ARAM, 18-19 (2006-2007) 695-703. doi:M. ZIMNEY 10.2143/ARAM.19.0.2020753 695

HISTORY IN THE MAKING: THE SAYYIDA ZAYNAB SHRINE IN

Ms. MICHELLE ZIMNEY (University of California, Santa Barbara)

INTRODUCTION

The shrine of Sayyida Zaynab just south of Damascus, Syria is, like most pilgrimage sites, steeped in long history and tradition. Neither born in bilad al- sham, nor particularly welcomed by the Umayyad caliph Yazid, Zaynab bint ‘ ibn Abi Talib (or Sayyida Zaynab) found herself in Damascus in 680 AD (61 AH), a prisoner of the caliph’s army following her brother Hussein’s de- feat at . In the standard Shi‘i narrative, Zaynab and the other women and children who survived the battle were paraded, along with the heads of Hussein and his soldiers, through northern Iraq and Syria as boast and warning to those who would oppose Yazid’s rule. After a short captivity, Zaynab was released to , then returned a few months later to Damascus with her husband where she died and was buried. What was presumably a modest burial site for over a millennium has become in the last forty years a spectacu- lar complex of religious, administrative, economic, and social spaces. Its blue- tiled exterior and massive gold dome, funded by donations from interested faithful, welcome upwards of two million pilgrims, mostly Shi‘a, from all cor- ners of the Islamic world annually. They come to pray, cry, and ask for Zaynab’s help with problems in their daily lives. During ‘Ashura’, masses reenact the Battle of Karbala outside the shrine, ritually beating themselves and often drawing blood. All this, despite the openly debated improbability that she is actually interred there. The controversy is rooted in the fact that in a city proud to claim itself the longest continuously inhabited city in the world, and one that was once the Umayyad capital, written evidence of the ’s existence prior to the 19th century is scant. Further complicating the issue is the presence of another large and popular shrine to Zaynab in that hosts a massive public moulid cel- ebration annually and draws pilgrims of its own. In this context, making the case that Zaynab is in fact buried in Syria presents a formidable challenge, one with which all involved have wrestled in earnest. The solution that has emerged is part scholarly debate, part Hollywood production. On the latter point, much of the success Sayyida Zaynab’s shrine in Damascus can be cred- ited to the production of material culture that has been “built” around it in the

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form of laudatory literature, secondary , and a tourism infrastructure that all promote an identification of the shrine with Zaynab’s experience, though not necessarily her death, in the city. In many respects one sees hints of the strategy once enshrined in the American film Field of Dreams, “If you build it, [they] will come.”

HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS

The shrine of Sayyida Zaynab, granddaughter of the Prophet through his daughter Fatima and son-in-law ‘Ali, is located approximately 10 km south of Damascus in an area that was until 40 years ago almost entirely agricultural land. Historically, the town carried the name of Rawiya, but has since been renamed Qabr al-Sitt or more commonly Sitt Zaynab. The land on which it sits was officially given as a waqf in the 14th century (1366AD/ 768AH) by the prominent local Murtada family, which traces its lineage back to Muhammad through the 7th Imam Musa al-Kazim and remains custodian of the shrine up until the present day. Reproductions of the waqf are available in several publications distributed by the Murtadas as well as in several academic journals produced in the past 15 years. 1 However, just what kind of shrine there was, if any, at the time of the waqf remains unclear. One of the two current custodians, Mehdi Murtada, believes there was a grave marker then, but does not have any details as to its descrip- tion or original construction. In the waqf itself the lands being donated were explicitly labeled as in Rawiya and for “al-sayyida al-khaalida Zaynab al-Kubra” but no further information is given about a shrine per se.2 It is important to note the specific name used in the waqf – Umm Kulthum Zaynab al-Kubra – as it will be relevant to our discussion shortly. In addition to the waqf, documentation of the history of the shrine can be found in several travel accounts written just before the waqf was made. For instance, in the Rihlas of Ibn Battuta and Ibn Jubayr, both authors make men- tion of the site, the latter describing a shrine to al-Sitt Umm Kulthum, or Zaynab al-Sughra, daughter of ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib in Rawiya situated next to a large mosque and housing units, surrounded by waqf property.3 Roughly con- temporary with these is a 13th century Abu Bakr al-Harawi text in which one finds a brief citation for Rawiya in his extensive list of sites in and around Damascus. He states simply, “Rawiya is a village…in it is the tomb of Umm

1 For example “Al-Waqfiya al-Taarikhiya li-Maqaam al-Sayyida Zaynab,” Al-Mawsem, no. 25 (1996): 16-29. 2 Ibid., 24. 3 Cited in Muhsin al-Amin, A‘yaan al-Shi‘a, vol. 7 (Beirut: Dar al-Ta‘aruf lil-Matbou‘aat), 136.

