject of a conservation project by the Indian National Trust for Art and
Cultural Heritage. A comprehensive restoration programme involved
restoring the building to its original sixteenth-century appearance as well
as enhancing the immediate environment to encourage tourism and visi-
tors to the site. Unfortunately, sectarian problems within the local Muslim
community, together with a relatively low status for the saint interred in
the mausoleum, mean that the shrine gets few visitors (Hamdani 2016,
193–194, 199, note 37).
In some places, particularly in Galilee, shrines are maintained and used
by the local community, although sometimes the buildings are modified
with modern materials which may be inappropriate from a strict heritage
and conservation perspective. For example, the shrine of Shaykh Maysar in
the village of the same name comprises a small rectangular building
(7.5 × 5 m) covered with a dome and the cenotaph of Shaykh Maysar
(Petersen 2001, 283). The exterior of the building is clad with stone slabs
and the interior surfaces are covered with modern glazed ceramic tiles all
of which would be considered inappropriate in conservation terms. In
other cases, however, buildings are consolidated and repaired in sympathy
with their historic appearance. For example, the shrine of Husam al-Din at
Kawkab near Haifa has been strengthened by the addition of massive con-
crete corner buttresses and re-enforced concrete tie beams (Petersen
2001, 196–197). Despite these major structural interventions, the historic
appearance of the building has been maintained both outside and inside.
In a number of cases where Muslim shrines in Israel have been appropri-
ated by Jewish communities, the fabric of the buildings concerned have
been maintained and well conserved. Two notable examples are the
Mausoleum of Abu Hurayra (now known to the Israeli community as the
tomb of Rabbi Gamliel) and the shrine of Nabi Yamin (Benjamin) near

Fig. 9.1 Map of Palestine showing principal cities and the location of shrines
mentioned in the text. (1) Dayr al-Shaykh, (2) Nabi Rubin, (3) Nabi Yusha, (4)
Nabi Thari, (5) Nabi Shua’ayb, (6) Haram Sidna ‘Ali, (7) Nabi Yamin, (8) Maqam
Abu Hurayra, (9) Nabi Musa, (10) Abu ‘Ubayda, (11) Rachel’s Tomb, (12)
Shaykh Danun and Shaykh Daud, (13) Shaykh Tamim in Bayt Jibrin, (14) Isdud
shrines of Ibrahim Matabuli and Shaykh Salman al-Farisi, (15) Shaykh Zaytoun
near Ramallah, (16) Nabi Samwil, (17) Qabr Yusuf (Joseph’s Tomb), (18) Shaykh
Baraz al-Din at Majdal Yaba, (19) Nabi Yahya at al-Muzayri’a, (20) Shaykh Zayd
at Bayt Jiz (Map by Ifan Edwards)
150 A. PETERSEN

Petah Tikvah. The mausoleum of Abu Hurayra has been cleaned and the
portico has been enclosed with glass which does not detract from the
appearance of the building and also protects some of the architecture from
atmospheric pollution (Figs. 4.1 and 4.2). There have been no major
structural changes to the shrine of Nabi Yamin (Fig. 6.5) although the
presence of a caretaker has meant that the complex has been continuously
maintained and protected from vandalism.
In recent years, one of the incentives behind the restoration or rehabili-
tation of shrines has been the need to generate income from the many
tourists who annually visit Israel/Palestine. The idea of developing tour-
ism around religious sites is, of course, of considerable antiquity though its
application to Muslim shrines (outside Jerusalem and Hebron) is a more
recent phenomenon which was first developed in Jordan by the Ministry
of Tourism and Antiquities during the 1990s. One of the main products
of this initiative was a book listing the principal holy sites (Muslim and
Christian) in Jordan (Malkawi et al. 1996). The Muslim shrines are placed
into three groups: the tombs of the prophets, tombs of the companions of
the Prophet Muhammad and other Muslim holy sites such as the Cave of
the Sleepers referred to above. Interestingly, some shrines are listed twice
because they are of significance to both Christians and Muslims. The book
is of significance because it includes a fatwa which specifically endorses the
visitation of holy sites by Muslims (Malkawi et al. 1996, 22–23). In addi-
tion to publications relating to the holy sites of Jordan, the initiative
involves the physical restoration of shrines and the development of associ-
ated touristic infrastructure. The fabric of the shrines varies considerably
from medieval domed chambers marking the tomb of Aaron (Harun)
above Petra and the tomb of Joshua near Salt (Malkawi et al. 1996, 37 and
41) to the modern structures built around the tombs of the Companions
of the Prophet Zayd ibn Al-Harithah and Abdallah bin Rawahah (Malkawi
et al. 1996, 57–58). This was the first time since the defeat of the Ottoman
Empire in 1918 that specifically Muslim shrines (apart from Jerusalem and
Hebron) were promoted as part of the cultural and religious heritage of
the region.
The example set by Jordan has been followed in a few cases within the
Palestinian Territories. For example, the Sufi shrines promoted by the
website Sufi Trails in Palestine (referred to above) have been carefully
conserved to retain their historic character. The most significant shrine
restoration project has been the work on the Nabi Musa shrine near
Jericho (Figs. 4.1 and 4.2; Fig. 9.1, No. 9). The work was carried out as
 HERITAGE AND CONSERVATION 151

a partnership between the United Nations Development Programme, the

Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, the Ministry of Waqf, the European
Community and the local community. As well as stabilizing the structure
and enhancing the historic features of the shrine, the conservation pro-
gramme included training local workers in traditional construction tech-
niques. The shrine has particular significance for Palestinians as the annual
festival (mawasim) was banned by the British Mandate government, as it
was regarded as an incubator for Palestinian nationalism. During the
1990s, the annual mawsim was re-instated, and in 2012, the shrine was
included as one of a number of sites within the al-Barriyah zone nomi-
nated for World Heritage Status (UNESCO 2016). The location of Nabi
Musa within the Jordan valley near Jericho means that it can be included
in a religious tourism itinerary which includes Christian monasteries as
well as linking to the Muslim shrines in neighbouring Jordan.

