Sacred Place and Sacred Time in the Medieval Islamic Middle East - (Edinburgh Studies in Classical Islamic History and Culture)

About the Book

This book offers a fresh perspective on religious culture in the medieval Middle East. It investigates the ways Muslims thought about and practiced at sacred spaces and in sacred times through two detailed case studies: the shrines in honour of the head of al-Husayn (the martyred grandson of the Prophet), and the holy month of Rajab.

Book Synopsis

This book offers a fresh perspective on religious culture in the medieval Middle East. It investigates the ways Muslims thought about and practiced at sacred spaces and in sacred times through two detailed case studies: the shrines in honour of the head of al-Husayn (the martyred grandson of the Prophet), and the holy month of Rajab. The changing expressions of the veneration of the shrine and month are followed from the formative period of Islam until the late Mamluk period, paying attention to historical contexts and power relations. Readers will find interest in the attempt to integrate the two perspectives synchronically and diachronically, in a discussion of the relationship between the sanctification of space and time in individual and communal piety, and in the religious literature of the period.

From the Back Cover

Explores the construction of sanctity and its manifestations in individual devotions, state ceremonies and communal rites This book offers a fresh perspective on religious culture in the medieval Middle East. It investigates how Muslims thought about and practised at sacred spaces and in sacred times through two detailed case studies: the shrines in honour of the head of al-Husayn (the martyred grandson of the Prophet); and the (arguably) holy month of Rajab. Author Daniella Talmon-Heller explores the diverse expressions of the veneration of the shrine and the month from the formative period of Islam until the late Mamluk period. She pays particular attention to changing political and sectarian affiliations and to the development of new genres of religious literature. And she juxtaposes the sanctification of space and time in individual and communal Sunni, Ithna'ashari and Isma'ili piety. Key Features  Draws on a wide variety of primary material: narrative and documentary sources, travelogues, epigraphic and material evidence, and legal, devotional and prescriptive religious literature  Deals with the perspectives of Sunnis, Shi'is of the Ithna'ashariyya and Isma'ilis, rarely treated simultaneously in research  The 'long durée' treatment of religious phenomena offers a wide perspective, examining both continuity and change  Shows the wider theoretical implications of the two case studies - the shrine(s) of the head of al-Husayn and the month of Rajab  Integrates the study of religious thought, practice and literature within changing historical contexts Daniella Talmon-Heller is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Middle East Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She is the author of Islamic Piety in Medieval Syria: Mosques, Cemeteries and Sermons under the Zangids and Ayyubids (2007) and co-editor of Material Evidence and Narrative Sources: Interdisciplinary Studies of the History of the Muslim Middle East (2014).

Review Quotes

Sacred Space and Sacred Time makes important contributions to Islamic studies and to History of Religions debates on the sanctity of time and space. It is well-documented, offers fresh reflections on the thought of certain authors whose ideas have been widely studied (Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn al-Ḥajj al-ʿAbdarī), and analyzes numerous others whose writings remain understudied.--Linda G. Jones, Pompeu Fabra University "Medieval Encounters 28 (2022)"

[...] clearly provides a deep immersion into medieval Muslim society and an understanding of the foundations of Islam in the modern world.--Andrew Petersen, University of Wales Trinity Saint David "Bustan: The Middle East Book Review, 2021, Vol. 12, No. 1"

[...] it is not difficult to affirm that Talmon-Heller has made a major contribution to two (not so) peripheral themes in the framework of sacred spaces and times. She has done valuable work in exploring them in such an all-encompassing way that scholars in the area of Islamic Studies, religious anthropology and philosophy of religion will need to give her work serious consideration.--Patriarca Giovanni, University of Bayreuth "Politics, Religion & Ideology, 22:2,"

A splendid and much needed analysis of how notions of sancitity were translated into time and space. Talmon-Heller musters an impressive range of sources to reconstruct what sacred time and sacred space meant to Muslim communities in the pre-Ottoman Middle East.-- "Konrad Hirschler, Freie Universität Berlin"

About the Author

Daniella Talmon-Heller is Senior Lecturer in the department of Middle East Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She is the author of Islamic Piety in Medieval Syria: Mosques, Cemeteries and Sermons under the Zangids and Ayyubids (Brill, 2007), which won the 2008 Tel Aviv Book award for research on Middle East History. She is co-editor with Katia Cytryn-Silverman of Material Evidence and Narrative Sources: Interdisciplinary Studies of the History of the Muslim Middle East (Brill 2014). Her research interests include the history of the medieval Middle East, Islamic thought and practice, and comparative religion.