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Kulthum.”4 Prior to these, Ibn ‘Asaakir is known to have mentioned a mosque constructed in approximately 1106AD/500AH by a Qarqubi man from near the tomb of Umm Kulthum.5 Although not exhaustive, from these few representative references, one can reasonably assume that there was indeed a marked burial site to a woman who enjoyed some level of reverence in Rawiya at least as early as 1100 AD. How- ever, two issues remain problematic. First, even the earliest source, Ibn ‘Asaakir, is writing some four hundred years after the death of Zaynab, leaving a large gap in time with no surviving written account of the shrine. Second, as we noted in the waqf, Sayyida Zaynab is associated with several other names (Zaynab al-Kubra, Umm Kulthum), which although customary, generates some imprecision. This is compounded by the fact that Zaynab al-Kubra had a younger sister whose name was also Zaynab (a.k.a. Zaynab al-Sughra) who was also occasionally known as Umm Kulthum. And to really confuse matters, Zaynab al-Kubra had a daughter also named Umm Kulthum. Armed with this information, we can look again at the historical references cited above that all point to the existence of a shrine in Rawiya, but attribute it to a woman named Umm Kulthum. Uniquely, the waqf joins the names Zaynab al-Kubra and Umm Kulthum in 1366, but before then the shrine is named only for Umm Kulthum or in the case of Ibn Jubayr, Umm Kulthum and Zaynab al-Sughra. Was the shrine really to Zaynab al-Kubra all along and Ibn Jubayr just mis- stated the name? Or is it perhaps to another Umm Kulthum, Zaynab’s sister or her daughter? This significant ambiguity as to the identity of the woman bur- ied in Rawiyya has provided fuel for those who doubt she is the woman in question, Sayyida Zaynab. If we look earlier in Zaynab’s biography, there is general consensus, though not unanimity, regarding the account of her role at the Battle of Karbala along- side her brother Hussein and her subsequent arrival in Damascus as a captive of Yazid’s forces. The questions really begin with what happened to her once she was released to return to her home in Medina. As cited above, most narra- tives trace Zaynab’s ultimate return to Damascus before her death. How cred- ible is it that she would return of her own free will to the city that had been the site of her captivity, especially as long as Yazid remained in power? Her Damascene supporters argue that soon after she arrived in Medina, a drought- driven famine struck the city forcing Zaynab to relocate, temporarily, with her husband and children. Damascus, contrary to what one might expect, was in fact a natural destination given her husband Abdullah bin Ja‘afar’s land hold- ings south of the city. Shortly after their arrival, according to this narrative,

4 Abu Bakr al-Harawi, Kitaab al-Ishaaraat ila Ma‘arifat al-Ziyaaraat (Damascus: Institute Français d’Études Arabes de Damas, 1953), 12. 5 Cited in Muhsin al-Amin, A‘yaan al-Shi‘a, vol. 7 (Beirut: Dar al-Ta‘aruf lil-Matbou‘aat), 136.