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———. 1904. Researches in Syria and Palestine Conducted in the Summer of
1903. The Biblical World 3(2) (February): 91–103.
Grehan, J. 2014. Twilight of the Saints. Everyday Religion in Syria and Palestine.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hamdani, H.S. 2016. Restoration of the Thag Baba Shrine in Kashmir: A
Forgotten Mughal Tomb for an Intoxicated Sufi Saint. International Journal of
Islamic Architecture 5 (1): 165–199.
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Depopulated by Israel in 1948. Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies.
Malkawi, F., M. Piccirillo, and H. ibn al-Saqqaf. 1996. The Holy Sites of Jordan.
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Stephan, H. 1935–1944. Evliya Tschelebis Travels in Palestine (1648–1650), with

notes by L.A. Mayer, Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities of Palestine 4:
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 CHAPTER 10

Conclusions

Abstract This final chapter discusses how shrines relate to a number of

issues within Palestinian heritage and contemporary society. The first
question is how the shrines relate to the expression of national identity
within modern Palestine. The second question relates to the role of
women both as saints and as visitors of shrines, and the third question
considers whether the shrines should be regarded as a purely Muslim phe-
nomenon. Finally, the chapter discusses the future of shrines within the
context of global Islam.

Keywords Nationalism • Women • Agrarian religion • Salafi

From this review of the history of Muslim shrines, there are a number of
issues which relate to how they have developed and functioned more gen-
erally within Palestinian society. First of all, there is the question of the
position of shrines within the historic landscape; second, there is the ques-
tion of the participation of women; third, there is the question of how
shrines relate to Islam and other ‘official’ religions; and finally, there is the
question of what will happen to shrines in the future.

© The Author(s) 2018 153

A. Petersen, Bones of Contention, Heritage Studies in the Muslim
World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6965-9_10
154 A. PETERSEN

Landscape and Nationalism

Canaan’s study has shown that the majority of Palestinian shrines are located
next to trees, and in some cases, the shrine comprises a tree without any
building or recognizable tomb in the vicinity. Within Ghareeb Asqalani’s
story cited at the beginning of this book, the mulberry tree next to the
shrine of Sheikh ‘Awad stands as guardian of the inheritance rights of the
displaced Palestinian family, a role which echoes ancient customs of leaving
valuables within the vicinity of a shrine. From a wider perspective, this story
demonstrates how Shaykh’s tombs have become identified with Palestinian
nationalism, both as architectural markers and as links with the ancient past.
Although the majority of Shaykhs’ tombs were either built or used by
Muslims, within Palestinian nationalist dialogues, they are not identified as
specifically Islamic monuments but rather as symbols of the enduring pres-
ence of Palestinians within the landscape. The sheer number of domed
shrines within the landscape of Mandate era Palestine has already been
noted, and together with their often raised position on hilltops, they provide
a visual network over the whole country. Although not all shrines were
intra-visible, the visibility of shrines, particularly within rural settings, was of
considerable significance and has been noted by many authors. In many
cases, piles of stones mark the location where a particular shrine first becomes
visible. According to tradition, the stones are set in place either by travellers
who do not have time to visit a shrine on a particular occasion or by pilgrims
wishing to mark their first sight of a shrine (see Grehan 2014, 120; Fig.
4.3). The combined effect of the shrines and the piles of witness stones
means that the whole landscape lay within the protection of holy places.
Grehan has made the point that for the pre-modern inhabitants of Palestine,
the countryside was often seen as a dangerous place filled with not only
natural dangers but also various malevolent supernatural beings. The near-
ubiquitous presence of shrines inside and outside villages meant that there
were refuges from these forces available for travellers and others. Although
the majority of twenty-first-century Palestinians probably do not have the
same superstitious attitudes towards their natural environment, shrines still
retain their beneficial aura as symbols of national identity and belonging.

Women and Gender

The majority of shrines discussed in this book are associated with male
figures who were prophets, companions of the Prophet, Sufis or other
prominent holy men. This partly reflects the historical sources which tend
 CONCLUSIONS 155

to write more about male figures than women and also scarce information
about who exactly visited shrines in any particular period. Based on this
partial information, this short section will point to some ways in which
women were involved in shrines, both as venerated saints and as patrons
and visitors to particular shrines, and also point the way to more detailed
research.
First of all, it should be pointed out that in the wider Islamic world,
women were often associated with shrines and religious architecture. For
example, in the ninth century the pilgrimage road from Kufa to Mecca was
renamed the Darb Zubayda in honour of Zubayda, wife of Harun al-­
Rashid, who paid for the renovation of the route and provided it with
extensive facilities. Also, the shrine of Bibi Mariam at Qalhat in Oman was
built by Mariam for her husband Baha al-Din Ayaz, although it is often
assumed that Mariam herself is buried within the tomb. Within Palestine,
the two most significant female personalities revered by Muslim women
(and men) were the Virgin Mary and Rachel, mother of Benjamin; in both
cases, this veneration was shared with women of other faiths. This may be
a coincidence, although it may also reflect the universality of issues sur-
rounding childbirth.
Tewfiq Canaan pointed out that one in seven or 13.2% of shrines in
Palestine were those of female saints (Canaan 1927, 235–236). He goes
on to state that shrines associated with women were more likely to have a
significance beyond their immediate area; thus he states that 60% of
women saints were known over a wide area whereas only 30% of male
saints were known beyond their immediate vicinity. In some cases the
female saints were the sisters of male saints who had their shrines nearby.
In rare cases, only women were allowed to visit certain shrines; thus men
were not allowed to enter the shrine of Fatima al-Barri in the village of
Zakariyya. From Canaan’s observations, it can be seen that women were
fully, if not evenly, represented within the culture of Muslim shrines.
Within Palestine, one of the best-known female saints was Badriyyah,
daughter of Shaykh (Sultan) Badr whose tomb is at Dayr al-Shaykh (see
Chap. 5 in this volume). According to the local tradition, Badriyyah was
married to her cousin Ahmad but she died shortly afterwards, leaving her
husband a widower. Ahmad was so distraught at her death that he tried to
have her embalmed and twice destroyed the domed mausoleum her father
Badr had built for her. At the third attempt, Ahmed himself died and so
was interred next to his wife in the mausoleum (Canaan 1927, 307).
Badriyyah’s tomb formed the centre of a large complex at Shurafat on the
156 A. PETERSEN

