The conference on the Materiality of Ziyāra in the Early Islamic World Tombs, Shrines, Practices and Politics (ca. 650-1300 CE) was organized by Aila Santi (Leiden University) and Sinem Casale (University of Minnesota), and supported by the ERC Horizon Starting Grant Project “Embodied Imamate: Mapping the Development of the Early Shiʿi Community 700-900 CE’. The conference took place at the end of October at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut, Italy. Three of the ‘Land, Space, Power’ Project members (namely: Finn Lindo-Dunn, Kyle Longworth and Petra Sijpesteijn) presented at this conference,
Bringing together over twenty scholars from a wide range of humanities disciplines, the conference aimed to examine ziyāra (the practice of grave visitation) as a phenomenon that transcends confessional, temporal, and geographical boundaries. Participants explored how the emergence of ziyāra practices in the early Islamic period should be understood not only through the lens of sectarian history and politics, but also within the broader, cross-religious landscape of memorialisation in Late Antique Western Asia and the Mediterranean.
The conference comprised seven panels, focusing on the themes of i) The Materiality of Ziyāra in the Shiʿī World, ii) Building Remembrance through material culture and practice, and iii) The Materiality of Death and Commemoration in Islamic Archaeology, and iv) Landscapes of Memory. LSP project members each delivered a paper within a panel related to the Landscapes of Memory.
Our postdoctoral researcher Kyle presented Caliphs ad Sanctos?: Pre-Islamic Christian Saints and the Gravesites of the Umayyad Caliphs ʿUmar II (d. 101/720) and Hishām (d. 125/743). His paper examined the resting places of these caliphs, both buried away from the graveyards of Damascus, and explored the extent to which their burials reflected continuity with pre-existing ziyāra practices rather than replacing earlier revered figures.
Our PhD candidate Finn delivered a paper titled Entombing Identity: Landscape, Memory, and the Tomb of ʿUqba ibn Nāfiʿ in Medieval North Africa. Focusing on the site of Sidī ʿUqbā in eastern Algeria (known as Tahūdā in pre-modern sources), Finn used this funerary monument to investigate the formation of an Islamic spiritual geography in North Africa through the narrativization of ʿUqba’s campaigns and martyrdom in early Islamic conquest historiography.
Our PI Petra presented Landmarks of Change: Tombs and Ritual in Early Islamic Egyptian Papyri. Drawing on a series of papyri, she demonstrated how these tangible material remains illuminate the relationship between lived and funerary space. She argued that the documents show how tombs – and the power expressed through prayers performed there – had become part of the landscape of everyday Egyptian life, and how references to tombs in routine written exchanges can be understood in light of a transformed physical and ritual environment.
The closing remarks, delivered by Avinoam Shalem (Columbia University) and Hugh Kennedy (SOAS University of London), led into a roundtable discussion during which participants reflected on the themes explored over the three days and considered future directions for the study of funerary practices.
Across the three days, a set of common themes emerged. Participants highlighted the importance of understanding funerary spaces as part of the lived environment, encouraging further exploration of how the living navigated and engaged with the presence of the dead. There was also a call for deeper attention to the material and technological dimensions of tomb construction and use, as well as for a more nuanced discussion of how official or prescriptive models of commemoration related to the diverse practices expressed in everyday life.
A detailed programme of the conference can be found here: link.
Before the conference started, the LSP team had a fruitful working session at Istituto Papirologico “G. Vitelli (Fig.X). We would like to thank the papyrological institute for hosting us. We would also like to extend our thanks to the organisers of the Materiality of Ziyara conference