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Zaynab took ill and passed away in Rawiya where she remains buried to this day.6 A competing account of her last days by those believing Cairo is her resting place points to her political activities in Medina, not the famine, as the reason for her forced departure from the city. In this scenario, she fled to Cairo where she was welcomed with respect and condolences, and even given lodging in the home of the governor Maslima bin Mukhalid. He subsequently buried her in one of the rooms when she died less than a year later.7 That room reportedly now stands at the heart of her in Cairo where Zaynab is generally considered the patron saint of the city. Some also cite as supporting evidence for this story that Zaynab was traveling not with her husband, but with her sis- ters Zaynab and Ruqayya and her grand-niece Nafisa. Today there are shrines to both Ruqayya and Nafisa in Cairo, making Zaynab’s presence there at some point in time at least plausible. In the ongoing debate, supporters of both sides quote historians and popular traditions to make their cases. Al-Maqrizi is often reported as saying no mem- ber of the family of the Prophet (ahl al-bayt) entered Cairo before 762AD/ 145AH making it impossible for Zaynab to have lived there. On the other hand, al-Tabari is invoked for having stated flatly that the real burial site is in Cairo. The debate has taken form in academic journals, popular literature and even online chat boards. Short of exhumation and DNA testing on whatever bodies are buried at these two sites, no definitive judgment can or will ever be reached. For many, it frankly doesn’t matter. One’s intention, they say, to pay respect and pray for Zaynab is what is important. Indeed, many pilgrims and residents around the shrine in Damascus have no delusions that Zaynab is actually buried there, but still visit it regularly simply as a means to feel close to her. That said, there remain many who are concerned with establishing Zaynab’s true fate and thus the legitimacy of one shrine over the other. Just how this le- gitimacy has been accomplished in the case of Sayyida Zaynab’s shrine in Damascus is the subject of the remaining part of this paper.

MAKING ZAYNAB’S HISTORY

Many events have marked the last 55 years at the shrine. The focus here is on two broad categories of development. One is the physical space of the 6 This argument has been made by many. One example is Sheikh Hussein Shahadeh, “Lamha ‘Aama min al-Mustanidaat al-Taarikhiyya li-Madfan al-Sayyida Zaynab fi al-Shaam,” Al- Mawsem, No. 25 (1996): 315. 7 Again this story appears in several iterations. Here I draw upon a narrative presented in Youssef al-Qa‘id, “Idha Nasinaa fa Udhkuri Anti… Umm Haashim,” Wajhaat Nathr, no. 35 (December 2001): 60.

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shrine, its infrastructure and a network of smaller shrines around it. The sec- ond is the emotional or sentimental space of these same places. The most recent chapter in the history of Sayyida Zaynab’s Damascus shrine begins in the year 1950 when Sayyid Mushin al-Amin al-‘Amili, a well- respected Shi‘i cleric in the region, established a committee comprised of lead- ing business figures and social elites from Damascus and its environs to draw up a plan for a renovated shrine complex and to gather the funds necessary to implement it. Early efforts were focused on upgrading the road from Damas- cus, extending utilities to the rural area, and enlarging the core building of the shrine, all of which were accomplished by 1964. In the 1970s and 80s the courtyard was tiled as were the arcades and the exterior and interior walls of the shrine building. Some 80 offices were built around the main courtyard, two large prayer halls were added as was an exhibition area and the single minaret was replaced with two 50-meter tile-covered columns. These were followed in the 1990s by the addition of a medical clinic, a research center, and a five-star hotel and shopping center adjacent to the complex. Future plans to expand the shrine further include the overhead enclosure of the main courtyard and con- struction of additional side courtyards. There are also long-term plans to build apartments adjacent to the five-star hotel to house visitors. According to literature distributed at the shrine, great emphasis has been placed throughout on upgrading the Islamic character of the architecture and decorations for the complex. Artists have been brought in from Iran to hand- paint ceiling motifs. Quranic verses rendered in handcrafted blue tiles adorn the shrine and courtyard, inside and out. As it stands today with its arcaded spaces around the main courtyard and a gold dome, the shrine looks very much like those built to the Imams in , Karbala, and . And as is true in those cities, there is a thriving community of academics working out of several dozen hauzas, or religious seminaries, in the area. Truly, the place has been transformed. Whereas shrine officials estimate perhaps 100,000 pilgrims visited Sayyida Zaynab in 1950, today, as mentioned in the introduction, they expect upwards of two million people to pass through its doors annually. In addition there is a resident population of several hundred thousand people whose origins range from Iraq and Lebanon to Sudan, Ku- wait, and Pakistan among other countries. Throughout the year, but especially during the holiday periods of Muharram and summer months, Sayyida Zaynab hosts a variety of conferences, poetry readings, exhibitions, and most notably ‘Ashura’ commemorations. For the most part the economic and social services necessary to support all these activities and people can all be found in the growing city around the shrine. One wonders if those original committee members ever envisioned quite this level of success. Certainly, they approached the project conscious of the need to provide for the demands of a growing body of visitors. Yet, the allu-

