Between Orthodoxy and Exegesis Some Aspects of Attitudes in the Sharia Toward Funerary Architecture SHRINES

7/28/2019 Between Orthodoxy and Exegesis Some Aspects of Attitudes in the Sharia Toward Funerary Architecture SHRINES

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/between-orthodoxy-and-exegesis-some-aspects-of-attitudes-in-the-sharia-toward 1/12

Between Orthodoxy and Exegesis: Some Aspects of Attitudes in the Shariʿa toward FuneraryArchitectureAuthor(s): Thomas LeistenReviewed work(s):Source: Muqarnas, Vol. 7 (1990), pp. 12-22Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1523118 .Accessed: 08/12/2011 02:19

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

BRILL is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Muqarnas.

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=bap

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1523118?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1523118?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=bap



THOMAS LEISTEN

BETWEEN ORTHODOXY AND EXEGESIS:SOME ASPECTS OF ATTITUDES IN THE SHARI'A

TOWARD FUNERARY ARCHITECTURE

It has long been an accepted notion in Islamic art

history that funerary architecture was a rather late

development in Muslim building and that it did notcome into wide use before the ninth century. K. A. C.Creswell supported this idea by claiming that the Arabsshowed no interest in commemorating the dead withbuilt structures both during the jdhiliyya and after theyhad accepted Islam.' At most they piled stones up overthe dead; more commonly they covered them with earthand left them to oblivion. Creswell argued that the

Prophet had discouraged any tendencies toward con-

structing funerary monuments by prohibiting themfrom the outset. According to him, this prohibition wasobserved until the Qubbat al-Sulaibiyya was built in

Samarra; it violated the rule of taswiyat al-qubiir, or

leveling to the ground of all tombs, for the first time.2In fact, however, Islamic funerary architecture was

from the beginning of Islam subject to dispute and

opposition. Even if today art historians categorize fu-

nerary structures as "religious" buildings,3 that should

not detract from the fact that a substantial group ofMuslim religious texts, including hadith, commentar-ies, and pious tracts, regard them as distinctly un-

religious, pagan, and anti-Islamic, and one ought not toconsider funerary architecture without bearing this inmind. The insistence with which this disapproval was

expounded in the collections of the hadith of the third

century after the hijra, and later in the high Middle

Ages, in opposition to the spreading and flourishing cultof saints that centered on their tombs shows how muchthose who regarded themselves as guardians of theundiluted Islamic creed resisted the construction of

buildings over tombs and rituals at gravesites.Measures dealing with funerary building, whether

instructive or prohibitive, cannot, however, have been

inspired only - to go back to Creswell's thesis - by aconcern that hitherto unknown funeral customs would

develop among the Arabs. The prohibitions were rathera reaction to an already existing and widely practiced

cult of the dead in the Arab peninsula that had befound objectionable. The abolition of a great number

pre-Islamic funeral customs by the Prophet, as reportedin the hadith collections, had apparently not been suf

ciently effective, and the discrepancy between tradtional observances and the new religious rules was nticeable. Attempts to bridge this gap and either

change pre-Islamic funeral customs into Islamic sunnor to eliminate them completely can be detectedhadith in often contradictory rules - for example, hdith both favoring and prohibiting visiting tombs

performing prayers at graves and in cemeteries - thtended to cancel each other out. Even questions regard-ing the details of the cult of the dead clearly reachinback tojdhiliyya times - libations, blood sacrifice on t

grave, and attaching palm fronds to the grave - wetouched on and the first and the last were finally aproved as properly Islamic in the sunna of the Prophehimself.4

The construction of funerary architecture therefor

represents not only a special problem in the architectu-ral history of the Muslim Middle East, but also toucheon a whole array of questions concerning burial and th

permissibility of treating a tomb in special ways, amonthem marking and indicating them with architecturalstructures, and reconciling those practices with thcreed. In the course of this short study, the notion thIslam had a completely negative attitude toward funer-

ary architecture will be more closely examined. Argments drawn partly from theology, partly from juriprudence, both of which had to interpret and to enforcthe law based on the hadith, will show whether t

prohibition against building over tombs in early Islamitimes was purely preventive in a general way, or whether it aimed at suppressing particular forms of venerationof the dead and particular built structures. Throughsuch an inquiry one can perhaps discover why funerarybuildings represent such a problematic form of architecture for Islam, being, on the one hand, interdicted



ATTITUDES IN THE SHARI A TOWARD FUNERARY ARCHITECTURE

the Prophet himself and, on the other, enjoying greatpopularity, especially in certain periods.

Collecting a sufficient number of relevant sources onthe subject turns out to be more difficult than one mightexpect. In Islamic literature up to the thirteenth centu-

ry, descriptions of funerary architecture and its position

in Islamic law were of secondary interest. Neither geog-raphers nor historians nor theologians nor jurists ap-pear to have been sufficiently familiar with that partic-ular set of questions to have been drawn into a detaileddiscussion of them. The easiest to approach, and forthat reason the only sources consulted by Western

scholars, are the canonical hadith collections of theninth and tenth century. Their consistent rejection of

any kind of building over tombs was what provided the

apparently satisfactory explanation for the lack of mau-solea in the early Islamic period and was the source forthe belief that Islam strictly rejected funerary architec-

ture. Not included in that research were the law com-

pendia and the commentaries on the hadith from thetenth and eleventh century, nor the debates about mau-solea and visits to cemeteries in the twelfth and thir-teenth set forth by the Syrian Hanbalites Ibn Taimiyya(d. 1328) and his pupil Ibn Qayyim al-Jauziyya (d.1350)5 that arose when the pompous and monumentaltombs of the last Ayyubids and the first Mamluks in

Aleppo, Damascus, and especially Cairo eclipsed - nodoubt to the annoyance of many - the mosques, ma-

drasas, and mansions of the city. Wherever cemeteries

beganto turn into

propercities of the

dead,the

questionof the compatibility of funerary structures with thecreed was generally debated.

The arguments for and against the compatibilitywith Islamic principles and the legality of mausolea andthe veneration of tombs were supplied by theologiansand jurists. They began by looking to the past for state-ments or sunna of the ancestors (salaJ) on which theycould build a decision. There the first thing that strikes

one is that their arguments do not center on whether thehadiths concerned were genuine or the isndds (line of

transmitters) authentic, but on the views of Malik,

Shafi i, Ibn Hanbal, and Abu Hanifa, whose teachingsbecame the basis for the four madhdhib. An explanationmight be that except for the Shi 'ites, the greater part of

medieval fuqaha Iand ulema were connected with oneof the four schools. Nevertheless if one compares theearly law compendia, the first writings reflecting thehadith, such as Shaibani's Kitdb al-Athdr,6 Sahnun'sal-Mudawwana al-kubrd,7 nd Shafi' i's Kitab al-Umm8with commentaries on law from the eleventh to the

thirteenth century, a confused picture emerges in whicthe statements of the various generations of juristsnot always agree. Apparently the law was flexib

enough to allow perfectly lawful decisions handed down

by fuqaha' or qadis to diverge from the guiding rulethe hadith. From that some observations can be mad

which allow us to give a more precise picture of ttreatment of these prohibitions in actual practice.

THE INTERDICTIONS AGAINST TOMBSIN THE HADITH

Islam's disapproval of tomb building arose mainly froefforts to separate graves from places of worship and

stop the practice of praying at the grave site. Religiourules with that purpose appear in all hadith collectionand are regularly found in chapters entitled "jana'iz,"which regulate precisely the procedures to follow whenan individual in the Muslim community dies, includinthe washing of the corpse, mourning, and funeral rites.