outskirts of Jerusalem. The complex included a domed mausoleum (con-

taining the tombs of Badriyyah, her husband and children), a prayer hall,
three courtyards, a cemetery and a garden containing a number of trees (a
lemon tree, two olive trees and five oak trees) (Canaan 1927, 48–49). The
fact that the shrine is that of Badriyyah and not her husband partly reflects
the way a saint’s status was passed through the family line (cf. Grehan
2014, 88) but probably also reflects something about Badriyyah’s spiritual
presence, which was enough for the construction of a domed mausoleum.
The continued popularity of her shrine into the twentieth century indi-
cates her considerable reputation.
The Finnish anthropologist Hilma Granqvist (1965) observed that
during the early part of the twentieth century, shrines were an alternative
religious location for Muslim women who were not allowed to use
mosques which were reserved for male use (an idea also supported by
Shoshan 1991, 83; Hammami 1994). The available evidence from earlier
periods also indicates that considerable numbers of women visited shrines
from the medieval period onwards, and at some of these shrines, they
appear to have been the main visitors (Talmon-Heller 2007, 208; Meri
2002, 168–171). Some shrines were founded or endowed by women;
thus Dawlat Khatun, daughter of the governor of Damascus, built a hostel
for visitors at a shrine in the village of Ruhin near Damascus during the
early 1200s (Ibn Shaddad, ed. Sourdel 1953, 55–56; Meri 2002, 204; see
also Humphreys 1994). A more extreme form of devotion was demon-
strated by Bint al-Ba’uni, who not only built a wooden cenotaph over the
grave of Shaykh Isma’il b. ‘Abd Allāh al-Salihi but also had a house built
for herself in the cemetery opposite his tomb.
Sociological studies in North Africa and elsewhere indicate that women
were often the main visitors to shrines. There is no published data indicat-
ing the proportion of women to men visiting tombs in Palestine although
anecdotal evidence suggests that women were at least as likely as their
male counterparts to visit shrines. Women were attracted to shrines for a
number of reasons, including the fact that it gave them the opportunity
to go somewhere outside the domestic space. Also, the association
between shrines and healing meant that women often used shrines as a
means of dealing with health issues on behalf of their families. One area
where women particularly sought help from shrines was for aid in fertility
and other issues connected with child bearing. For example, visits to the
tomb of Rachel were often a quest for either a cure for infertility or help
with a pregnancy (Bowman 2014, 35). Canaan also cites the example of
 CONCLUSIONS 157

women bathing in the basin of Mary (Jurn Sitti Mariam) near St.
Stephen’s gate in Jerusalem to enable them to become pregnant (Canaan
1927, 66 and 111).

Islam or Agrarian Religion

A recent book on the cult of shrines in Palestine by James Grehan sug-
gested that whilst Muslim shrines were a common feature of the landscape
of pre-modern Palestine, they should not be regarded as part of Islam but
rather as part of a syncretistic agrarian religion (Grehan 2014). The book
is based on a study of the cult of shrines in Syria and Palestine from the
eighteenth to twentieth centuries. The author’s argument is based on a
number of observations, which may be summarized as follows:

1. Islam did not penetrate deeply into the countryside, and even in
large areas of towns, there was ignorance about the tenets and beliefs
of Islam.
2. The veneration of shrines runs counter to the example of canonical
Islam.
3. Many of the shrines in the region were shared by people of other
faiths, Jews, Christians, Samaritans and others.
4. Many of the shrines or practices related to shrines can be traced back
to pre-Islamic and even pre-Christian times.

Certainly, many of Grehan’s observations are valid, for the period he is

dealing with (eighteenth–twentieth century), and his argument for an
agrarian religion seems to be convincing. Also, it is evident that many of
Grehan’s ideas are supported by Tewfiq Canaan’s work on Muslim shrines.
Canaan’s views on shrines are particularly significant, as he lived at a time
when the veneration of shrines was widespread throughout Palestine and
was, to a certain extent, shared with Christians. His training as a medical
doctor meant that Canaan studies the subject with a scientific methodol-
ogy based on personal observation and statistics. Also, it is evident that
Canaan is sympathetic to the culture of shrines, and as a doctor, he took a
particular interest in medical claims associated with shrines. To a certain
extent, Canaan’s interests ran counter to those of established religions at
the time, which were attempting to present themselves both as more ratio-
nal and less local than the veneration of shrines which he presented. At this
point, it is worth remembering that Tewfiq Canaan was both a Protestant
158 A. PETERSEN

and a Palestinian Nationalist. It may be argued that his Protestant faith

enabled him to study the often superstitious and mysterious beliefs sur-
rounding Muslim shrines with a certain detachment, as they did not
impinge on his own rationalist views. Also, Canaan’s Palestinian Nationalist
views meant that he regarded the shrines as an intrinsic part of Palestinian
identity rooted deeply in the past and available to both Christians and
Muslims. In other words, writing during the period of the Balfour
Declaration (1917), which favoured the establishment of a Jewish state in
Palestine, Canaan was keen to emphasize the shared religious and custom-
ary practices of Muslims and Christians (not Jews).
If, however, we look at the work of Canaan’s contemporaries who were
studying Muslim shrines, there is a different emphasis. Thus, Paul Kahle’s
work on Muslim shrines in the vicinity of Jerusalem views them within the
context of Islam and, in particular, through the perspective of Sufi beliefs.
Thus, he observes living Sufis whose graves may become shrines once they
are dead. Kahle views the vast network of Muslim shrines as a constantly
changing landscape in which the relevance of particular saints rises or falls
depending on the number of followers their beliefs attract either during
their lifetime or after they are dead. The shrines are not viewed as centres
of superstitious and irrational beliefs but as memorials for pious Muslims
who had established a close understanding of God. The fact that people
continued to visit the grave of a particularly enlightened Sufi after he was
dead was a testament to the enduring value of his spiritual status. In this
context, it is noticeable that Canaan barely mentions Sufism in relation to
Muslim shrines, which he presents mostly in terms of folklore.
Whilst Grehan acknowledges that Sufism developed from, and is com-
pletely part of, Islam as a faith, he downplays its role in the establishment
and continued veneration of Muslim shrines. Instead of seeing the shrines
as part of a heterogeneous spiritual Islam expressed through Sufism,
Grehan sees the shrines as part of a chaotic and organic religion deeply
rooted in local beliefs and agrarian cycles.
Part of the problem is deciding on the meaning of shrines. Within the
literature, shrines can include a wide range of locations from large well-­
endowed religious complexes such as Nabi Musa to single trees, springs or
even rocks. Within Christianity, there are also a range of places considered
as sacred, from large buildings around the tombs of saints to natural fea-
tures. The designation of a particular place as an official shrine derives
 CONCLUSIONS 159

from a combination of accepted local practice and authorization from the

church of whatever denomination. Within Christianity, this is often quite
clear, and Grehan gives some examples of how the Maronite church
adopted some sites which local people already regarded as sacred. Within
late Ottoman Palestine, there seems to have been some dislocation
amongst the Sufi orders which had been responsible for many of the
Muslim shrines. This can be traced to the Egyptian invasion of the early
nineteenth century when the waqfs of many of the shrines were dissolved
to allow re-distribution of land for agricultural improvement. At the same
time, the actual functioning of the Sufi orders appears to have been cur-
tailed; thus, official records of Sufi orders in Syria and Palestine examined
and published by Grehan show very few Sufi lodges in Palestine, and those
that are registered are only in the main cities.
With this background in mind, what appears is that the disruption to
the Sufi orders and shrines in the early nineteenth century encouraged the
growth of small independent Sufi groupings which were not registered by
the state. These small unofficial Sufi lodges had been deprived of much of
their income and were unable to maintain many of the shrines—hence
their dilapidated condition later in the nineteenth century—and the care
of particular shrines became a very local responsibility. Instead of being
part of a network of Sufi Muslim shrines, the Shaykh’s tombs of Palestine
became much more local affairs and disconnected from the literate and
urban network that had sustained them prior to the nineteenth century. As
local affairs, the shrines could still enjoy considerable fame and impor-
tance, but only the larger shrines such as Nabi Musa, Nabi Rubin and
Haram Sidna ‘Ali could retain their connections to the major Sufi orders.