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sion to that American film earlier not withstanding, an explanation of the growth of Sayyida Zaynab that places all the credit on the pulling effect of a built space is certainly incomplete. It is true, that without the built space to ac- commodate visitors, it is unlikely that they would continue to come year after year in these numbers, but as any real estate developer would attest, building doesn’t guarantee people will come. They need to have a reason. Curiously, that reason would not be provided in the words of Sayyid Muhsin al-Amin, the very man who headed the Sayyida Zaynab development committee, who published his own analysis of the situation some time in the 1940s, determining that Sayyida Zaynab was buried neither in Damascus nor in Cairo, but most likely in Medina in an unmarked grave.8 Certain that Zaynab was not there, he nevertheless endeavored to make the shrine a place where she could be honored for her suffering and strength in the face of trag- edy. This emotional space, where pilgrims can relate to Zaynab, empathizing with her suffering and expressing their own to her is a primary attraction. It is of course the product of many individual, social, and religious factors. Three particularly influential elements will be considered here: fatwas urging dona- tions for the building and maintenance of the space, the development of auxil- iary shrines near Sayyida Zaynab, and the mass publication of emotionally laden biographies of Zaynab. Soon after the formation of the development committee in 1950, its mem- bers determined that the rate at which donations were coming in would not be enough to sustain the long-term construction plans. Subsequently, between the years 1950 and 1955, no fewer than six Shi‘a clerics published announcements or formal fatwas sanctioning and encouraging donations to the project.9 One cleric testifies to the powerful effect seeing the shrine had on him and assures all donors to the project, past and future, that they will receive forgiveness for their sins and the prayers of visitors.10 Another pledges the use of his monies for the shrine, then informs believers, traders, and pilgrims alike that they are obliged to help the project as much as they can. In return they will be rewarded by God.11 Donations large and small began to pour in. Some wealthier individuals opted to fund specific high profile items such as carved doors, the gilded dome, or an elaborate encasement (darih) for the coffin. At the opposite end of

8 Muhsin al-Amin al-‘Amili, A‘yaan al-Shia, vol. 7 (Beirut: Dar al-Ta‘aruf lil-Matbou‘aat, 1983), 140. 9 “Al-Saa‘oun wal-Mutabar‘oun li-I‘maar al-Maqam al-Zaynabi al-Sharif,” Al-Mawsem, No. 25 (1996): 201-231. 10 Ibid., 224. 11 Ibid., 220.

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the spectrum, we see large groups, presumably from one village, collectively donating as little as 28 Syrian lira, roughly fifty cents in today’s terms.12 The overall effect was to broaden the base of connection to and support for the shrine. Each of these men, by extending his reputation to the project, appealed to his reader’s personal loyalty to the sheikh or to his general sense of religios- ity or desire for salvation in urging him to give money. They all vouched for the power of the place and legitimacy of the project. None of them mentioned Zaynab’s real gravesite. A second development that has indirectly legitimized Sayyida Zaynab’s shrine in Damascus and directly affected the number of visitors who make the journey to see it is the establishment of several lesser sites also important to Shi‘a Muslims in and around the city. In the old city of Damascus sits a re- cently renovated and gleaming white shrine to Sayyida Ruqayya, niece13 to Zaynab and among the children taken captive with her at Karbala. Just south of the city in the Bab al-Saghir cemetery, one finds numerous small and much simpler shrines to other members of ahl al-bayt as well as the heads of sixteen soldiers who died with Hussein. Zaynab’s husband is also interred here in a shared tomb enjoying very little fanfare. Nearer to Zaynab, a shrine to another sister Sukayna is now undergoing major renovations with funding from a prominent Iranian cleric resident in Sayyida Zaynab. And beyond Damascus, there are other sites: two shrines in al-Raqqa along the Euphrates and a shrine near Aleppo where Hussein’s head is believed to have rested a night leaving behind drops of blood on a rock, among others. Certainly, it would be inaccurate to imply that the development of these sites has been part of a grand centrally orchestrated plan. However, their col- lective effect is notable as tour groups now incorporate more and more of them into their itineraries and consequently stay longer on any given trip. Secondly, and more subtly, their presence consciously or unconsciously reinforces the idea that Sayyida Zaynab really is buried in Damascus without ever explicitly stating so. A similar phenomenon is present in Cairo regarding shrines to women who had supposedly traveled to Cairo with Zaynab. The idea is if Sayyida Zaynab’s nieces, her husband and the heads of Hussein’s soldiers are all buried in Damascus, why wouldn’t she be? A third phenomenon that has contributed to the construction of an emotional identification of Zaynab with Damascus comes in the form of a wave of semi- academic accounts of Zaynab’s life published in the last 20 years and widely available in bookstores around the shrine as well as in major Arab cities. They

