Amikam Elad. "An Epitaph of the Slave Girl of the Grandson of the ÝAbbÁsid Caliph al-MaÞmÙn." Le Museon. Vol. CXI (1998), pp. 227-244. (original) (raw)

An Epitaph of the Slave Girl of the Grandson of the 'Abbasid Caliph al-Ma'mun

Le Muséon, 1998

In the Name of God the Merciful and Compassionate 2) This is the grave of the slave girl (the mother of children) 2 of Musa b. Ya{qu-3) b b. al-Maˆmun surnamed 3 Umm MuÌammad 4) She died leaving behind 20 of her children and g-5) randchildren; all of them and she herself 4 were afraid of her d-2 Umm walad. 3 This word: al-mukannat, is quite rare. In the many hundreds of funerary inscriptions I have read (1st/7th to the 80's of the 4th/10th centuries), I found only three inscriptions in which this word occurs; cf.

Islamic Tombstones for Slaves from Abbasid-Era Egypt

Slavery & Abolition, 2023

This article studies tombstones from eighth- to tenth-century CE Egypt that are designed to mark the grave of a Muslim slave. These funerary inscriptions are unusual in that they do not marginalise the enslaved as much as do other early Islamic sources. Furthermore, they reveal otherwise undocumented attitudes towards persons who died as slaves. Offering a thick description of an unpublished tombstone for a ninth-century concubine-mother (umm walad), the present article analyses tombstones for slaves from two perspectives. It first studies the representation of the enslaved and the specific terminology that tombstones used to designate the deceased as enslaved. It then turns to the commemorative context of tombstones, arguing that tombstones of slaves served similar purposes, and used similar illocutionary strategies, to those used by contemporary tombstones for free Muslims. Despite these similarities between tombstones of free and enslaved persons, we see that deceased slaves were commemorated as members of the Muslim community as well as the legal property of their owners.

THE ARABIC INSCRIPTION ON ABŪ ˓UBAYDA’S SHRINE IN JORDAN

The migration of shrines, particularly of famous personalities, or martyrs is a common phenomenon in Islam as well as in other cultures. In this paper the Mamlýk inscription, dated 1277, over the tomb in ˓Ammatā (Jordan) of Abý ˓Ubaydah, the close companion of the Prophet, and supreme commander of the Muslim army during the Syrian campaign in the 7th century, is studied against the background of the migration of his grave and the conflicting reports about his death. At least four places are mentioned as his burial place: ˓Amawās (Emmaus) in western Palestine, Tiberias, ˓Ammatā in Trans-Jordan, and a place to the north of ©amāh in Syria. There are even traditions that he was buried in Beth Shean (Baysān, Scythopolis) and in Damascus. The inscription, which provides details about the income dedicated to the maintenance of the shrine, marks probably the end of a process that led to the selection of this sanctuary over the others, but leaves the conflicting reports about the general's death and its circumstances open.

Script or Scripture: The Earliest Arabic Tombstones in the Light of Jewish and Christian Epitaphs

Scripts and Scripture: Writing and Religion in Arabia circa 500-700 CE, 2022

The earliest Islamic-era tombstone inscriptions have received a great deal of attention by scholars from a variety of disciplines. A number of scholars have approached early Arabic tombstones and inscriptions with aims of interpreting social and religious history. 2 The value of these artifacts is unquestionable, but their interpretation for historians of the early Islamic period is not as definitive. For example, Leor Halevi is even hesitant to consider the earliest tombstone as specifically Islamic, 3 while Robert Hoyland cautions that the absence of "typical Islamic expressions" or the appearance of "indeterminate monotheisms" is to "misconstrue Islam, which is not primarily Muhammadanism, but rather subordination to an omnipotent and unique God. " 4 But placing these Arabic tombstones within a wider context of Christian and Jewish epitaphs is largely lacking. By highlighting a number of similarities, motifs, and characteristics of late antique Christian and Jewish tombstones, I argue that Christian and Jewish burial epitaphs represented religious and communal identity not through scripture or doctrinal vocabulary but through distinct script and symbols. The lack of theological content on early Arabic tombstones, therefore, is not necessarily evidence of a broader absence of distinctive religious doctrine or communal identity. 1 My appreciation goes to the participants in the "Scripts and Scripture" conference for providing valuable feedback. I also thank Rich Heffron, Aaron Butts, and Veronica Morriss, who read drafts of this essay at various stages, and to Ilkka Lindstedt, who provided me with several useful sources and forthcoming articles. 2 For example, Ory, "Aspects religieux des textes épigraphiques du début de l'Islam";

Mamlūk Epitaphs from Māmillā Cemetery

Levant, 2011

Māmillā cemetery was the largest Islamic cemetery in Jerusalem. During the Mamlūk period it was the burial ground for most of the important citizens. This article contains newly discovered Mamlūk epitaphs from the cemetery offered in an effort to trace the original locations, and to examine the relocations. Photos and plans prepared mainly during the British Mandate have been used to track the original locations. The historico-topographical presentation by Mujīr al-Dīn al-‘Ulaymī is the main historical source used to illustrated these inscriptions. Finally, the evidence of the relocation leads to the conclusion that a sacred axis existed at the eastern end of the cemetery, along which the existence of two mausolea and several graves have been discovered

Mourning Women: Two Modern Takes on Arabic Elegy

Journal of World Literature, 2023

This article examines two modern women poets' ambivalent engagements with Arabic elegy: the Iraqi Nazik al-Malaʾikah and the Egyptian Iman Mersal. Although they wrote in different national contexts and historical eras, with utterly distinct political and aesthetic projects, a close look at their verse reveals a specter of the bereft-yeteloquent "ancient Arab woman" haunting their respective poetic voices. Looking in particular at a conventionally metered and rhymed ode like al-Malaʾikah's "To My Late Aunt" (Ila ʿAmmati al-Rahilah) and at the quasi-elegiac threads woven through the prose poems in Mersal's 1992 collection, A Dark Corridor Suitable for Learning How to Dance (Mamarr Muʾtam Yuslah Li-Taʿallum al-Raqs) allows us to see how durable and omnipresent the woman-elegy association is in Arabic-surfacing everywhere from the heyday of Iraqi modernism, with its revaluation of conventional metrical forms, all the way through the unmetered, unrhymed experimentations of the "nineties generation" in Egypt.