The Future of Muslim Shrines

The rich and varied heritage presented by the remaining Muslim shrines in
Palestine has an uncertain and difficult future. The potential threats to this
heritage, which were discussed in Chap. 8, can be broadly classified into
two types—(1) deliberate destruction and (2) neglect as a result of a vari-
ety of factors.
1. In Chap. 8, the destruction of shrines in the past was mostly con-
nected with the creation of Israel in 1948 and the subsequent confisca-
tion of territory by the Israeli state. However, since the 1990s, there has
160 A. PETERSEN

been a growing awareness of the value of Muslim shrines within the

Israeli archaeology and heritage community. Whilst this has not resulted
in a popular appreciation of Muslim shrines within Israeli society, it has
meant that the deliberate and targeted destruction of Muslim shrines has
largely ceased. However, whilst the threat from Israeli ideology may have
reduced, the threat from fundamentalist Islam has increased since the
1990s.
As we have seen, Ibn Taymiyya was the first Muslim cleric to explicitly
denounce shrines built around the graves of prominent Muslims. Ibn
Taymiyya’s views were partly a reaction to the numerous tombs which had
become shrines in his native Syria and partly a specific objection to the way
Muhammad’s tomb had been incorporated into his mosque in Medina
(Beranek and Tupek 2009, 15–16; Ibn Taymiyya 2005, Vol. 27, 58).
Whilst Ibn Taymiyya’s views may have had little practical impact in the
fourteenth century, in the eighteenth century, his views were taken on by
Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, the Muslim cleric who forged an alli-
ance with the first Saudi dynasty. The alliance of ruler and cleric let to the
destruction of large numbers of shrines in Arabia (Beranek and Tupek
2009, 17–18). The resurgence of the Saudi state in the early twentieth
century combined significant oil wealth with fundamentalist religious
beliefs to propagate Salafist views throughout the Islamic world. As a
result, since the 1990’s, there has been growing support for extremist
groups both within Muslim Israeli society and amongst Palestinian
Muslims; this has meant that shrines are increasingly at risk from deliber-
ate destruction.
In May 2011, a fundamentalist group possibly affiliated with al-Qaeda
destroyed the shrine of Shaykh Zuwayd in the northern Sinai, on the bor-
der with Gaza. A report by Reuters gives the following account:

A pile of rubble at a local shrine bears witness to the lengths to which zealots
will go to impose their vision on how religion should be practiced here. On
May 15 last year, five men blew up the shrine revered by Sufi mystics, whose
beliefs are viewed as heretical by the puritanical Islamists.
A white flag raised by the Sufis flutters over what is left of the shrine of
Sheikh Zuweid, viewed as one of the earliest Muslims in Egypt and after
whom the town is named. (Elyamin 2012)

With the advent of Islamic State (Daeesh), the destruction of Muslim

shrines has become a feature of world news. Throughout Iraq and Syria,
 CONCLUSIONS 161

scores of ancient Muslim shrines have been destroyed as part of an ideo-

logical attempt to return Islam to a constructed past in which there were
no shrines apart from the Kaaba in Mecca. So far, there has been little
impact within Palestine, and to date (December 8, 2016), no shrines
within Palestine have been destroyed as a result of Salafist ideology. It is
of course possible that shrines may be destroyed by fundamentalists
in the future although the fact that they have remained undamaged till
now suggests that Palestinian shrines may escape such deliberate
destruction.
2. Whilst the deliberate demolition of shrines has considerable dra-
matic effect, especially when it is filmed and presented on the Internet,
in recent times, this has only happened on a large scale in territories
controlled by the Islamic State or its affiliates. For Muslim shrines in
Palestine (including Israel), a much more real threat is posed by the
neglect and abandonment of shrines. Many of the shrines within the
internationally accepted borders of Israel have fallen into ruin because
the local populations which formally maintained and visited these shrines
no longer have access. In some cases the shrines are adopted either by
Jewish religious groups or, in some cases, by Palestinians living within
Israel. However, within Muslim Palestinian society as a whole, there is
less interest in visiting shrines which are regarded as of less importance
than the construction of large new mosques with towering minarets.
Whilst many Muslim Palestinians do not subscribe to Salafist views on
shrines, they are often regarded as irrelevant and perhaps embarrassing
to modern rationalist Muslims. This may be the reason why new mosques
are often built next to some of the shrines, which then appear to be little
used. There is the additional problem that unless shrines are adopted or
incorporated into modern mosque complexes, the responsibility for
maintenance falls either to local families with some connection to the
shrine (as in the case of the shrine of Husam al-Din in Kauwkab) or to
anyone with the resources and inclination to take over their care. As we
have seen, many of the waqf lands associated with the older shrines were
confiscated in the nineteenth century as part of land reforms introduced
by the Egyptian authorities. In the twentieth century, waqf land was also
confiscated by the Israeli authorities under a variety of pretexts, which
has also impoverished many of the traditional shrines.
Against these twin threats of destruction and neglect, there is a rising
interest in Palestinian heritage and history in which the shrines are an
162 A. PETERSEN

essential component. However, the question is whether the shrines can be

maintained as functioning religious structures or simply as reminders of
historic heritage. One of the problems of maintaining shrines as historic
heritage is that they do not lend themselves to adaptive re-use. Whilst it
may be possible to find alternative and modern uses for a caravanserai or
an old house, this is not the case for shrines which usually incorporate
graves and also have very specific religious associations. From a religious
perspective, the main problem is the decline of Sufi beliefs amongst the
Muslim population, as the veneration and visiting of shrines is difficult to
reconcile with modern mainstream Sunni beliefs. It is perhaps ironic that
the network of shrines developed from the thirteenth century onwards as
symbols of Islamic ownership are now regarded as suspect by a religious
establishment under the influence of Salafist views on the visitation of
graves. The most promising future for these shrines is one where they are
kept and maintained (for either religious or secular reasons) as reminders
of a diverse and more complex history of Muslim society than that which
is presented by mainstream Sunni Islam.

