Buildings of Commemoration in Medieval Anatolia: the Funerary Complexes of Ṣāḥib ʿaṭā Fakhr Al-Dīn ʿalī and Māhperī Khātūn
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Al-Masāq Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean ISSN: 0950-3110 (Print) 1473-348X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/calm20 Buildings of Commemoration in Medieval Anatolia: The Funerary Complexes of Ṣāḥib ʿAṭā Fakhr al-Dīn ʿAlī and Māhperī Khātūn Patricia Blessing To cite this article: Patricia Blessing (2015) Buildings of Commemoration in Medieval Anatolia: The Funerary Complexes of ṢāṢib ṢAṢā Fakhr al-Dīn ṢAlī and Māhperī Khātūn , Al-Masāq, 27:3, 225-252 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09503110.2015.1102494 Published online: 05 Jan 2016. Submit your article to this journal View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=calm20 Download by: [171.67.216.22] Date: 06 January 2016, At: 07:00 Al-Masa¯q, 2015 Vol. 27, No. 3, 225–252, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09503110.2015.1102494 Buildings of Commemoration in Medieval Anatolia: The Funerary Complexes of Sa¯hib ʿAta¯Fakhr al-D¯nı ʿAl¯ı and Ma¯hper¯ı Kha¯tu¯ n* ˙ ˙ ˙ PATRICIA BLESSING* ABSTRACT This article presents two seventh/thirteenth-century Islamic funerary complexes located in Anatolia (roughly today’s Turkey) in the context of multi-functional ensembles with a mausoleum enclosed within the larger structure. Such monuments, although quite numerous, are poorly understood in terms of their relationship to Islamic funerary practice. The case studies at the centre of this article, the Sahib ʿAta Complex in Konya, ˙ ¯ ˙ ˙¯ built between 656/1258 and 684/1285, and the Ma¯hper¯ı Kha¯tu¯n Complex in Kayseri, begun in 635/1237-38, are two funerary complexes that allow for an analysis of patronage, gender, the placement of the body (or bodies) of the deceased and spatial conception in these monuments. The article discusses the structural features of the two case studies, their patrons and inscription programmes in order to analyse how these architectural ensembles were used to frame, encase and protect the burials. Keywords: Architecture – religious / Islam / eastern Mediterranean; Ikonion/ Konya; Konya; Turkey; Kayseri; Turkey; Anatolia – architecture; Ru¯m (sultanate) – architecture; Burials – Muslim burials; Patronage; architectural – in Turkey Among the Islamic monuments of medieval Anatolia, multifunctional funerary complexes abound, starting in the late-sixth/twelfth century with some of the earliest Downloaded by [171.67.216.22] at 07:00 06 January 2016 extant Salju¯q buildings, and continuing into the ninth/fourteenth century with the burials of the first Ottoman sultans in Bursa. Some of these monuments were intended for the burial of holy men and holy women, while others contain the mau- solea of notables, rulers and their families. These architectural ensembles have Correspondence: Patricia Blessing, Society of Architectural Historians, 1365 N. Astor Street, Chicago, IL 60610, USA. E-mail: [email protected] *The author would like to thank Nezar AlSayyad, Shahzad Bashir, Jelena Bogdanovic´, Maria Cristina Carile, Beate Fricke, Marisa Galvez, Seth Hindin, Alexander Key, Beatrice Kitzinger, Katherine Marsen- gill, Asa Mittmann, Heba Mostafa and Heghnar Watenpaugh for suggestions at various stages while this article was in preparation. Thanks are also due to the two anonymous reviewers for al-Masa¯q for their comments and suggestions, and to Alun Williams for editing. Related papers were presented at the Byzantine Studies Conference in 2012 in a panel sponsored by the International Center of Medieval Art, a workshop on New Approaches to Medieval Art at the University of California, Davis, in March 2013, and at the Theoretical Approaches to the Middle Ages Workshop at the Stanford Humanities Center in February 2014. © 2015 Society for the Medieval Mediterranean 226 Patricia Blessing multiple functions in addition to burial. While a mausoleum is always integrated into the structure or stands nearby, other sections of the complexes may serves as mosques, madrasas, kha¯nqa¯hs, bathhouses, and nearly any possible combination of two or more functions appears in extant examples.1 The two case studies in this article, the Ma¯hper¯ı Kha¯tu¯n Complex in Kayseri, built in the second quarter of the seventh/thirteenth century, and the Sa¯hib ʿAta¯ Complex in Konya, built ˙ ˙ ˙ between 656/1258 and 684/1285 will stand as examples for the complex architecture and the inscription programmes that appear on these buildings, and frame their patrons’ burials (often in family mausolea that contained the graves of relatives). An important feature shared by these monuments is the placement of burials with respect to other parts of the site.2 Thus, knowledge of the spatial relationship between the burials and other parts of the building, the use of inscriptions to label certain sections, and the choice of site is essential in order to understand these monuments within the broader theme of Islamic funerary practices.3 Even though mausolea were seen as problematic in theological writings from an early point on, because of proscriptions against