Traces of the Prophets : New,
Relics & Sacred Spaces in Early Islam :
[A5+] Hardback - 286 pages,
by Adam Bursi,
Published by Edinburgh 'Advances
in the Study of Islam.'
Description :
Traces of the Prophets Relics and Sacred Spaces in Early Islam - rewrites the history of holy bodies and sacred spaces in the emergence of Islam. Rather than focusing on theological controversies among early Muslims, this book is grounded in the material objects and places that Muslims touched and 'thought with' in defining Islamic practice and belief.
This is a new interpretation of the roles of material relics and sacred spaces in the formation of Islam :
*** Provides a new image of early Islam by examining the roles of material objects, rituals, and sacred spaces in the formation of Muslim communities and identities,
*** Analyses a wide variety of Arabic sources to demonstrate the importance of relics and sacred spaces in early Islam, including biographies and hadiths of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, Qur’an commentaries, histories and chronicles, juristic compilations, poetry, and polemical tracts,
*** Brings early Islamic evidence into dialogue with late antique Jewish and Christian usages and discussions of relics, sacred tombs, and pilgrimage,
*** Complicates long-standing assumptions about early Muslims’ negative conceptions of and attitudes towards the veneration of relics and tombs.
While often marginalised in modern scholarship, sacred relics and spaces stood at the disputed boundaries of emergent Islamic identities. Objects and spaces like Abraham’s footprints in Mecca and Prophet Muhammad’s ﷺ, tomb in Madina provided sites of shared Islamic ritual, as well as tools for differentiating Muslims from non-Muslims.
Contributing to scholarship studying Islam alongside other late antique religions, Traces of the Prophets highlights how early Muslims deployed sacred objects and spaces to inscribe and dispute Islam’s continuities with, and differences from, Judaism and Christianity. The book argues that Prophets’ relics ritually and rhetorically shaped Muslim identities in the first centuries of Islam.
Includes a copious amount of footnotes.
Review:
"This is an excellent book and will reward reading by all studying and researching early Islamic history." – Harry Munt, University of York, Bulletin of SOAS.
Adam Bursi is an associate acquisitions editor at Fortress Press. He received his PhD in Near Eastern Studies from Cornell University, and has held research and teaching positions at the University of Tennessee, the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library, and Utrecht University. He coedited the collection ‘His Pen and Ink Are a Powerful Mirror’: Andalusi, Judaeo-Arabic, and Other Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Ross Brann (Brill, 2020), and his articles have appeared in the journals Medieval Encounters, Arabica, Studies in Late Antiquity, and elsewhere.
Table of Contents :
---List of Abbreviations
---Acknowledgements
---Introduction,
-------Texts, Materials and Methodological Considerations,
-------Uncovering Prophetic Traces :
-------Finding Material Religion in Early Islamic Texts.
-------Organisation of Materials.
---[1]. Grave Markers:
-------Rhetoric and Materiality of Relic & Tomb Veneration in Early Islam,
-------Situating Early Islamic Criticisms of Christian & Jewish Tomb and Relic Veneration,
-------Glimpses of Early Islamic Tomb and Relic Veneration,
-------Conclusion.
---[2]. A Clear Sign:
-------The Maqam Ibrahim and Early Islamic Continuity and Difference,
-------The Maqam Ibrahim as Witness to Islamic Past and Present,
-------Ambiguities of Touching the Maqam Ibrahim,
-------Marking Muslim Difference with Footprints,
-------Conclusion : Footprints, Stones and Relics in Early Islam,
---[3]. Inverted Inventions:
-------Finding and Hiding Holy Bodies in the First Islamic Century,
-------Finding Prophet Daniel in the Islamic Conquests,
-------Inverted Relic Inventions in Early Islamic Texts,
-------Sacred Spaces & Hidden Holy Bodies in the Early Islamic Near East,
-------Conclusion : A Geography of the Unseen Sacred.
---[4]. Paradoxes and Problems of the Prophetic Body:
-------Prophet Muḥammad’s ﷺ, Corpse and Tomb,
-------Conflict over the Prophet's Corpse in Early Sira & Hadith Texts,
-------Locating the Prophet's Body in the Eighth and Ninth Centuties,
-------The Paradox of Sacred Body and Space in Late Antiquity,
-------The Prophet's Body : Tomb and Intercession,
-------Conclusion : A Footnote on the Prophets Tomb.
---[5]. Places Where the Prophet ﷺ, Prayed:
-------Ritualising the Prophet’s Traces,
-------Retracing the Prophets Life in the Hijaz,
-------Commemoarting Prophetic Places in Story and Stone,
-------(Mis)remembrance and Regulation of the Prophet's Traces,
-------Visitation of Athar as Supererogatory Ritual,
-------Conclusion.
---Epilogue.
---Bibliography,
------Primary Sources,
------Secondary Sources,
---Index.
More Islamic History.
Also see Islamic Theology
Dimensions : 24.3 x 16.2 x 2cm.