References
Beranek, O., and P. Tupek. 2009. From Visiting Graves to Their Destruction the
Question of Ziyara through the Eyes of Salafis. Crown Centre for Middle Eastern
Studies Crown Paper 2. Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts.
Bowman, G. 2014. Sharing and Exclusion: The Case of Rachel’s Tomb. Jerusalem
Quarterly 58: 30–49.
Canaan, T. 1927. Mohammedan Saints and Sanctuaries in Palestine. London:
Luzac and Co.
Elyamin, T. 2012. Insight: In Sinai, Militant Islam Flourishes – Quietly.
Reuters, 1 April. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-sinai-idUS-
BRE83006120120401. Accessed 8 December 2016.
Granqvist, H. 1965. Muslim Death and Burial: Arab Customs and Traditions
Studied in a Village in Jordan. Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica,
Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum.
Grehan, J. 2014. Twilight of the Saints. Everyday Religion in Syria and Palestine.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hammami, R. 1994. Between Heaven and Earth: Transformation in Religiosity
and Labor among Peasant Refugee Women in South Coastal Palestine/Gaza
Strip 1922–1992. Unpublished PhD Thesis, Temple University, Philadelphia.
Humphreys, R.S. 1994. Women as Patrons of Religious Architecture in Ayyubid
Damascus. Muqarnas 11: 35–54.
 CONCLUSIONS 163

Meri, J. 2002. The Cult of Saints among Muslims and Jews in Medieval Syria.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shoshan, B. 1991. High Culture and Popular Culture in Medieval Islam. Studia
Islamica 73: 67–107.
Talmon-Heller, D. 2007. Islamic Piety in Medieval Syria: Mosques, Cemeteries and
Sermons under the Zangids Ayyubids 1146–1260. Leiden and Boston: Brill.

Arabic, Persian and Turkish Sources

Ibn Shaddad. 1953. al-A’laq al-khaṭı̄ra fı̄ Dhikr Umarā al-Shām wa al-Jazira. Ed.
D. Sourdel. Damascus: Ma’had al-faransi bi Dimshaq.
Ibn Taymiyya. 2005. Majmu‘at al-fatawa. 32 vols. Mansura: Dar al-wafa’.
 Glossary

Ayyubids Sunni Muslim dynasty which ruled over much of greater Syria
(the modern states of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan) from the
late twelfth century (circa 1170 AD) to the mid-thirteenth century
(1260 AD), when they were replaced by the Mamluks.
Bahai adherent of the Bahai faith. The Bahai faith was founded in Iran by
Bahá’u’lláh in 1863. Persecution in Iran meant that the religion moved
first to Ottoman Palestine and later outside the Middle East to the
wider world. The Bahai faith is a universal religion which accepts other
religions and advocates universal peace.
Bilad al-Sham originally this was a province of the early Islamic state
incorporating all of the coastal territories of the eastern Mediterranean
or Levant. The term is today used by historians and archaeologists to
describe the area covered by the modern states of Palestine, Lebanon,
Syria and Jordan.
Caliph from the Arabic term khalifa—term for leader of the Islamic state
after the death of Muhammad.
dayr Arabic term for a Christian convent or monastery.
Fatimids the Fatimid caliphate was a Shi‘a dynasty which ruled much of
North Africa, Egypt and parts of Greater Syria between 909 and 1271
AD, when they were overthrown by the Ayyubids.
hadith Arabic term for traditions recording the actions, words and habits
of the prophet Muhammad.

© The Author(s) 2018 165

A. Petersen, Bones of Contention, Heritage Studies in the Muslim
World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6965-9
166 GLOSSARY

Hajj one of the five pillars of Islam involving a pilgrimage to Mecca. The
Hajj must be performed at a specific time over five days during the
Islamic month of Dhul Hijja.
Hanafi one of the four schools of Sunni law. This currently has the largest
number of adherents and is the predominant school of law followed in
much of the Middle East and Central Asia.
Hanbali one of the four schools of Sunni law. This is the main school of
law followed in Saudi Arabia and parts of the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar.
Historically, this school of law had fewer adherents but was made more
significant as it was used as the basis for the Wahhabi-Salafist views of
Islam from the eighteenth century onwards.
haram Arabic term meaning forbidden. By extension, the word is also
used to denote an area or enclosure which is sacred (i.e. where fighting
and other objectionable actions are forbidden). The most famous
examples are the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca and the Haram al-Sharif
(Noble sanctuary) in Jerusalem which contains the Dome of the Rock
and the Aqsa Mosque.
Hijaz mountainous area on the western side of Arabia, containing both
Mecca and Medina. The name derives from the Arabic term barrier,
which gives some idea of the region’s geographical distinctiveness.
During the early twentieth century (1916–1923), there was a separate
kingdom of the Hijaz.
jami’ Arabic term for a congregational mosque where the larger Muslim
community would pray on Fridays.
jihad Arabic term for struggle which was used to describe both the early
Muslim conquest and also the conflict with the Franks (Crusaders) in
Palestine.
jinn Arabic term for another class of beings, along with humans and
angels, which inhabit the earth. Although jinn can be either good or
bad, they are often regarded as malevolent beings in traditional Muslim
societies.
khalifa see caliph.
khanaqah or khanqah Persian term for a building used as a meeting
place for Sufis. Derived from the Persian term for napkin or tablecloth
indicating the communal nature of Sufi life.
mahmal an empty litter or frame draped with fabric introduced in the
thirteenth century to symbolize the presence of the ruler on the Hajj.
Maliki one of the four schools of Sunni law. Historically, this school had
large numbers of adherents in North and West Africa as well as in the
 GLOSSARY
   167