Contradictory, or at least divergent, instructions haned down by tradition are given side by side. Theisource in most cases is a hadith traced back to

Prophet, but often it can also be the sunna, or the usaof the sahaba or the tdbi'<n, the companions of

Prophet and their followers of the first two Muslim

generations.Among this set of instructions are the following pr

hibitions against the cult of the dead and the venerationof tombs:

a) an interdiction against praying in cemeteries9 a

especially by graves;"'b) an interdiction against visiting graves" and sittin

next to them" (an interdiction leveled almost excl

sively against women);'"c) an interdiction against making sacrifices on graves;d) an interdiction against marking a grave or attachin

an inscription to it.15They also include the following rules against buildingon grave sites:

e) an interdiction against the use of lime mortar ('i

and brick (djurr)16 oth inside and on top of the graand against coating the outside of the grave with c(tin);7

f) an interdiction against erecting tents over graves;'g) a general interdiction against erecting a building'9

constructing places of worship (masdjid)20 ovgraves. This is also aimed against burials in builings, especially houses, that existed before the buritook place, as well as new constructions.2'



14 THOMAS LEISTEN

Finally the instructions aimed at ensuring observance ofthese interdictions are:h) an order to destroy the graves and tombs of the

unbelievers of the jdhiliyya;22i) a more general order to level all tombs to the ground

(taswiyat al-qubur).23

Such a detailed and extensive catalogue of prohib-itions and instructions concerning the cult of tombs andthe erecting of structures above them must be under-stood - contrary to Creswell's thesis - as representingquite a complete list of pre- and early Islamic funeralcustoms that were actually practiced, and not merely asan abstract set of preventive measures. Interdictions ofthis kind must have been conceived by Muslims asproscribing ancient traditions practiced by their prede-cessors who had established a cult of ancestors andpracticed veneration of the dead.24 Only actual practicecan explain why the prohibition of visiting graves and

praying at them could not be enforced, and was violated- if tradition is to be believed - even by such author-ities as Malik b. Anas (d. 796).25

The reason for breaking with these ancient customsin Islamic times was that performing prayer at, orfacing toward, a grave was considered by strict believ-ers to border on polytheism (shirk), and it thereforeviolated the principle of the unity of God, the tauhid. nlater times the Hanbalite Ibn Qudama al-Maqdisi (d.1223) formulated that attitude in these words: "Thespecial treatment (takhsis) f graves by praying by themis similar to the veneration of idols (asndm) by prostrat-ing (sujud) oneself before them and wishing to drawnear them. We have already mentioned that the begin-ning of idolatry was the veneration of the dead ...."26

The prohibition against erecting structures over atomb (rule g above) has been the basis for alleging anegative attitude by Islam toward tomb structures andmausolea. Summarized in the works on tradition underthe collective rubric al-bind' <ald 1-qubur i.e., "buildingon graves")," it occurs together with the interdictionsagainst tajsIs treating the tomb with lime mortar), tatyin(covering the tomb with clay), and kitdba (inscribing

tombs).28 Nowhere, however,is this

building prohib-ition explained, nor does it refer to a particular type ofarchitecture. We do not know with certainty, for exam-ple, whether tomb structures such as the domed mauso-leum did or did not originally come within the terms ofsuch an interdiction. The contemporary referencesmentioning only mortar and bricks seem rather to in-dicate that they were talking about simple enclosingstructures of stone or brick or of cenotaphs in brick.29

Only in later commentaries on hadith collections cmore precise references to the kinds of tomb structurethat were disapproved of be found, that is, structurereferred to as interdicted by the Prophet and at the samtime known to be in the repertory of medieval Islamtomb architecture.30

Although direct references to this group of the Propet's sayings are not unknown, they do not belong tohadiths transmitted by all collectors right frombeginning. In the largest canonical collection of haditthat of al-Bukhari, they are completely missing; the fother collections as a rule transmit the group via osingle isndd. Only the Musnad of Ibn Hanbal containthree separate lines of tradition. The early collectionsthe Shi'a do not mention the prohibitions againbuilding over tombs at all. Only the late compilational-Hurr al- Amili (d. 1650) contains the hadith incommon form, but traced back as usual to one of

imams (in this case, 'Ali al-Rida).Of the three main lines of transmission that can be

distinguished, only one was probably involved inwider circulation of the hadith concerned. Ibn Ma(1:498) and Ibn Hanbal (6:299) are based on two isoled lines of transmission whose individual membersoften difficult to identify - came from Iraq, Syria, aEgypt, but traditions from these regions are in the caof this hadith exceptions to the rule.3' It was maintransmitted from the Iraqi cities of Basra, Kufa, andlater on, Baghdad. In the case of the prohibition againstbuilding over tombs, the tradition that was handedown by the Prophet's companion Jabir b. 'Abd Allawas preferred over all others. Ibn Hanbal incorporateit in his Musnad from Basri and Baghdadi transmiters.32 The key person for the circulation of this hadithowever, remains the Basri Ibn Juraij (d. 767) in tbeginning of the Abbasid period. Not until then, i.efairly late, did his tradition become the basis for many-stranded transmission of the hadith by men froKufa and Baghdad, ending in the collections of IbHanbal (3:299),33 Abu Dawud,34 Muslim,35 Tirmidhi,3and finally Nasa' i37 see fig. 1).

THE ARGUMENTS AGAINSTFUNERARY ARCHITECTURE

It is striking that apparently no one felt a need formulate theological arguments against funerarychitecture. The well-known eschatological imagesparadise or hellfire as the last abode of the soul are onrarely introduced into the discussion as an argument



ATTITUDES IN THE SHARI(A TOWARD FUNERARY ARCHITECTURE

Nasa) i Yfisufb. ____

al-.Hajjjb.

I, 285 Sa (id Muhammad

Tirmidhi (Abd ar-Rahman Muhammad b.I, 196 b. al-Aswad Rabi (a

Sulaimanb.

MfisaIbn Juraij Abui Zubair

Muslim (A.B. b. Abi Hafs b.III, 62 Shaiba Ghiyath

Jabir .Abd Allah

Musaddid (Uthma-n b.Abi Shaiba

Abui Dawuid I. Hanbal (Abd ar-RazzaqII, 71 III, 299 b. Nafi (

I. Hanbal (Affan b. Mubairak b.

III,399 Abu (Abd Alla-h (Abd Allah Muslim Fadala Nasr b. Rashid Proph

I. Hanbal Yazid b. Na <im b.VI, 299 <Abd Allaih Hasan I. Lahi (a_ Yazb. Nb imb. Umm SalamaVI, 299 Abi Habib (Ujail

I. Maja Muhammad Muhammad b.(Abd ar-Rahmin al-Qasim b.

I, 498 b. Yahya (Abd Allah Wahb b. Yazid Mukhaimira Abui Sa(ar-Raqashi

Fig. 1. Main lines of transmission of the hadith.

