Introduction

Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Introduction to the Project This book presents a catalogue of the Islamic funerary inscriptions of Bahrain 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, mosques, and shrines (136 gravestones), two museums (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) Mosque 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-Quran (BEIT) Museum 1 Bilad al-Qadim (BAQ) Mosque 1 Daih (DAI) Village cemetery 1 Hoora (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 Timothy Insoll, Salman Almahari, and Rachel MacLean - 9789004383661 Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 10:48:15PM via free access 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 Bahrain National Museum (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 gravestones 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 Arabic 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 completed 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 research on Bahrain, and discusses the gravestone chronology, gravestone and cemetery 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, Timothy Insoll, Salman Almahari, and Rachel MacLean - 9789004383661 Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 10:48:15PM via free access Introduction 3 dimensions, orientations, and descriptions for every gravestone, as well as an Arabic transcription and translation for all gravestone inscriptions. Chapter 3 concludes this study by providing a discussion of contemporary practices relating to cemeteries, graves, and gravestones, the threats facing the gravestones, and management options for protecting and presenting the gravestones. No attempt is made to add historical context to the epitaphs and texts, the indi- viduals commemorated, or to the places mentioned on the gravestones. This is to permit others to explore these themes, add this detail and to use this epigraphic corpus for the purposes of their research unsullied by previous study. 3 Previous Research on Islamic Burials, Gravestones, and Funerary Inscriptions on Bahrain Comparatively little scholarly attention has been given to the Islamic cemeteries, gravestones, and funerary inscriptions on Bahrain. They are not referred to by the early European travellers who visited Bahrain such as Captain E. L. Durand (1880; Rice 1984) who excavated burial mounds at Aʿali in 1878, or Theodore and Mabel Bent who were in Bahrain in February 1889 for the same purpose (Bent 2010: 13–27). The omission is interesting as both Captain Durand and the Bents do refer to the Al-Khamis Mosque, albeit as the “Madresseh-i-abu-Zeidan” (Bent 1984: 78) or the “Meshed-i-Abú-Zeidán” (Durand 1984: 20), and this is a site where many gravestones have been recorded. Ernst Diez (1925: 105), the German Oriental scholar who visited the Al-Khamis Mosque in 1914, does refer to the mosque being surrounded by graves but gives no further detail. The cemetery at the village of Saar is described by Hansen (1968: 129) based on her ethnographic study in 1960, as “barren and unplanted”, with the north-south oriented graves marked at the head and foot with “two oblong rough slabs of coral chalk”. One grave of “some outstanding member of the small village community” was differentiated with “a flat rectangular resting stone slab” (ibid). This might be a reference to the type of rectangular grave marker repeatedly recorded during the survey but the absence of detail denies precise identification. James Belgrave (1973: 91), in his otherwise reasonably detailed consideration of the antiquities of Bahrain, focuses on examples of Arabic inscriptions not in funerary contexts such as those from the Al-Khamis Mosque and describes the gravestones, erroneously, as “comparatively modern and therefore are of little archaeological importance”. More recently, Islamic tombs and gravestones have been uncovered during archaeological investigation. Kervran (1996, 2005) completed excavations of Muslim burials at three locations, Saar, Qalaʿat al-Bahrain, and the Al-Khamis Mosque. The Saar cemetery is described as associated with a village and located within a raised area formed of the ruins of a Bronze Age temple (Kervran 1996: 58). Three tombs, oriented north-south, with dimensions of 180 cm × 90 cm were investigated. Timothy Insoll, Salman Almahari, and Rachel MacLean - 9789004383661 Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 10:48:15PM via free access 4 Chapter 1 Two were within a small structure with a mihrab, and thus appear to resemble a shrine excavated in the Abu Anbra cemetery discussed below. The tombs were fin- ished in stucco and it is possible, but not certain, that the two stucco panels from Saar catalogued as MUS7 in Chapter 2 are from one or more of these tombs, as un- fortunately the illustrations provided by Kervran (1996: 64–65) are not clear enough to confirm this. The texts are described as containing “pious formulas and verses from the Coran (sic)” (Kervran 2005: 340). The style of the letters used in the Saar gypsum panels is suggested as of 12th–13th centuries AD date (Kervran 1996: 61), and as such would agree with the dates given in the interpretive panel associated with MUS7 in the Bahrain National Museum (see Chapter 2). The tombs excavated at Qalaʿat al-Bahrain were given a later date range of the 14th to 16th centuries AD, and were part of a cemetery of 3000m² containing between 100 and 120 tombs (Kervran 1996: 61–63, 2005: 334–335). Sixty human burials were exhumed. Two types of Muslim tombs were encountered; simple pits oriented north-south, and pits lined with gypsum plaster, one with a coffin containing a young child dressed in a white cotton shroud or robe that disintegrated on contact with the air (Kervran 1996: 66). Some burials also contained grave goods such as a female with a glass bracelet around the arm and a carnelian bead, and another female burial with a clay Shiʿa prayer tablet placed under one elbow. All these graves lacked above ground funerary monuments but it was suggested that they were “probably covered with cenotaphs and often built inside funerary chapels” (Kervran 2005: 337) which had not survived. An exception was provided by a funerary chapel (chapelle funéraire) containing four intact tomb structures of a rectangular stepped design, seemingly undecorated, and made from gypsum plaster and stone (Kervran 2005: 338–339). A 14th century AD date was suggested for this structure based on its stratigraphic position (Kervran 1996: 68). Frifelt (2001: 42, 45–46) also refers to Muslim burials encountered during excavations at Qalaʿat al-Bahrain but no gravestones are described. The burials at the Al-Khamis Mosque are assigned to two phases by Kervran (1996: 69, 2005: 339–340); Umayyad/Abbasid for those under the walls and floors of the Mosque, and later for those with inscribed rectangular stone grave markers of the type classified under the code KHA (Al-Khamis) in Chapter 2. The Umayyad dates can be discounted (cf. Insoll et al 2016: 238). It is possible that a few burials under the mosque might be Abbasid and unconnected with the Mosque, but it is likely that the vast majority are 13th century AD or later, reflecting the chronology of the Mosque itself (cf.

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