Muslim provinces of Spain. This was the amin school of law under the
rule of the Umayyad caliphs in the seventh and eighth centuries.
Mamluks rulers of Egypt and Syria from 1260 to 1517. Originating as
slave soldiers for the Fatimids and later the Ayyubids, mamluk soldiers
first gained control of Egypt and Syria in 1250 and consolidated their
power with a victory over the Mongols at ‘Ayn Jalut in Palestine.
maqam (pl. maqamat) Arabic term for a place. Within Sufi tradition, a
maqam is a station on the route to illumination. By extension, the term
is also used for a place where a saint or other holy person’s presence can
be experienced, usually a tomb or shrine.
mashhad Arabic term for a shrine or place of martyrdom.
masjid Arabic term for a mosque, literally the place where the prayer
prostrations (sajid) are carried out.
mausoleum part of a shrine complex containing the tomb of a holy
person.
mawsim (pl. mawasim) Arabic term for a market or festival usually asso-
ciated with shrines. These are usually seasonal events.
mihrab concave niche within a mosque, indicating the direction of prayer
towards the Kaaba in Mecca.
minbar staircase and raised platform used like a pulpit—usually found in
Friday mosques.
Mongols central Asian nomads who invaded large areas of China and the
Middle East in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries AD. Their advance
into the Middle East was stopped by the Mongols at the Battle of ‘Ayn
Jalut in Palestine in 1260.
Muharram the first month of the Muslim calendar—it is the second holi-
est month in the Muslim calendar and is particularly important to Shi‘as
as the tenth day of the month commemorates the martyrdom of
Husayn, son of ‘Ali, killed at Karbala on the sixth of Muharram 61 AH
(680 AD).
muqarnas geometrical arrangement of squinches and arches to form
three-dimensional geometric architectural features. Often associated
with domes, doorways and windows.
murabit (pl. murabitun) inhabitant of a ribat.
musalla open-air prayer area from the Arabic place of prayer.
nabi Arabic term for a prophet or important holy person.
pendentive architectural term for a feature which supports the transition
from a square corner to an octagonal or circular base of a dome.
168 GLOSSARY

Pendentives are usually triangular sections of a sphere and, as such,

extend downwards into the building.
qubba Arabic term for a domed mausoleum, tomb or shrine.
Quran sacred text for all Muslims; unlike hadith and other Islamic texts,
this is accepted as a message from the divine for all Muslims.
qutb literally celestial axis or pole. In Sufism this is a spiritual leader often
described as the perfect human being who provides a direct connection
with God.
ribat Arabic term for a fortified or enclosed building often on the fron-
tiers of the Muslim world. The term later came to also mean a place for
Sufis to congregate and live with a spiritual leader.
riwaq Arabic term for an arcade supported on pillars, piers or columns,
often forming part of an entrance to a shrine or other religious
building.
sabil public fountain suplying water as part of a religious duty.
Salafists see Wahhabis.
Samaritans religious sect linked to Judaism but distinct in terms of reli-
gious practice and ethnic history. The sect is centred around the site of
Mount Gerazim near Nablus.
Shafi’i one of the four schools of Sunni law today mostly prevalent in
Yemen as well as parts of Egypt and Iraq.
shaykh Arabic honorific title which may refer to the head of a village,
tribe or even a country. Within the Sufi tradition, the term shaykh is a
leader who is authorized to teach, initiate and guide students as well as
lead a Sufi community. In practice, the term is often used in Palestine
to refer to the tomb or shrine of a religious leader.
sheikh see shaykh.
Shiʿism this is the second-largest sect in Islam after Sunnis. Shi‘as adhere
to the religious teachings of Muhammad and his descendants, giving
particular reverence to ‘Ali and his son Husayn. Today, adherents of
Shiʿa Islam are found in many parts of the Islamic world but only from
the majority of the population in Iran and Iraq.
shiʿa see shiʿism.
squinch architectural term for a small arch used in sets of four to convert
a square or rectangular space into an octagon as a setting for a dome.
sufi see Sufism.
Sufism a form of spiritual Islam organized around religious leaders and
traditions which emphasize the inner aspects of Islam. Sufism is gener-
ally associated with Sunni Islam, although historically there have also
 GLOSSARY
   169

been Shiaʿ Sufi orders. Although Sufism may have originated as early as
the eighth century, it became politically important from the eleventh
century onwards and was particularly significant in Palestine during the
Mamluk and Ottoman periods.
Sunni the major sect of Islam comprising the majority of Muslims.
Sunnism is based on the belief that Abu Bakr was the rightful heir to
Muhammad. Sunni law is based on an adherence to the Quran and the
four schools of Sunni law (Hanafi, Hanbali, Maliki and Shafi’i).
taqa colloquial Palestinian Arabic term for a niche within a shrine.
tariqa a spiritual path or way in Sufi Islam. Sufis are arranged according
to orders, each with their own tariqa usually founded by an individual
Sufi Shaykh.
tell also spelled tel, Arabic tall, (“hill” or “small elevation”), is a raised
artificial mound formed from the accumulated debris of people living
on the same site for centuries.
voussoir architectural term for a wedge-shaped stone used in the con-
struction of an arch.
Wahhabi follower of a fundamentalist form of Sunni Islam developed by
the Arabian preacher Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792),
who formed an alliance with the first Saudi ruler, Muhammad bib Saud
(d. 1765). Adherents are also known as Salafists and Muwahhiddun.
Although the movement began in the eighteenth century, it has roots
in medieval Islam and is particularly influenced by the writings of the
Ibn Taymiyya, who advocated a return to Islam as practised by the first
three generations of Muslims (salaf).
wali (pl. awliya) Arabic term for guardian, helper or friend. Within Islam,
the term is often used as a shorthand for friend of God to indicate a
person who was particularly favoured or close to the divine. By associa-
tion, the word has come to be used as a term to designate a Muslim
shrine containing the remains of a particularly religious or spiritual
person.
waqf (pl. awqaf) Arabic term for a charitable trust which is often used to
support the activities of a religious complex or shrine.
ziyara Arabic term for visit. In religious context, the term is often used to
describe visits or pilgrimages to places or tombs associated with signifi-
cant religious figures.
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RCEA. 1931–1943. Répertoire Chronologique d’Épigraphie Arabe. Ed. E. Combé,
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 Index

A al-Aqsa, 15, 51
Abbasids, 51 Arculf, 27, 28, 132
al-‘Abdari, 20, 109 Ascalon, 57, 60, 108, 109, 117, 125,
Abraham, 4, 9, 21, 35, 50 126
Abraham Mosque Hebron, 4 al-‘Asfir, Qubbat, 49, 50
Abu ‘Ubayda, 98, 149 Ashdod, 62, 73, 126
Abu al-‘Awn, Shams al-Din, 68, 74, Ashraf Khalil, Sultan, 60
80, 81, 100, 101 al-Askari, 8
Abu Ghosh, 94, 95, 142 Avitzur, Michael, 128
Acre, 19, 20, 68, 78, 81, 114, 115, Awliya Allah, 17
127 awqaf, see Waqf
Agrarian religion, 157–159 Ayn Jalut, 49, 50
Ahmadiyya (Sufi order), 67 Ayyubids, 16, 48
Ain Haud, 137
Albright, W.F., 35
Aleppo, 29, 53, 68 B
Alexander, 86 al-Bab (Shirazi, Ali Muhammad), 115
Ali b, Abu Talib, 16, 19 Bab al-Saghir (Damascus), 8
Ali ibn ‘Alil, 54, 61, 73 Badr (Shaykh Badr or Sultan Badr),
Ali Nur al-Din Yashruti, 78–81 68, 74–76, 90, 155
Ali of Herat, 19, 135 Badriya, Shaykha, 90
Ali Pasha, ix Baghdad, 15, 16, 19, 62, 68
Ali Pasha, Muhammad, 22 Baha’ulla, 115
Amman, 143 Bahais, 107, 116, 117
Amta, 20, 98 Bahji, 115, 116