the futility of building a habitation, a domus eterna rdomus nimae, or the soul of the dead. Rather the oppo-nents of funerary architecture adduced their reasons

againstit from the form and features of

buildingsassoci-

ated with tombs. In the popular mind in all times theidea persisted that the dead were mentally and phys-ically actually present in the grave, untouched by death.This led to the notion that buildings on top of, orstructures inside, the grave could be a bad influence on,or even cause physical pain to, the corpse. The disap-proval of funerary structures sometimes took the formof an aversion to particular building materials such as

lime mortar, brick, and clay.38 Covering a tomb witbrick and lime-mortar structures was regarded asmanifestation of worldy vanity (Zinat l-dunya) or whic

the dead man on his passage to the other world had nuse and was not suited."9 t was felt to be inappropriateto make tombs both obvious and durable through tuse of bricks and mortar.40 Both contradicted the princple of taswiyat al-qubur. t was much more importanthowever, not to expose the dead inside the tomb to limand brick or to seal the lahd, the charnel vault and thlateral niche, with those materials, because lime abrick had been in contact with fire, and it was believe



16 THOMAS LEISTEN

that they could dry out the grave,41 a belief also derivedfrom the Prophet's sunna: "The Prophet attached a

palm frond to two graves and said, 'Perhaps this mighthelp against the desiccation of both of them.' Therefore

they [sc. the theologians] thought that what had beentouched by fire would accelerate the desiccation [of the

grave] by sun and air."42The rejection of fired brick and lime thus finds its

explanation in the idea of the grave as a place withoutcoolness or shade, a common belief in ancient Meso-

potamia and pre-Islamic Arabia that was taken over byIslam. It was believed that the soul of the dead wouldsuffer thirst in the grave and be in need both of libationsof water and of the coolness of shadow.43 In Islamic

times, the idea of the 'adhab al-qabr, a punishment thatcould be inflicted on the dead in the grave for lesser

sins,44 might have been combined with it. The associ-ation of bricks and lime made in fire (al-ndr) with the

hellfire (al-ndr) that threatened to burn the dead in hisgrave apparently added to their aversion to those twomaterials.45

Concern for the welfare of the dead was also what ledto the argument over coating the outside of the tombwith clay. People were afraid that the dead would not beable to hear the call to prayer (adhan) or to perform the

prayer.46 Behind this fear lay the common belief that thedead were able to hear and understand the voices of the

living. The prohibition against covering a tomb with

clay can be traced back, just as in the case of bricks andmortar, to the highest authority, the sunna of the Proph-et. Ibn Sirin (d. 728) is reported to have avoided itsuse,47 and the prohibition against tatyzn can still befound in Ibn Qudama, who refers to Ibn Hanbal.48 Thisis remarkable when one considers that both al-Shafi'iand Hasan al-Basri allowed tatyin al-qabr and obviouslyplaced no special significance on the hadith.49

In the same vein funeral structures were thought to

pose a threat to the intact body, a heavy burden lying onthe corpse, crushing and oppressing it by its weight.50 Itwas because of this, according to the fuqahaL, that the

Prophet ordered the leveling of all tombs to the groundto alleviate the

corpse's suffering."'The last argument against building over graves wasthat it had its origins in pagan pre-Islamic or non-Islamic custom, for obviously those roots were known:"The objection [to funeral buildings] consists in itsimitating the unbelievers (al-kuffir) among the ahl al-kitdb and the polytheists (al-mushrikun) among the ahlal-jdhiliyya, because they covered the tomb with panelsof marble or built over it. The shari <a, however bases

many of its instructions on its opposition to unbelieverand polytheists."52

ATTITUDES TOWARD TOMB STRUCTURESIN THEOLOGY AND JURISPRUDENCE

When one turns to the writings of Islamic theologianand jurists one finds a very different picture. To detemine the role in everyday life played by prohibitionsbased on the hadith of the Prophet, particularly tho

incorporated into legal practice, it is useful to cite Golziher's comment that the hadith were held in greatesteem by the Muslims of the first generations afMuhammad's death than by the laterfiqh generations.53Perhaps the need to reconcile religious requirementswith the reality of funeral customs led to the decisionSunni and Shi 'ite theologians and jurists not to stmatize funerary architecture out of hand as haram.stead structures over tombs were classified as mak(objectionable, disapproved of), a much weaker expresion. That this term did not convey a strict prohibitionis clear from its definition: "Makruh is what the shari

requires be avoided, but it is an admonition withocoercion. A person who does it [sc. a deed classified

makruh] will not be condemned for it, but he will

praised if he avoids doing it."54Al-Shafi i, Malik b. Anas, Ahmad b. Hanbal, a

Abu Dawud (the transmitter) are reported to ha

agreed that building over tombs should be categorizedonly as makr-h, not as hardm.55 Although it is likely thShi 'ite circles also agreed, evidence for that cannot bfound until the fifteenth-century Kitdb al-Muntaza 'legal manual compiled by the Zaidite Ibn Miftah.This moderate attitude, regarding funerary structureas only a minor infraction, on the part of those who hto deal with this hadith in practical terms was probablnot formulated before the eighth or ninth century, bthere are indications that even before that time prohibition, disapproval, or even consenting to erecting fune

ary structures depended on the attitudes, views, a

judgment of the faqih. For instance, Abu Hanifa

reported to have regarded building over tombs (al-bin<ald 1-qubir) as legal and not objectionable.57 Unfortunately neither the Musnad of Abu Hanifa nor the Kial- AslIof Muhammad Hasan al-Shaibani have chapteron jand'iz, from which one could draw actual statements by the early Hanafiyya on that complex of quetions.

It might have been the liberal attitude ofAbu Haniand his followers toward funerary architecture whi




still in the high Middle Ages caused Ibn Qayyim al-

Jauziyya to list Shafi'ites, Malikites, and of course thefollowers of Ibn Hanbal, but not the Hanafites, amongthe opponents of mausolea.58 In reality, however, therewere never any consistent blocks of supporters and

opponents of funerary architecture identified with the

madhdhib; no particular position for any of them can bedefinitely determined. This explains why already quiteearly on we find different points of view between teach-er and pupil. Malik subscribed to the idea ofdisapprov-ing building over tombs, but objected only to construc-tions made out of stone."59 But Sahnun, who spreadMalik's teachings in the Islamic west, clearly requiresthe literal fulfillment of this order because the hadiths

postulate the taswiyat al-qubir, regardless of what thestructure is built: "This [sc. the tradition concerned] isclear evidence (dthar) in favor of leveling tombs to the

ground. How [after all] can one intend to build over

them?"'60The opposite view was held by the Malikite qadi of

Baghdad, Abu'l-Hasan (Ali b. Umar b. Ahmad al-

Qassar (d. 1008).61 He allowed building a qubba, a bayt,or a madrasa over a tomb, so long as it did not touch the

grave proper,62 and so long as the structure did notstrive for vainglory and pomp (mabdha).63 We can find a

similarly acquiescent attitude in the Kitdb al-Muhalld byIbn Hazm (d. 1064) of Cordoba: "If over it [sc. the

grave] a bayt or a raised construction (qd)im) was built,this was not regarded as objectionable."64 He distin-

guishes strictly, however, between the bayt, which was

permitted, and constructions inside the tomb or theerection of a qubba, which he did not consider accept-able.65 The Hanbalite Ibn Muflih (d. 1362) unambig-uously says the same thing when he quotes from the

Kitdb al-Mustau'ab: "A pompous building (bind> l-fikh-ir) is objectionable. But he [sc. the author of the Kitdb

al-Mustau'ab] emphasizes that there is no objection to a

building enclosing it [sc. the tomb] (bind> mulasiq) be-cause its intention is to mark and preserve it."67Judgingfrom this evidence, the basic attitude of some importantauthorities who collected and interpreted the hadithand sunna toward

the question of building over tombswas less strict than the uncompromisingly negativestatements in the hadith texts themselves would lead usto expect. That this interdiction - half-hearted andexpressed only in a "disapproval" of funerary architec-ture - did not seriously inhibit tendencies in the otherdirection now becomes understandable when we findauthorities of religious law simultaneously grantingpermission for the practice.