12 Maqaam al-Sayyida Zaynab, Qariyat al-Sitt, al-Bayaan al-‘Aam li-Tabaru‘aat wa al- Nafaqaat (Damascus, 1966), 232. 13 As with Zaynabs, there are also several family members named Ruqayya. This one is the daughter of Hussein, not ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib.

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can be described as semi-academic because although they are written by fairly prominent figures, the content is repeated, often verbatim, from one book to another within a more or less standard format. First, Zaynab is situated within ahl al-bayt, with particular attention to her relationship with Muhammad. Then we learn of Zaynab’s outstanding personal qualities (her learnedness, patience, loyalty, and strength in the face of oppression) before the story of the Battle of Karbala, her role in it, and her heroic actions following the death of Hussein are recounted. Invariably, the speech she made in the court of Yazid in Damascus wherein she openly rebukes him for his treatment of her and her family and defends the values for which her brother was martyred is presented in detail.14 The texts are laced with quotes from figures in Zaynab’s life and Zaynab herself, yet seldom do the authors list bibliographic information for their sources unless it is one of the other biographies from which they are borrowing. Her work to keep the lessons of Karbala fresh in the mind of Muslims and teach them the true mean- ing of Islam after she returned to Medina usually receives special emphasis. How do the stories end? Of the texts sampled, about one third claimed she lies in Cairo, one third made a case for Damascus, and a third restrained from saying anything definitive. It is interesting to note however that the amount of text dedicated to the issue is generally quite small, anywhere from two to 20 pages in a three hundred-page book. It would seem it was not a primary goal of the authors to establish this information. Ascertaining the cumulative effect of this literature is admittedly guess- work. However, there is clearly an effort in it to amplify Zaynab’s heroic qualities and actions, especially those that took place in Damascus, while de- emphasizing the importance of knowing for sure where she died and is buried. Zaynab’s extraordinary life, regardless of where she passed away, is identified with Damascus and as such the shrine to her there offers people a place to re- late to her at a spiritual and emotional level. Perhaps one author, Ahmed ‘Ali Dakheel, captured the importance of an emotional connection best. He approached the issue of her burial site and the many accounts of its true whereabouts by comparing it to the controversy over the location of Hussein’s head and offering a poem by al-Alousy. It reads, Do not search for Hussein’s head In the Earth’s east or west Bid him farewell and turn toward me For his place of reverence (mashhad) is in my heart15

14 See for example Bakr Sharif al-Qirshi, Al-Sayyida Zaynab: Batalat al-Taarikh wa Raa’idat al-Jihaad fil-Islaam (Beirut: Dar al-Mahajja al-Bayda’, 2001) and Hassan al-Safaar, al-Mar’a al- ‘Athima (Beirut: Dar al-Bayaan al-‘Arabi, 1993). 15 Ahmed ‘Ali Dakheel, Al-Sayyida Zaynab min al-Mahad ila al-Lahad (Beirut: Dar al- Murtada, 2003), 170.

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CONCLUSION

Any attempt to present the historical foundations and modern development of a shrine as popular as Sayyida Zaynab is a necessarily limited and simpli- fied one. To be sure there are myriad other factors at work and any full picture requires their inclusion. However, an analysis of some of the factors that have contributed to the success of this particularly dynamic religious site despite serious and persistent doubts about the presence of its namesake can perhaps shed some light on the process. In the absence of incontrovertible proof of Zaynab’s body, other resources have been mobilized to support the expansion and popularity of the shrine, namely religious sanction of donations to fund its development, the building of secondary sites related to Zaynab’s family, and the publication of emotionally charged biographies that ground Zaynab’s experiences in Damascus. These ef- forts to market the site by weaving it into the broader and broadly accepted history of early Shi‘ism in the region increase its legitimacy in the eyes of the public and make its history and future viable.

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