© The Author(s) 2018 183

A. Petersen, Bones of Contention, Heritage Studies in the Muslim
World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6965-9
184 INDEX

Balad al-Shaykh, 103 De Jong, F., 67, 68, 80, 90, 123
al-Baladhuri, 98 Dhul Kifl, see Ezekiel
Balfour Declaration, 158 al-Din, Mujir, 18, 21, 34, 55, 61, 69,
Baraz al-Din, Shaykh, 93, 149 72–75, 110, 135
al-Bataihi, Sh. Abdullah, 100, 129 al-Din, Nur, 20, 78–81
Baybars, al-Zahir, 48, 59 al-Din Ahmad, Shihab, 68, 81
Baysan, 98 al-Din Aqul, Syaf, 101
Bayt al-Maqdis, 14, 20 Disuqiyya (Sufi order), 67
Bayt Jibrin, 97, 130, 149 Dome of the Rock, 6, 9, 15, 19, 28,
Bayt Jiz, 101, 149 30, 35, 61, 95, 142
Bayt Lahm, see Bethlehem Dothan, Trude, 126
Bedouin, 93, 94 Druze, 107–117, 131
Beirut, 20, 79
Bethany, 142
Bethlehem, 10, 40, 132 E
al-Bistami, Abu Yazid, 15, 23 Egypt, 4, 17, 22, 30, 31, 58, 90, 92,
Bizerte, 78 100, 160
Bukhara, 8, 9 Elizabeth I, 29
Bulus, Nabi, 129 Emmaus, 98, 99, 142
Ephesus, 143
Ephrat, Daphne, 15, 40, 68, 69
C Eusebius, 132
Cairo, 34, 38, 63, 108, 109, 126 Ezekiel, 19
Canaan, Tewfiq, 4, 36, 37, 39, 40, 74,
85, 87–93, 96, 97, 103, 110,
124, 125, 154–158 F
Conder, Claude, 31–36, 38, 81, 88, al-Farsi, Salman, 62, 126, 149
89, 96, 97, 135 Finn, James, 97
Constantine, 142
Crusaders, 15, 16, 19, 28, 48, 53,
55–57, 59, 60, 63, 65, 73, 98, G
108, 109, 114, 134, 142 Gailani, ’Abd al-Qadir, 68
Curtiss, Samuel, 33, 34, 112, 143, Galilee, 104, 111–113, 130, 144,
145 149
Gamliel, Rabbi, 57–59, 117, 138, 149
Gaza, 69, 89, 100, 128, 130, 160
D Gezer, Tell, 127
Daburiyya, 48 al-Ghazzali, 66
Damascus, 8, 15, 20, 22, 23, 49, 51, Green Line, 134, 147
53, 63, 68, 70, 108, 135, 144, Grehan, James, 22, 40, 41, 144, 154,
156 156–159
David, 35 Guérin, H. V., 49, 72
 INDEX
   185

H J
al-Hadi, 8, 79 Ja‘athun, Khirbat, 104
Hadith, 7, 14, 17, 60 Jabal Hattin, 48
Haifa, 79, 115, 116, 127, 149 Jacob, 4, 18, 21, 97, 132, 143
Hajar aswad, 6 Jaffa, 28, 57, 63, 89, 94, 127
al-Hajj, 6, 8, 15, 19, 23, 53 Jaljuliyya, 69–71, 80, 100, 101, 138
al-Hakim (Fatimid caliph 985-1021), al-Jamali, Badr, 109
28, 113 Jaussen, Antoin, 37–39, 100, 135,
al-Hamawi, Yaqut, 55, 58 136
al-Hanbali, 7, 21, 68 Jazzar Pasha, Ahmad, 79
al-Harawi, Abu Bakr, 18–21, 24, 40, Jericho, 50–52, 96, 132, 150, 151
52, 55, 60, 61, 98, 114, 144 Jezreel, Tell, 127
al-Harithah, Zayd ibn, 150 Jinn, 96, 97
Hauran, 96 Job, 96, 143
Hebron, 3, 4, 9, 20, 21, 48, 61, 89, Jonah, 20
100, 109, 131, 132, 135, 150 Joseph, 18
Hijaz, 19, 21, 74, 79, 114 Joseph, Tomb of, 4, 10, 134, 138,
Holy Land, 14, 15, 30, 50, 51, 62, 149
142 Joshua, 3, 4, 20, 111, 112, 135, 150
Homs, 49, 62
Hurayra, Abu, 50, 54, 56, 61, 62, 73,
117, 138, 149, 150 K
Husam al-Din Abu al-Hayja, 137 Kaaba, 6, 8
Husayn, 108–112, 117, 125 Kahle, Paul, 34–36, 38, 39, 91–93,
95, 124, 158
Karbala, 108
I Kawkab, 137, 149, 161
Ibn Battuta, 18, 20, 21 Khalid b. al-Walid, 62
Ibn Jabal, 98 Khanaqah, 66, 67
Ibn Jubayr, 18, 19 Khanaqh al-Salahiyya, 67
Ibn Shaddad, 52, 156 Khatun, Dawlat, 156
Ibn Taymiyya, 6, 14, 18, 21, 22, 24, al-Khattab, Umar ibn, 55, 72
96, 110, 160 Khurasan, 74
Ibn Zubayr, 6 Kifl, Nabi, 129
Iran, 9, 15–17, 24, 68, 107, 115, 116 Konya, 67
Iraq, 8, 9, 16, 51, 108, 117, 160
Irbid, 18
Isaac, 21 L
Isdud, 62, 126, 149 Lebanon, 23, 79, 80, 107, 110–112,
Iz al-Din Qassam, 136 117, 130, 137
186 INDEX