A special problem the ulema had to deal with andone that probably weakened the enforcement of

prohibition against funerary buildings was posed bybayt, the simple Middle Eastern one-room house com

monly used as a funerary structure. On the one hanthe bayt belonged among the structures banned by

hadith;67 on the other, Islamic theology had to cowith the fact that the Prophet had died and had beburied in one. He had been enterred in WA sha's baytwhich together with other buydt and the court wformed the ddr of Muhammad in Medina - in spitethe fact that a number of other places outside the houhad been proposed for the Prophet's burial site."68 t vesoon became obvious, however, that this site ran couter both to quite a number of instructions in the haditand to the sunna of the companions.

According to tradition, Abu Bakr had been the one

tip the scale in favor of the bayt for the Prophet's buriajustifying his decision by referring to the Prophet's owwords: "No Prophet had died who has not been buriewhere he died."''69 The fact remained, however, that t

very authority the ulema were appealing to as prohibiting house burials and funerary structures was himseburied in such a place. This inconsistency caused considerable consternation and led to a series of apologieand attempts to answer the questions it generated. IbHanbal, a zealous opponent both of built tombs antheir veneration, explained the contradiction byferring to the exceptional position of the Prophet: "H

[sc.Ibn

Hanbal]held the view

(rald)that the burial

the Prophet took place in a building because it was

appropriate privilege for him by virtue of his exceptional position (al-tamyiz al-ld)iq)."70 The following quotation also shows that even the Hanbalites of the latMiddle Ages were disturbed by this problem and coutered attacks by referring to the views of the peoplclosest to the Prophet: "The sahdba and the tdbi '-n anthose who came after them were still buried in the opefield (fi 1-sahdrd). If somebody argued: But the Prophewas buried in his bayt and two of his companions [Abu Bakr and Umar] with him, then we answered

"CA) isha said: 'This was only done so that his gravwould not become a place of worship (masjid).' "71Even if it is impossible to ferret out completely t

role the "bayt of A) isha" played in forming the atttudes of the ulema toward funerary architecture, ttendency was to permit the bayt as a funerary structureon the grounds that it had such a respectable precedent.Writes Ibn Hazm: "He [sc. Muhammad] already anounced the place of his grave by his word: 'The spac



18 THOMAS LEISTEN

that lies between my grave and my minbar belongs tothe gardens of paradise.' By saying that, he announcedthat it [sc. his grave] would be in his bayt. He did not

object to his grave's being located inside the bayt and

[therefore] did not object to an erected building (bind)qd)im) [on a grave]."72 When in the Middle Ages two

zealous, if unsuccessful, campaigners against mausoleaappeared in the persons of Ibn Taymiya and Ibn Qay-yim al-Jauziyya, who demanded the demolition of mau-solea with domes, "because they represent disobedi-ence to the Prophet, who banned them,""73 he argu-ments on the other side were not completely unfounded:"Our ancestors (salaJ) already permitted buildings overthe tombs of venerated shuyizkh nd ulema so that peoplecould visit them and find refreshment sitting next totheir mausolea as, for instance, ribats or mosques,which stand over their tombs.""74

LEGAL DECISIONS

There are some indications that the decision to tolerate

funerary architecture depended not only on the views of

particular individuals, but on the development of a legaltradition based - somewhat surprisingly - on thelaws governing real property.

What gave rise to this were funeral buildings that

occupied more of the precious space in a cemetery thanthe deceased was normally entitled to and thereby pre-vented the burial of someone else not in a position to

enjoy a built tomb.75 Added to that was the complaintthat constructions above ground led to a lack of homo-

geneity in the cemetery as a whole. There was alsostrenuous objection to a practice that made one part ofthe Muslim community more privileged (tamyiz) thanthe rest after death, when at least theoretically allshould be on the same level.76 Because of this, funerarybuildings were deprecated as an innovation (bid(a)77and as symbols of worldly pomp for which the dead hadno need.78

The earliest evidence for the beginnings of a law

governing funerary architecture known to me takesthese

objectionsinto

consideration,but no

longer ques-tions the existence of funerary architecture as such.

They obviously tried only to limit exaggeration:

Al-Shafi (i said: "I have seen governors who demolished[tombs] in Mecca built inside the city, and I found nojurist who saw therein a wrong decision. If it was aquestion of tombs on land owned by the dead in theirlifetime or bequeathed to their offspring, nothing thatwas built on their part was destroyed. Only that which no

one called his own was demolished. The demolition tookplace so that the space around the tomb would notinaccessible to [other] people or prevent others frbeing buried there, and to avoid people's being hapered."79

The conclusions that can be drawn from this passag

are that there existed in Mecca toward the end of tsecond and beginning of the third century A.H. a kind

legal principle for dealing with funerary buildingsrived from the rights governing land ownership andstructures built upon it. The demolitions describedal-Shafi 'i might have been occasional acts by particulagovernors trying to distinguish themselves by theirous observance of the command regarding taswiyatqubir that had been approved as legal by the fuqaha'the city after the event. Even so it is clear that in the

early times there was already an accepted and wedefined place where funerary architecture could ex

and within whose borders the requirements of the shari 'a obviously ceased to function. A tomb on one's owland (milk) was untouchable, according to al-Shafi

report. For all time to come, this principle would be th

guiding rule for dealing with all kinds of funerary strutures. The Shafi' ite law in this case even annulled th

kirdha, the disapproval of funerary buildings: "The4db [of the Shafi (iya] say, 'If the tomb was his [sc.proprietor's] own property, then he was permittedbuild] what he wanted, in spite of the disapprovalal-bind)> ald l-qub-r], and whatever was standing over

[sc. the tomb] was not destroyed.' "80This view was apparently shared even by the Hanba-

li madhhab. A pupil of Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn Mufliquotes the Kitab al-Muharrar: "There is no objection t

qubba, a bayt, or a hazira on an owner's land. For burialsuch a place, even though it is like this [i.e., even thougthere is a building standing over the grave], is permitted(ma)dhin)."8' It is therefore not surprising that after th

early ninth century the erection of a funerary structuroften went hand in hand with the acquisition of land ensure its survival. Only in that context can one undestand the measures undertaken at the death of

Barmakid Umm al-Fadl, the wet nurse of HarunRashid, who passed away in (Ana while the Abbasicourt was on its way from Raqqa to Baghdad: "ARashid ordered 10 ajriba of land bought for her in garden next to the Wadi 1-Qanatir on the banks of thEuphrates. She was buried there and a qubba built oveher grave."''82 n contrast to land under tenure (milk),build mausolea on land that was open and unclaimed(musbala/sakhrd'),83 n a public cemetery (maqbara m



ATTITUDES IN THE SHARI A TOWARD FUNERARY ARCHITECTURE

bala),84 r on land that had been turned into waqf landfor public purposes (waqf 'amm)85 was regarded - atleast among the Hanbalites - as condemnable in theextreme (ashaddu irdhatan).86 hen, during the reign ofal-Malik al-Zahir Baybars I (1260-77), efforts weremade to put an end to the tomb architecture in the

cemeteries of Cairo, the opinion of the fuqaha) whofavored the sultan's project was governed by these sameprinciples. Ibn al-Siddiq reports that al- (Izz b. (Abdal-Salam issued a fatwa approving the demolition ofqibdb and buyzit nd many buildings standing on theQarafa of Misr because they were built on waqf landwhich had been ordained for the [public] burial ofMuslims. He made an exception [only] for the qubba fImam al-Shafi (i and said it was "because it was builtwithin the ddr of Ibn (Abd al-Hakam."87

Orientalisches eminar er

Eberhard-Karls niversitit TiibingenFederal Republic f Germany

NOTES

1. K. A. C. Creswell, Muslim Architecture f Egypt (= MAE) (rpt.,New York, 1982), vol. 1, pp. 110 f., 138.

2. Creswell, MAE, 1:110 f.; Oleg Grabar, "The Earliest IslamicCommemorative Structures, Notes and Documents," Ars Islam-ica 6 (1966): 8, stresses this point to explain the late developmentof Muslim funerary architecture.

