Chapter 1 Introduction

1 Introduction to the Project

This book presents a catalogue of the Islamic funerary inscriptions of dat- ing to before 1317 AH/1900 AD (all dates are specified as either AH or AD. Where both dates are cited these are in the format AH/AD). It results from fieldwork completed between 2013 and 2015 undertaken in co-operation with the Bahraini Shiʿa Jaffaria Waqf and the Sunni Waqf authorities who provided information on the locations of relevant gravestones, personnel to participate in the recording, and ethical clear- ance and research authorisation (along with the Directorate of Archaeology and Heritage of the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities). 150 gravestones were recorded in 26 locations: in 23 cemeteries, , and shrines (136 gravestones), two (13 gravestones), and one private house (1 gravestone) (Table 1.1; Figure 1.1). Of these, 38 gravestones were exposed through archaeological excava- tion and 106 have inscriptions.

Table 1.1 Gravestone locations, abbreviations, and numbers

Name Location Type Number of Gravestones

Aʿali (AAL) 1 Abu Anbra (ABN) Originally urban now 50 village cemetery Abu Saiba (ABS) Village cemetery 1 Askar (ASK) Village cemetery, mosque 2 and shrine Barbar (BAR) Private house 1 Beit al- (BEIT) 1 Bilad al-Qadim (BAQ) Mosque 1 Daih (DAI) Village cemetery 1 (HOO) Urban cemetery 12 Hunaniyah (HUN) Urban cemetery 1 Jebelat Habshi (JBH) Village cemetery 13 Jidhafs (JID) Village cemetery 1 Jidhafs al-Imam (JAI) Village cemetery 3 Karranah (KAR) Village cemetery 5 Al-Khamis (KHA) Urban cemetery 25 Mahooz (MAH) Urban cemetery 2

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004383661_002 2 Chapter 1

Table 1.1 Gravestone locations, abbreviations, and numbers (cont.)

Name Location Type Number of Gravestones

Malkiya (MAL) Mosque 1 Al Maqsha (MAQ) Village cemetery 3 (MUS) Museum 12 Noaim (NOA) Urban cemetery 4 Al-Qadem (QAD) Village cemetery 2 Sh. Abd al-Rauf al-Bahrani (Sh. AB) Shrine in mosque 1 Sh. Latfulla (Sh. LA) Shrine in mosque 1 Sh. Ahmed bin Muhammad Tomb 1 al-Khalifa (SHAM-ALK) Sayed Yahya Al Husseini (SYA) Shrine in mosque 1 Tubli (TUB) Village cemetery, mosque 4

The excavations and surveys, and the ethnographic recording of contemporary cemetery visitation practices, cemetery material culture, and uses of the grave- stones was directed by Professor Timothy Insoll, assisted by Dr Salman Almahari and Dr Rachel MacLean and Mr Jassim Al-Abbas. Following the advice of Professor Robert Hoyland, New York University, that the inscriptions should be transcribed into modern by those familiar with the formulae used, this was completed in Bahrain by Dr Salman Almahari of the Directorate of Archaeology and Heritage, Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities, with Sheikh Bashar abd Alhadi Al-Ali, religious scholar, and Mr Jassim Al-Abbas, Head of Research at the Jaffaria Waqf Authority. Dr Salman Almahari completed the translation from modern Arabic to English, and additional crosschecking of the translations was complet- ed by Dr Xavier Luffin of the Départment de Langues et Lettres, Université Libre de Bruxelles, and Dr Abdelghani Mimouni, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter.

2 The Contents of the Book

This chapter considers the history of Islamic burial, gravestone, and cemetery re- search on Bahrain, and discusses the gravestone chronology, gravestone and cem- etery types, stone sources and gravestone manufacture, the gravestone inscriptions, content, iconography and decoration, and the archaeology of the shrines and cemeteries in which some of the gravestones were found. Chapter 2 presents the gravestones in the form of a catalogue. It provides detail on each location where gravestones were recorded, and individual reference numbers, co-ordinates,