M Muqarnas, 9, 58
Ma‘arra, 19 al-Muqtadir (Abbasid Caliph), 108
Macalister, R.S., 97, 127 Musa, Nabi, 35, 51–54, 61, 62, 81,
Mahmal, 6 96, 100, 112, 149–151, 158, 159
Majdal Yaba, 93, 149
al-Malik, Abd, 6
Mamluks, 16, 23, 69, 95, 132 N
Maqam, 56–61, 73, 77, 78, 86, 87, al-Nabi, Abd, 129
90, 100, 101, 104, 113, 114, Nablus, 4, 20, 38, 39, 48, 100, 135,
128–131, 137, 146, 149 136, 143
Maqamat of al-Hariri, 17 Nabulusi, Abd al-Ghani, 18, 22–24,
al-Maqdisi, Ibn Quduma, 7 41, 135
al-Maqrizi, 109 Nahal Soreq, 76
Mar Saba, 35 Najaf, 19
Mary, 155, 157 Napoleon, ix, 31
Mashhad, 19, 48–50, 59, 60, 67, 80, Naqshabandiyya, 67
108–110, 112, 117, 125 Nasir i- Khusrau, 18, 48, 113
Matabuli, Ibrahim, 126, 149 al-Nasur, Wadi, 75
Maundrell, Henry, 29, 30
Mawlawiyya, 67
Mawsim, 67, 132, 151 O
McCown, Chester, 35, 36, 39, 88, 89, Orientalism, 31
94, 95 Oslo Accords, xvi, 136
Mecca, 6, 7, 15, 16, 23, 53, 114, 155, Ottoman, ix, 4, 13, 14, 17, 22, 23,
161 28, 29, 34, 39, 40, 51, 52, 62,
Medina, 6, 7, 15, 19, 53, 58, 160 67, 72, 73, 78, 79, 95, 100–104,
Meri, Josef, 19–21, 40, 52, 58, 108, 110, 112, 113, 115, 116,
109, 112, 144, 156 123–125, 133, 143, 146, 150,
Merv, 9, 15 159
mihrab, 19
Mihrab, 5, 35, 50, 53, 58, 67, 69, 71,
77, 79, 87, 93, 94, 97, 101–104, P
130, 135, 143 Palestine Exploration Society, 31
Moab, 51 Pasha, Abdullah, 53
Montefiore, Moses, 133, 134 Patton, Lewis, 33
Mordechai Bar-On, 125 Petra, 94, 150
Moses, 18, 50–54, 96, 132 Pococke, Richard, 30, 133
See also Musa, Nabi
Moshe Dayan, 125
Muhammad, Prophet, 6–8, 15, 16, Q
19, 21, 108, 150 Qadariyya, 55, 68
Muharram, 6 al-Qaeda, 160
al-Muqaddasi, 9, 48, 73 Qajar, 115
 INDEX
   187

Qarafa, 92 Sh. Danun, 130, 149

Qaryat al ‘Inab, 94 Sh. Daud, 130, 149
Qibla, 6, 72, 116 Sh. Ghazi, 129
Qinnasrin, 20, 21 Sh. Hammar, 101
Qubba, 23, 49, 50, 87, 92 Sh. Maysar, 130, 149
al-Qubbi, Sh. Muhammad, 129 Sh. Musafir, 129
Quran, 6, 15, 21, 33, 50, 102, 129, Sh. Nuran, 124
135, 143 Sh. Raslan, 100
al-Qusayr, 20 Sh. Ridwan, 100
Sh. Tamim, 130, 149
Sh. Zayd, 101, 129, 149
R Sh. Zaytoun, 131, 149
Rachel’s Tomb, 132–134, 138, 149 Sh. Zuwayd, 160
Ramallah, 100, 131, 146, 149 Shabwa, 20, 21
Ramases II, 96, 143 Shaddad, Ibn, 144
Ramla, 20, 21, 48, 69–72, 80, 89, 91, Shadhiliyya, 78
100, 101, 127–129, 137 Shallaleh, 124
Rawahah, Abdallah bin, 150 al-Sham, Bilad, 16, 23, 60
Rebecca, 21 al-Sharif, Haram, 28, 66, 131
Ribat, 66, 67, 73 al-Shaykh, Dayr, 68, 74–76, 80, 93,
Rifa’iyya (Sufi order), 67 100, 149, 155
Riwaq, 56, 58, 60–62, 88, 102 Shi‘a, 29
Shusha, Abu, 127
Shu’ayb, Nabi, 113–115, 117
S Sidon, 20
Sabil, 80, 146 Sinai, 94, 160
Safed, 73, 89, 127, 143 Sitt Halima, 100, 128
al-Sahili, Sh. Abdallah, 103 Sittna Khadra, 125
Said, Edward, 31 Solomon, 35
Saladin, 19, 49, 100, 114, 134, 137 St. Helena, 142
Salah al-Din = Saladin, 19, 49 Sufism, 10, 11, 16, 17, 23, 40, 65–67,
Salih, Nabi, 20, 21 69, 80, 81, 89, 90, 136, 158
Samaritan, 38, 57, 135, 136, 142, al-Sulaybiyya, Qubbat, 8
157 Sunni, 8, 11, 16, 23, 40, 56, 60, 62,
Samarra, 8 107, 108, 110, 112, 116, 117,
Samwil, Nabi, 134, 149 162
Sanjar, Sultan, 9 Sur (Tyre), 20
Savignac, Raphael, 38 Survey of Western Palestine, 31–33, 93,
Saweh, 17, 18 135
Scrinium, 5 Syria, 15, 18, 19, 21–24, 30, 33, 34,
Selim I (Ottoman Sultan), 103 40, 51, 53, 62, 68, 96, 100, 112,
Sh. Awad, 125, 154 117, 157, 159, 160
188 INDEX

T West Bank, 4, 80, 128, 130, 131, 133,

Tabaq, 6 136, 138
Tabariyya (Tiberias), 20
Tariqa, 67, 68, 80, 90
Tekke, 66 Y
Tell Ashdod, 62, 73, 126 Yahya, Nabi, 97, 147, 149
Tell Balata, 135 Yaqin, Nabi, 20
Temple, The, 6, 49, 53, 132, 142 al-Yashruti, Ibrahim, 79
Thag Baba, 147 Yashrutiyya, 68, 78–81
Thari, Nabi, 101, 102, 129, 149 Yavneh, 56, 57, 128
Thietmar, 49 Yazid (Umayyad caliph r.683-684),
Tiberias, 49, 86, 127, 145 109
Tunis, 78 Yubna, 56–59, 62
al-Tur, Jabal, 48 Yunis, Khan, 124
Tyre, 20 al-Yunusiyya, 67
Yusha, Nabi, 110–112, 117, 149
Yusuf, Qabr, 4, 134–136
U
al-Umar, Zahir, 104
Z
Zar’in, 127
W Zawiya, 66, 70, 75, 79, 80, 90
Wadi Watir, 94 Zawiyas, 67, 79
al-Wafa ‘iyya, 67 Zaytunia mosque, 79
Wahhabis, 22
Waqf, 50, 52, 55, 61, 80, 81, 90, 110,
124, 159, 161