3. Do'an Kuban, Muslim Religious Architecture Leiden, 1985), vol.

2, pp. 27 ff.4. For an extensive description of early Islamic funeral customsbased on the hadith collections of both Ibn Sa(d and al-Bukhar-i,see Irene Griitter, "Arabische Bestattungssitten in frfihisla-mischer Zeit," Der Islam 31 (1954): 147-73, and Der Islam 32(1957): 79-193. For sacrifices and libations, see ibidem, p. 181;for attaching parts of plants to the grave, see ibidem, p. 173.

5. Muhammad Kabbani, Die Heiligenverehrung m Urteil Ibn Taimiyasund einer Zeitgenossen, h.D. diss., Bonn University, 1979.

6. Carl Brockelmann, Grundrif er arabischen iteratur. . den Supple-mentbiinden ngepasste Ausgabe, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1943-49)(= GAL); Supplementbinde -III (Leiden, 1937-42) (= GALSuppl.), Supplement, ol. 1. p. 288. Shaibani died in 805.

7. GAL Suppl. 1:299. He died in 854.8. Fuat Sezgin, Geschichte esarabischen Schrifttums = GAS), vol. 1 ff.

(Leiden, 1967), vol. 1, pp. 484 ff. Shafi (i died in 820.9. Sulaimdn Abli Dawfid, al-Sunan al-Mustajfi hereafter Abui Da-

wiid). Two parts in one volume (Cairo, n.d.), part 1, p. 80.; Ab i(Abd Allah Muhammad Ibn Maja, Sunan hereafter Ibn Maja),2 vols. ed. M. Fu) ad (Abd al-Baqi (Cairo, 1372/1952), vol. 1, p.246; Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, Musnad hereafter Ibn Hanbal), 6 vols.(Beirut, 1398/1978), vol. 3, pp. 83, 96; Abli Muhammad (Alial-Darimi, al-Sunan hereafter al-Darimi), ed. (A. H. Y. al-Ma-dani (Cairo, 1386/1966), part 1, p. 263.

10. Abu- Diwu-id 2:72; Muslim b.al-.Hajjaj

al-Qushairi,.Sahih

(here-

after Muslim), 4 parts. (Cairo, n.d.), part. 3, p. 62, Abui AAllah Muhammad al-Tirmidhi, Sahih (hereafter Tirmidh(Builaq, 1292 H.), part 1, p. 195; Ibn Hanbal 4:135.

11. Ibn.Hanbal

1:229, 287, 324, but note the abrogation ofhadith at Ibn Hanbal 1:145; Ibn Mija 1:500; Abuf Dawuid 2Tirmidhi 1:19; Abii (Abd al-Rahman Ahmad al-Nasa) i, Su(hereafter Nasa)i), 2 vols. (Cairo, 1312 H.), vol. 1, pp. 285 f

12. IbnMaja 1:449; Abui Dawuid 2:72;

Muslim3:62;

Nasai 1:2Tirmidhi 1:195; Ibn Hanbal 4:135; Muhammad b. al-Has

Hurr al- Amili, WasdYil l-Shi(a ila Tahsil Masd)il al-Shar(hereafter (Amili), 5 vols. (Baghdad/Najaf, 1377-81/1957-61vol. 4, p. 90.

13. Ibn Maja 1:502; Abui Dawuid 2:72; Tirmidhi 1:196; Ibn Hanb1:229, 287, 324, 2:337, 356, 3:443.

14. Abui Dawuid 2:71.15. Ibn Maja 1:498; Tirmidhi 1:196; (Abd Allah b. Muhammad

Abi Shaiba, al-Musannaffi'l-Ahddith wa-l-Athdr hereafterAbi Shaiba), 15 vols., ed. A. al-Afghani (Bombay, 1399-1401979-83), vol. 3, pp. 334 f. The custom of installing inscribwooden markers on a grave is supported both by Shi (ite aSunnite authorities. For a wooden marker on the grave of UmMuhammad, mother of the caliph al-Mahdi, see

(Amili4

and on that for the daughter of Imam Mus- al-K-zim, see AJa(far b. Ya(ffut al-Kulini al-Razi, al-Kdfi (hereafter Kulini),vols., ed. (A. A. al-Ghiffari (Teheran, 1388-89 H.), vol. 3, p. 2The Hanafiyya also declared in favor of the marking of gravwith wooden plaques or stone slabs, see Abui Abd Allah Mhammad Ibn Muflih al-Maqdisi, Kitab al-Furu (hereafterMuflih, Furu-), 6 vols. (Beirut, 1402-4/1982-84, vol. 2, p. 27

16. IbnMtja

1:498; Muslim 3:62; Nas) i 1:285; Tirmidhi 1:196;Hanbal 3:399, 6:299; Ibn Abi Shaiba 3:337 f.; (Amili 4:90.

17. Ibn Abi Shaiba 3:342; (Amili 4:91; Abui Muhammad (Abd AlIbn Qudima al-Maqdisi, al-Mughni (hereafter Ibn QudamMughni), 9 vols.

(Riyad.,n.d.), vol. 2, p. 507.

18. Ibn Abi Shaiba 3:337 f.; Ibn Qudama, Mughni 2:507.19. Ibn Maja 1:498; Abui Diiwud 2:71; Muslim 3:62; Nasa)-i 1:2

Tirmidhi 1:196; Ibn Hanbal 3:299, 399, 6:299; (Amili 4:90 f20. Ibn Hanbal 1:229, 287; Nas )i 1:287; Kulini, 3:228;(Ami

4:127 f.21. Muhammad b. Isma (il al-Bukhari, Kitdbjdmi( al-Sahih (he

after Bukhari), eds. M. L. Krehl, vols. 1-3 (Leiden 1862-6Th. W. Juynboll, vol. 4 (Leiden, 1908), vol. 1, p. 120; A

Daiwuid 1:319; Ibn Hanbal 2:337.22. Bukhari 1:119; Abui Daiwuid 1:75; Ibn Hanbal 1:96; 3:212;

Abi Shaiba 3:388; (Amili 4:91.23. Muslim 3:61; Nasa)i 1:285; Tirmidhi 1:195; Ibn Abi Shai

3:341 f.24. The pre-Islamic treatment of a deceased person and his gra

could combine commemoration and veneration in the form offuneral stela, rendered in texts mostly as nfs (= soul, life). Thostelae were common not

onlyon the Arab

peninsulabut also

Nabataea and in isolated cases even in the Palmyrene. Grebilingual inscriptions give either stele