building on tombs, funerary monuments prolifer- ated in medieval Islamic architecture. The Qubbat al-Sulaybiyya in Sa¯marra¯ʾ (c. 247–248 862) is the earliest extant identifiable Islamic funerary monument, and consists of a domed chamber with an ambulatory.4 Freestanding structures domi- nated funerary architecture into the fifth/eleventh century, when mosque-mausolea appeared in Fa¯timid Egypt.5 Large multifunctional complexes, including mausolea, ˙ along with structures such as madrasas and hospitals, began to proliferate in Ayyu¯bid Syria and Egypt in the late sixth/twelfth century, only to be further expanded in 1From the period between 1200 and 1400, around 30 multi-functional funerary structures have been pre- served in Anatolia. For surveys of this material, see Ülkü Bates, “The Anatolian Mausoleum of the Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Centuries”, PhD Thesis, University of Michigan, 1970; Hakkı Önkal, Anadolu Selçuklu türbeleri (Ankara: Atatürk Kültür Merkezi, 1996). 2On funerary practices and burial rites in early Islam, see Janine Sourdel-Thomine and Y. Linant de Bel- lefonds, “Kabr”,inEncyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, ed. P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth ˙ et al., http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/kabr-SIM_3744, accessed 4 May 2015; Juan Eduardo Campo, “Burial”,inEncyclopaedia of the Qurʾa¯n, ed. Jane Dammen McAuliffe, http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-the-quran/burial-EQSIM_00065, accessed 4 May 2015; Leor Halevi, Muhammad’s Grave: Death Rites and the Making of Islamic Society (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007); Ignaz Goldziher, “Ueber Todtenverehrung im Hei- Downloaded by [171.67.216.22] at 07:00 06 January 2016 denthum und im Islam”,inMuhammedanische Studien, volumes I–II (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1961), I: 229–63; Ignaz Goldziher, “Veneration of Saints in Islam”,inMuslim Studies, ed. S.M. Stern, trans. C.R. Barber and S.M. Stern, volumes I–II (London: Allen and Unwin, 1967), II: 255–341. 3The monumental construction of mausolea is connected to the larger issue of the permissibility of build- ing on tombs. For an overview of relevant sources, see Thomas Leisten, Architektur für Tote: Bestattung in architektonischem Kontext in den Kernländern der islamischen Welt zwischen dem 3./9. und 6./12. Jahrhundert (Berlin: D. Reimer, 1998), pp. 5–23. On the development of mausolea, see further Oleg Grabar, “The Earliest Islamic Commemorative Structures, Notes and Documents”, Ars Orientalis 6 (1966): 7–46; Melanie Dawn Michailidis, “Landmarks of the Persian Renaissance: Monumental Funerary Architecture in Iran and Central Asia in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries”, PhD Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2007. 4Grabar, “Earliest Islamic Commemorative Structures”,14–15; for an overview of mausoleum architec- ture, see also Mohammad Gharipour and Patricia Blessing, “Mausoleums of the Islamic World”,inEncy- clopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures, third edition, ed. Helaine Selin (Berlin and New York: Springer, 2015), doi: 10.1007/978-94-007-3934-5_10227-1, accessed 31 August 2015. 5Caroline Williams, “The Cult of ‘Alid Saints in the Fatimid Monuments of Cairo. Part II: The Mausolea”, Muqarnas 3 (1985): 39–60. Buildings of Commemoration in Medieval Anatolia 227 Mamlu¯k architecture beginning in the second half of the seventh/thirteenth century. Such examples reached monumental scale, as, for instance, in the funerary complex of Sultan Qala¯wu¯n in Cairo (683–85/1284–85) with its large domed chamber con- nected to a madrasa and hospital.6 The combination of several functions, as the case studies from Anatolia below will show, had the double purpose of commemora- tion and charity, while also potentially providing financial security to the patron’s descendants. Thus, the memorial function cannot be untied from the broader econ- omic, social and urbanistic properties of these monuments. It is also important to note that much research remains to be done on the archaeological aspects of funer- ary architecture, and particularly of the graves within the complexes. Understand- able reluctance to disturb tombs, particularly those within functioning monuments, plays a central role in this.7 Thus, research on funerary monuments often has to rely on textual sources, and on the study of extant monuments and their architecture, rather than on the burials. While the preservation of memory is a central concept in funerary practices, another is baraka (lit. blessing), which includes the notion that supplication at the tombs of saints or other venerated figures could be particularly beneficial.8 Even though described as problematic in early Islamic normative texts, the placement of tombs near mosques speaks to a desire on behalf of the patrons to preserve their memory in proximity to a place of prayer.9 The notion of ziya¯ra, visits to tombs (most often of saints, but also more generally), was more contentious and, as Josef Meri has pointed out, it was of most concern to Hanbal¯ı scholars, if not to Ibn Hanbal ˙ ˙ (d.