((onfX•l)or mnemeio

(pv•lpieov) [as the equivalent ofnf(b,p)s(sh)]; Enno LittmanPublications f the Princeton University Archeological xpeditionsSyria in 1904-1905 and 1909,"Division IV: Semitic Inscriptionsection A: Nabataean Inscriptions" (Leiden, 1914), nos. 41,10In addition, nbs had the meaning "funeral monument,"Brauner, A Comparative exicon fOldAramaic Ann Arbor, Mic1974), pp. 381 fif.; ee also Corpus nscriptionum emiticarum, ars"Inscriptiones Himyariticas et Sabaeas continens I-III (ff



20 THOMAS LEISTEN

(Paris, 1889), vol. 2, no. 191. Erecting stone stelas designated as

nsb (in Arabic nusub, l. ansab) was associated not only with thefuneral but also with the cult of gods and ancestors. For the cultof the ansab and its disapproval by Islam, see Ignaz Goldziher,"Ueber Todtenverehrung im Heidenthum and im Islam, Mu-hammedanische tudien, Teil I, Excurs II (repr. Hildesheim/NewYork of the 1888 Halle edition), pp. 232 ff. The "masjid" erected

bythe pre-Islamic poet and orator Quss b. Sa

(idaal-Iyadi

between the graves of his two brothers might have been such acommemorative stela (see Henri Lammens, Fdtima et lesfilles deMahomet Rome, 1912], p. 119). When one considers the trans-lation of the word masjid as "a place where one prostrates one-self," the connection to the commemoration of the dead byprayer becomes obvious. Compare J. T. Milik and J. Starcky,"Nabataean, Palmyrene and Hebrew Inscriptions," F. V. Win-nett and W. L. Reed, eds., Ancient Records f North Arabia III

(Toronto, 1970), p. 157, no. 111: "(dnh m) sgd) dy (abdw PrN""Ceci est le lieu de culte qu'ont fait PN." This inscription wasassociated with a grave. In pre-Islamic times cultic actions suchas the sacrifice and the oath at the grave (Goldziher, "Todten-verehrung," pp. 239 ff.; Julius Wellhausen, "Reste arabischenHeidenthums," Skizzen und Vorarbeiten r. 3 [Berlin, 1887], pp.101 f.; Maria H6fner, "Die vorislamischen Religionen Ara-biens," Religionen der Menschheit, ol. 10.2 [Cologne-Stuttgart-Berlin-Mainz, 1970], p. 358), and the enclosing of the gravesitewith ansdb orming a sacred area ("himd"; ee Goldziher, "Tod-tenverehrung," pp. 235 ff.; Wellhausen, "Reste," pp. 101 f.;Hofner, "Religionen," p. 359), belonged to a set of practices inwhich the cult of the dead and the veneration of the paganpantheon in Arabia were intermingled in a striking way.

25. Bukhari 1:119.26. Ibn Qudama, Mughni 2:508. Nevertheless, Ibn Qayyim al-Jau-

ziyya regarded as the source of the pre-Islamic cult of the godsWadd, Yaghuith, Ya(uq, Nasra, and al-Lat the veneration oftombs of people who had the same name (Ighdthat l-Lahfin minMasdyid l-Shaitadn, vols., ed. M. S. Kilani [Cairo, 1381/1961],

vol. 1, p. 203). The completely different effect and reception ofthat prohibition in the widest circles of theologians and jurists isreflected in a short resume in al-(Aini's (d. 1448) commentary onthe Sahih of al-Bukhari. According to him, Ibn Hanbal (d. 855)regarded praying in cemeteries as essentially hardm and IbnHazm in later times agreed with him (Mahmud b. Ahmadal-(Aini, ( Umdat l-Qdrifi Sharh Sahih al-Bukhdrf, 1vols. [Cairo,1308/1969], vol. 2, p. 351). Sufyan al-Thauri (d. 778), al-Auza(i(d. 774), and Abui Hanifa (d. 767), however, categorized thesame thing only as "disapproved of' (bi-kirdha). Al-Shafi (i (d.820) allowed prayers in cemeteries under the condition that thesoil was pure (tdhir) and had not been contaminated by dug-upgraves (ibidem, 2:351). Milik b. Anas, IHasan al-Basri (d. 728),and (Abd Allah b. (Umar (d. 693) departed again from thatview; they permitted praying in cemeteries without any re-striction (ibidem, 2:351 ff.).

27. Muslim 3:61; Nasaii 1:285; Ibn Maja 1:498; Abui Dawuid 2:7.28. See notes 16, 17, 18. The correct wording is: nah l1-rasilu -ldhi n

yubnd (ald 1-qabr, "The Messenger of God prohibited buildingover a grave."

29. Compare the slightly altered saying of the Prophet in the in-

scription of the tomb of Dhii 1-Niin al-Misri, who died in 859

(Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum, 9 vols. (Paris, 1894 ff.), part I,"Le Caire II," no. 562): "wa-ausdfi waSiyyatihi l-musnadati (anhian ld yubannd qabruhd wa ld yu (qada (alaihi qubbatun." This testa-

mentary disposition probably refers in the first part to a disaproval of structures not on the grave but more likely inside

namely the building of the inner walls of a shaqq or lahd wbricks or coating them with lime mortar.

30. See the following sections. In other cases the hadith is also

quoted, if the intention was to prevent building over a grave bytestamentary will. In later times domed mausolea are cleameant. Compare the case of Abui Tahir al-Shabashi (d. 101mauld of the Buiyid Abui 1-Fawaris, on whose grave a qubba wbuilt in violation of his wish "an ldyubnd (alayhi" (Abui 1-Far(Abd ar-Rahman b. (Ali b. al-Jauzi, al-Muntazamfi TadrikhMuluk wa-l-Umam, ols. 5-10 [Haidarabad, 1357-60 H.], volpp. 288 f.). The same wish was uttered by the Ayyubid Sultal-Malik al-Mu(azzam(Isa (d. 1226), see (Abd al-QadirMuhammad al-Nu (aimi, al-Ddrisfi Ta rikh al-Maddris, voed. G. al-Hasani (Damascus, 1367/1948), vol. 1, p. 580, and Ab

l-Fida~ Isma-il b. Kathir, al-Biddya wa-l-Nihdya, 14 parts ivols. (Beirut/Riyadh, 1966), part 13, p. 151.

31. Ibn Maja 1:498 <Muh. b. Yahya-? <Muh. b. (Abd AllahRaqashi, Basrian, d. 830, or 833; Ahmad b. (Ali b. Hajar(Asqalani, Tahdhib l-Tahdhib hereafter Tahdhib), 12 vols. (Brut 1390/1971), vol. 9, p. 276 <Wahb (Wuhaib b. Khalid< (Abd al-Rahman b. Yazid, Damascene, d. 770 (Tahdhib :5f.) <al-Qasim b. Mukhaimira, Kufian, died during the calipate of (Umar b. (Abd al- (Aziz; Abui Abd Allah MuhammadSa (d, Kitdb al-Tabaqdt l-Kubrd hereafter Tabaqdt), vols.,E. Sachau, E. Mittwoch, J. Horowitz, et al. (Leiden, 1904-40)vol. 6, p. 211, <Abui Sa(id al-Mu (alla, from Medina, d. 6(Tahdhib 12:107) <Muhammad; Ibn Hanbal 6:299 <(AbAllah <Hasan? <Ibn Lahi (a, Judge in Misr, d. 790 <YazidHabib, from Misr, d. 745 (Tabaqdt 7/2:202; Tahdhib 11:318

<Nf (im b. (Ujail, from Medina, maula of Umm Salam

(Tabaqdt :219) <Umm Salama, wife of the Prophet, d. 678 679 or 680 <Muhammad.

32. Ibn Hanbal 3:399 <(Abd Allah < (Affan b. Muslim, frBaghdad, d. 825 (Tabaqdt 7/2:51) <Mubarak b. Fadala, B

rian, d. 781 or 782 (Tahdhib 0:28 ff.) <Nasr b. Rashid? <AbZubair, from Medina, d. 743 (Tahdhib :440 ff.; Tabaqdt :354<Jabir b. (Abd Allah, from Medina, d. 693 or 697 (Ahmb. (Ali b. Hajar al- (Asqalini, al-Isdbafi Tamylz

al-Sah.dba[he

after Isdba], 4 vols. [Cairo 1328/1910], vol. 1, p. 213) <Mhammad.

33. Ibn Hanbal 3:229 < (Abd al-Razzaq b. Nafi(, d. 826 (Tahd6:310 ff.) <Ibn Juraij ((Abd al-Malik b. (Abd al-Aziz) frMecca, moved to Basra and died 767 (Tabaqdt :354) < Jabb. (Abd Allah, from Medina, d. 693 or 697 (Isdba 1:213) <Mhammad.

34. Abui Dawuid 2:71 A= Ibn Hanbal 3:299 (see note 33). A

Dawiid 2:71 B <Musaddid b. Musarhid, Basrian, d. 842 (Tdhib 10:107) < (Uthman b. Abi Shaiba, Kufian, d. 853 (Tahd7:149 ff.) <Hafs b. Ghiyath, judge in Baghdad, d. 805

(Taba6:271; Tahdhib :415 f.) <Ibn Juraij <Sulaiman b. Muisa, Dmascene, d. 737 (Tahdhib :226 f.) < Jabir <Muhammad.

35. Muslim 3:62 <Abi Bakr b. Abi Shaiba, Kufian, d. 845 (Tahd6:2 ff.) <Hafs b. Ghiyath <Ibn JuraijAb-i Zubair < Jab<Muhammad.

36. Tirmidhi 1:196 <(Abd al-Rahman b. al-Aswad, Kufian,after 854 (Tahdhib 6:140) <Muhammad b. Rabi a, diedBaghdad (Tahdhib 9:162) <Ibn Juraij <Abi Zubair <Jab<Muhammad.

37. Nasa)i 1:285 <Yiisuf b. Sa(id al-Antaki al-Massisi, d. 8




(Tahdhib 11:414 f.) <al-IHajjij b. Muhammad, from Baghdad,lived for some time in Massisa, d. 822 in Baghdad (Tahdhib 2:205 f.) <Ibn Juraij <Abui Zubair < Jabir <Muhammad.

38. Compare Grfitter, "Bestattungssitten," Der Islam 32, p. 172, andthe corresponding prohibitions in the hadith, supra, notes 16 and17. For the condition of the dead person and his soul within thegrave, see Ragnar Eklund, Life between Death and Resurrectionaccording o Islam, Ph. D. diss., Uppsala 1941.

39. Yahyi b. Sharaf al-Nawawi, al-Majmil( Sharh al-Muhadhdhab(hereafter Nawawi, Majmu ), 12 vols. (Cairo 1344/1925), vol. 5,p. 296; Ibn Qudima, Mughni 2:50. Ibn Muflih, Furi( 2:270,reports that the pious Umayyad caliph (Umar b. (Abd al- (Azizrejected structures made of brick over his grave. The prohibitionagainst building with bricks on a grave is also commonly accept-ed among the Shi (a; compare (Amili 4:91.

40. Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albini, Ahkadm l-Jand)iz wa-Bi-

da)uhd Beirut, 1388/1969), p. 20.41. Ibn Abi Shaiba 3:337 f. To illustrate this archaeologically, one

can refer for instance to grave shafts connected with above-ground tomb-houses and towers in Rayy, all built with bricks;see Chahriyar Adle, "Constructions funeraires a Rey circa Xe_

XIIe siecle," Akten des VII. internationalen Kongresses ur iranische

Kunst und Archdologie Berlin, 1979), pp. 511 ff.42. Abui 1-Faid Ahmad b. al-Siddiq al-Ghuma-ri al-Shrfi (i, Ihyda)

al-Maqbfir min Adillat Istihbdb Bind) al-Masdjid wa-l-Qibdb aldl-Qubur hereafter Ibn al-Siddiq, Ihyd)) (Cairo, ca. 1925), p. 14;compare Muslim 2:111 for that hadith.

43. For the Babylonian and the Greater Syrian region, compareAndre Parrot, Le "Refrigerium" ans 'au-dela Paris, 1937), pp. 5ff. and pp. 55 f., and, for the Arab peninsula, J. Smith and Y.Yazbeck-Haddad, The slamic Understanding f Death and Resurrec-tion (Albany N.Y., 1981), pp. 149, 153. For that reason, Danesh-vari recognizes as one of the main characteristics of a tombbuilding that its shadow cools the grave and the dead. For thatview, worked out especially by Iranian mystics, see Abbas Da-neshvari, Medieval Tomb Towers of Iran (Lexington, Ky., 1968),

pp.9

ff.44. Smith and Yazbeck-Haddad, Islamic Understanding f Death, pp.44 ff.

45. Ibn al-Siddiq, Ihyd), p. 14, adds that the prohibition againstbuilding the grave with bricks and lime mortar does not apply ifthey are used only for the outer building, because the dead will inthat case have no immediate contact with them. A similar view isfound in the Shi(ite collection of (Amili 4:5, in which (Ali atteststhat bricks on a grave can cause no harm to the dead.

46. Ibn Qudima, Mughni 2:507, and (Amili 4:91.47. Ibn Abi Shaiba 3:342.48. Ibn Qudama, Mughni 2:507.49. Ibidem.50. Ibn al-Siddiq, Ihyd), pp. 15, 17.51. Ibidem, p. 15.52. Ibn Qudama, Mughnf, and Ibn Muflih, Furz (, quoted by Ibn al-

Siddiq, Ihyyd), p. 16.53. Ignaz Goldziher, "Kimpfe um die Stellung des Hadit im Is-

lam," Zeitschrift der DeutschenMorgenladndischen esellschaft 1

(1907): 863.54. Muhammad Abui Zahra, Usul al-Fiqh (Cairo, n.d.), p. 45.55. Nawawi, Majm ( 5:298; Ibn Muflih, Furu( 2:272, appeals to a

corresponding statement by Ibn IHanbal. AI-Shafii does notuse the word kariha, but says "la uhibbu" Muhammad b. al-Idrisal-Shafi (i, K. al-Umm (hereafter al-Umm), 8 vols, ed. M. Zuhri

al-Najjir [Cairo, 1381/1962], vol. 1, p. 277.56. (Abd Allih b. Abu l-Hasan b. Miftih al-Zaidi, Kitdb al-Mun

za ( al-Mukhtdr min al-Ghaith al-Midrdr l-Mufattih i-Kand)imAzharfi Fiqh al-A)imma l-Athar, 4. vols. (Cairo, 1341/1922),1, p. 440. The K. al-Muntaza is the commentary to the Kandal-Azharfi'l-Fiqh al-A)imma l-Athar f Ahmad b. Yahyi al-Mtada (d. 1437); see Brockelmann, GAL 2:244. Ibn Miftah pnounces himself as

disapproving funerarystructures

onlycases in which the deceased was not known for his or her virtObviously he would not have disapproved of the istithnd) orimams, the exceptional case in which it was permitted to butombs over their graves. This exception, including the tombsthe Prophet and the imams explicitly, can still be found(Amili 4:90.

57. Nawawi, Majmil( 5:298; Abui (Abd Allah Muhammad QSafad al-Dimashqi, Rahmat l-Ummafi Khtildfal-A)imma Cai1386/1967), 73; (Abd al-Wahhab al-Sha(rani, Kitdb al-Mitdnvols. (Cairo, 1291/1874), vol. 1, p. 271. Reports that Abui Hanapproved of tombs without any restriction may have been netive propaganda by other religious schools against the Hanafya, but they did circulate widely. Compare the work ondifferences between the teachings of the madhdhib by Muhammab. Ahmad b. Rushd, Kitdb Biddyat al-Mujtahid wa-NihdyatMuqtasid Cairo, n.d.), part 1, p. 143.

58. Ibn Qayyim al-Jauziyya, Ighdthat al-Lahfan 1:204. He stresthat the majority of the religious schools ( (dmmat l-tawd)if) hdeclared buildings on graves to be prohibited (bi-nahy) andaddition that especially the schools of Malik, Shafi (i and Ahmb. Hanbal declared them to be strictly forbidden (saraha bi-trim), which is, as we have seen, not quite true. Significantly,Battfita could visit the "qubba (a•ima"

of Abui Hanifa inKhaizurin cemetery in Baghdad, but not of Ibn Hanbal, whad none: attempts to build him a qubba had failed by "diviinterference" (Ibn Battuta, Rihla [Beirut, 1388/1968], p. 220

59. Malik b. Anas and Sahniin b. Sa (id al-Tanfikhi, al-Mudawwaal-Kubrd, 9 vols., ed. Muh. al-Maghribi al-Tuinisi (Cairo, 1

H), vol. 1, p. 189.60. Ibidem. For Sahnuin's written work, see GAL 1, Supplement

299.61. A short note on him in GAS 1:481.62. Ibn al-Siddiq, Ihyd), p. 11. His report goes back to a risdla o

certain al-Tamimi al-Maghribi al-Tfinisi (for him see (UmRidi Kahhlila, Mu (jam al-Mu)allifin, 15 vols. [Damascus, 1381/1957-61], vol. 2, p. 263). The attitude of Ibn al-Qassar wapplauded by Ibn Rushd (Ibn al-Siddiq, Ihyd), p. 11).

63. Ibidem. His source is a sharh ommentary of a certain al-Sijilmsi, about which he gives no further detail.

64. Abui Muhammad (Ali b. Hazm, Kitdb al-Muhalld, 11 vols.,A. M. Shikir (Beirut, n.d.), vol. 5, p. 133.

65. Ibidem.66. Ibn

Muflih,Furl

(2:272. The author of

theK.

al-Mustau (ab athe K. al-Muharrar, hose name is not mentioned by Ibn Muflis probably Majd al-Din Abui 1-Barakit (Abd al-Salim b. Tamiyya (d. 1243), the grandfather of the famous Taqi al-DMajd al-Din lived and taught at Harrin and was attached to tHanabila. Among his works is the K. al-Muharrar i'l-FighMadhhab al-Imdm Ahmad b. HIanbal GAL 1, Supplement, . 69which has been preserved, together with its commentary,Nukat wa-l-Fawd)id al-Sunniyya y Ibn Muflih. In this commetary Ibn Muflih quotes very often from the K. al-Mustau ab, bdoes not mention the author. He introduces his quotation w



22 THOMAS LEISTEN

the words, "qdla dhib al-mustau ab wa-1-muharrar," s he does inthe K. al-Furi (. He obviously means the same person.

67. See n. 22.68. Abui Muhammad (Abd al-Malik b. Hishaim, Sirat al-Nabi, 2

vols., ed. F. Wiistenfeld (G6ttingen, 1858-60), vol. 1, p. 1019;Ibn Sa(d, Tabaqdt :70 ff.

69. Ibidem.70. Ibn al-Siddiq, Ihyd), p. 5. Ibn al-Siddiq rejects the notion that

the early Muslim community in Medina consciously gave theprivilege of being buried in a building only to the Prophet,because his successors, the caliphs Abui Bakr and (Umar, werelater buried with him in the same place. The companions of theProphet, who had allowed these burials in the bayt of (A)isha,apparently knew nothing of this privilege.

71. Ibn Qudama, Mughni 2:509.72. Ibn Hazm, K. al-Muhalld 5:133.73. Muisa- b. Ahmad al-Hijjawi, al-Iqnd( fi Fiqh al-Imdm Ahmad b.

Hanbal, 4 vols., ed. M. Subki (Cairo, 1351/1932), vol. 1, p. 233.74. Ibn al-Siddiq, Ihydf), p. 9. Compare Ahmad b. Muhammad al-

Tahawi, Sharh Ma (ani l-Athdr, 3. vols., ed. M. S. Jad al-Haqq(Cairo 1387/1968), vol. 1, p. 516, note 3.

75. Shhifi i, al-Umm 1:277; Abd al-Rahman al-Jaziri, Kitdb al-Fiqh

(ald l-Madhdhib l-Arba (a, 5 vols. (Beirut, ca. 1981), vol. 1, p.536; al-Sarakhsi in his Kitdb al-Mabsiitfi'l-Furi ( (GAS 1:460 f.),quoted in Ibn al-Siddiq, Ihydf), p. 16, and Ibn Muflih, Furziquoted in Ibn al-Siddiq, Ihyd), p. 10.

76. Ibn al-Siddiq, Ihya), p. 15.

77. Ibn Muflih, Furui( 2:272, is referring to Ibn Hanbal.78.

Shrfi(i,al-Umm 1:277, al Nawawi, Majm~ 5:296; Sarakhsi

the K. al-Mabszt "and many otherjurists of the H1anajiyya"al-Siddiq, Ihyd), p. 16). Ibn Qudama, MughnI 2:507;Muflih, Furl ( 2:272, rejects funerary buildings because of th

"similarity to buildings of this world"; so does the Imam

theologian al-Hilli (d. 1325) at (Amili, Wasd)il 4:91.79. Shafi (, al-Umm 1:277. Possibly two versions of the beginning

that passage exist. The editor of TaihIwil's harh Ma (ani l-A-tM. S. Jad al-Haqq, quotes (vol. 1, p. 516, n. 3) the same passafrom the K. al-Umm n the following way: "qdla al-Shdfi - ra)umara)a amni yahdamuna ma band l-ndsu mina -qibdbi ald l-mabiri wa-md ra)aitu ahadan mina 1-fuqahd)i nkara (alaihim." Antion of the text with these emendations is unknown to me.

80. Nawawi, Majmz( 5:298.81. Ibn Muflih, Furzi( 2:272.82. Abui 1-Hasan (All al-Shabushti, Kitdb al-Diydrdt, d. J. (Aww

(Baghdad 1366/1866), p. 299.83. Ibn Muflih, Furz( 2:272; Yahyai b. Sharafal-Nawawi, Minhdj

Tdlibin Cairo, 1325 H), p. 25.84. Nawawi, Majmi( 5:298.85. Jaziri, al-Fiqh 1:536. He takes as an example the Qaraifa of Ca

which was allegedly endowed by the caliph (Umar for the burof Muslims. Compare Muhammad b. al-Hajj, al-Madkhalvols. (Cairo, 1380/1960), vol. 1, p. 246.

86. Jaziri, al-Fiqh 1:536; HIijjaiwi, l-Iqnd( 1:233.87. Ibn al-Siddiq, Ihyd_, p. 6.